Beginning Game Programming v2.0

Last Updated: Jan 22nd, 2025

Greetings everyone, welcome to the ground up recoding of Beginning Game Programming with SDL. This time we will be coding with SDL 2 which has been released on the SDL website.

These tutorials were designed for C++ programmers who want to move from text based games to real time games with graphics. By the end of these tutorials, you'll know the basics to make your first real video game!

Table of Contents
Hello SDL	Get started making games with your first SDL App.
Getting an Image on the Screen	Show images on the screen with SDL2.
Event Driven Programming	Handle events with SDL2.
Key Presses	Handle keys with SDL2.
Optimized Surface Loading and Soft Stretching	Optimize your loaded surfaces and stretch them with SDL2.
Extension Libraries and Loading Other Image Formats	Use SDL extension libraries like SDL_image, SDL_ttf, and SDL_mixer to add functionality to SDL.
Texture Loading and Rendering	Render Hardware Accelerated Textures With SDL2.
Geometry Rendering	Render hardware accelerated shapes with SDL2.
The Viewport	Control your SDL rendering area with the viewport.
Color Keying	Render images with transparent backgrounds using color keying.
Clip Rendering and Sprite Sheets	Render parts of textures to use sprite sheets.
Color Modulation	Change your texture's color using color modulation.
Alpha Blending	Render transparent textures with SDL2.
Animated Sprites and VSync	Render animations in sync with the monitor refresh rate with SDL2.
Rotation and Flipping	Rotate and flip your textures in SDL2.
True Type Fonts	Render text with TTF fonts in SDL2.
Mouse Events	Handle mouse input with SDL2.
Key States	Query current key state with SDL2.
Gamepads and Joysticks	Use gamepads and joysticks with SDL2.
Force Feedback	Make your controllers rumble with SDL2.
Sound Effects and Music	Play sound with SDL2 and SDL_mixer.
Timing	Use time with SDL2.
Advanced Timers	Start, stop, pause, and unpause timers with SDL2.
Calculating Frame Rate	Calculate the frame rate for your SDL 2 applications.
Capping Frame Rate	Manually keep a constant frame rate with SDL2.
Motion	Move around game objects in SDL2.
Collision Detection	Check for collision SDL2.
Per-Pixel Collision Detection	Check collision with any image in SDL2.
Circular Collision Detection	Check for collision with circles in SDL2.
Scrolling	Scroll through levels with a camera in SDL2.
Scrolling Backgrounds	Make infinite scrolling backgrounds in SDL2.
Text Input And Clipboard Handling	Use text input and the clipboard in SDL2.
File Reading and Writing	Load and save binary files in SDL2.
Audio Recording	Record and playback audio in SDL2.
Window Events	Handle resizable windows in SDL2.
Multiple Windows	Handle multiple windows in SDL2.
Multiple Displays	Handle multiple monitors in SDL2.
Particle Engines	Make particle effects in SDL2.
Tiling	Make levels with tiling engines in SDL2.
Texture Manipulation	Get and modify texture pixel data in SDL2.
Bitmap Fonts	Render bitmap fonts in SDL2.
Texture Streaming	Stream to textures in SDL2.
Render to Texture	Render to a texture in SDL2.
Frame Independent Movement	Move around at any frame rate in SDL2.
Timer Callbacks	Run timer callbacks in SDL2.
Multithreading	Run multithreaded applications in SDL2.
Semaphores	Lock data between threads in SDL2.
Atomic Operations	Synchronize your threads at a CPU level in SDL2.
Mutexes and Conditions	Synchronize threads with signaling in SDL2.
SDL and OpenGL 2	Support Legacy OpenGL in SDL2.
SDL and Modern OpenGL	Make modern shader based OpenGL programs in SDL2.
Hello Mobile	Port your Windows/Linux/MacOS games to Android/iOS.
Extensions and Changing Orientation	Use SDL_image/SDL_ttf/SDL_mixer and handle orientation on Android/iOS.
Touches	Learn how to handle touch input from an Android/iOS device in SDL2.
Multi Touch	Learn how to handle multi touch gestures on Android/iOS with SDL2.

If you find any bugs or typos in the tutorials please contact me.