Easiest language to learn for gameshell

Developers
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I recently preordered a game shell, and I was wondering what the easiest language to start developing in. Most of my experience centers around web development, so I’m new to game dev

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I’m pretty new myself but have mostly been focusing around Python and Lua.
Python because it is very versatile and there are already some cool things you can run on GS that use Python like Python Arcade Library and Pygame.
Lua is handy for using Pico-8 and also for running Love 2D

It’s really a blast. And hasn’t been much of an issue learning 2 languages at once.

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3

Came here to say the above.

If you’re looking for the easiest language to learn, nobody will put up much opposition against Python.
Try Python & Lua, follow a few tutorials with each and see which you prefer.
Personally, I’d vote Lua. I prefer the language (it’s a bit more bare bones which I like), but LÖVE wipes the floor with Pygame in terms of performance which would be the deciding factor for me.

TL;DR - Give Python & Lua a try.

Edit: PICO8 is very cool, but just be aware it does deviate from regular Lua in some minor cases. Little things like unary operators (+=, -= etc.) are available in PICO8 but not in regular Lua.

Edit2: Just noticed you’ve done web development, consider looking into Phaser for developing with JavaScript if you’re more comfortable with that. I’ve not used it myself, but I’m sure there are others on the forum who can help get you up to speed if you want to go down that path.

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4

“which is the easiest language for X” is generally a really difficult question.

There is no easier language for X or Y (unless you are on a really really specific domain) but it is more with your own affinity with a language.
Some people will find Lua to be more simple than C++, other the reverse. Some people will prefer Python above everything else.

There are a lot of languages which are possible to use on the Gameshell as it is basically a ARM based PC, with relatively low constrain.

I would look at theses languages:

  • C
  • C++ (if really, but I would personally avoid it)
  • Python
  • Lua

Probably to some extend

  • Go
  • Rust

I would absolutely avoid

  • Java
  • Node JS/TS and other languages based on NodeJS
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