Introduction

Update 15 May 2014: The latest lessons are available at Learn C# by Building a Simple RPG Index

Welcome!

In this guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of C#, while building a simple role-playing game.

It won’t be anything fancy, although you can add more features to it on your own. However, while building it, you will learn many of the things you’ll need to know to build any type of program in C#.

We’ll start with the very basics, in case you’re completely new to programming. There will also be videos of anything that might be difficult to explain with words alone.

You won’t need to buy anything else (assuming you already have a Windows computer). The program will be built with a free version of Visual Studio, the tool that most C# programmers use to create their programs.

And don’t worry, you won’t find complex math or computer science terms here.

If you’ve been trying to learn programming by reading websites and forums, you may have seen people talking about things like abstract base classes, design patterns, or “Big O notation”.

You’ll learn many of those principles and terms as we create the game – but in a practical way, not a “this is on the final exam” way. After all, the principles do exist because they help programmers write programs that are faster and more reliable. And knowing the right terms will let you talk with, and understand, other programmers.

Each section will build on what you learned in the previous section. So, please go through the guide in order.

Also, there will be some areas where something is a little “broken” at the beginning of a section. This is so you can see what happens if you don’t do certain things. This way, when you create your own programs, if you forget to do something the correct way, and encounter a similar problem, you’ll know how to fix it.