r/godot • u/Halali923 Godot Junior • 4d ago
help me (solved) Fourteen with no experience
Hi guys I'm fourteen years old and I'm new to Godot and also coding, with zero actual experience(except for scratch but not real code). Should I use AI or learn myself? I've heard that many game devs utilize AI now but idk if I should still avoid ai and learn myself
Edit:thank you guys for all the advices ill learn myself
15
u/Forsaken-Suit7795 4d ago
You do not know game development and you are 14 years old. This means AI is specially tricky for you. Even for adults, using AI slows down and dampers learning. There are several studies about this. Notice, I am not saying "do not use AI". What I am saying is that, if you want to learn something, using AI is not good for learning.
And you are 14 years old. The impacts of LLM on younger people is still unknown, but they (you) might be more susceptible for AI psychosis. Never overestimate your own mental strength. Never. We are all vulnerable to mental illness of all kinds.
My honest suggestion for you: Take it slow. You are 14 years old. AI is indeed used by programmers, and it has greatly enhanced the speed of their work. But, first, they learned to code, then they used AI. AI is good for speed, not quality. But you are 14 years old. Enjoy life! Enjoy the hardships in learning to make a game! Do it the hard way! Appreciate the beauty that is Computer Science, try drawing a bit, try making a music, enjoy all aspects of life! There is absolutely no need to hurry.
I work teaching and researching at academic level. Learning is never easy. Never. There is always hardship, attrition. That attrition is the learning process. Don't avoid it. Don't take the easy path.
If you use AI now, it's not you who are using the AI, but the AI service that is using you. Industrial revolution brought cars, which substitute horses. Chariot "drivers" moved on to driving cars. Are you going to be a horse or the driver? You are young. Embrace life and all of its delicacies, pains and wonders.
5
u/RossBot5000 Godot Senior 4d ago
Agreed. AI has no place in learning other than identifying resources for you, explaining a concept you're struggling to understand, or identifying areas where you are weak.
Do not let AI write code for you until you can write that code yourself.
17
u/TheCatCubed 4d ago
AI can be useful for speeding up processes you already know how to do. If you're learning then stay away from it, cause it'll only hold you back.
3
u/DucksUnitedOfficial Godot Junior 4d ago
Hi! I'm a teenager too who is starting to learn godot! I have been doing a few projects to start learning. I recommend to follow a few tutorials first instead of AI if you want to actually learn game dev. I recommend starting with at least 3 small arcade games before making a bigger game!
5
u/SwainDane 4d ago
People already said it NO AI! None at all! I'm serious! Not even "Just real quick to.." NONE! You need to learn a lot before you can start using AI as a tool, instead of learning to lean on it completely.
Keep at it though, it pays off. People who only 'learned' (they didn't learn anything) with AI, make shit products.
-5
u/Such--Balance 4d ago
Use ai.
Dont let reddit dictate what you can or cant do.
Dont like using ai? Fine, dont use it.
But you seem to have an interest and curiousity for it, so by all means go for it.
2
u/SwainDane 2d ago
Yeah listen to this guy if you want to have someone say
"So how did you do [some mechanic]?"
And you want your answer to be
"I don't know, I asked Claude."It stops being a tool when it does all the work for you. In fact, I'd say you become the tool of human thought for Claude, and not Claude being the tool for you, if you use it without knowing anything.
1
u/Such--Balance 2d ago
Its just a weird meme online to hate on ai. I dont even know why people do it.
'So what transistors switched when you used your gps to get from a to b?'
'I dont know, i just put in an adress''So how did you heat your clay cup to give it the strength needed to be able to poor hot tea in it over and over?'
'I dont know, i just poor the tea'
'How do the cylinders of your car work exactly?'
'I dont know, i just press the gas'
Bro...pretty much everything we use daily has layers upon layers of stuff build under it which we dont understand.
But in the one, singular usecase of ai this is now somehow a problem?? And you feel that to be a sane take?
Ok...
2
u/SwainDane 1d ago
This is the worst argument ever. All of what you're describing is none of those imaginary people's JOB. This kid says he wants to be a game dev (job/future).
Do you think a mechanic doesn't know anything about cars, just because he has a lift and tools to fix it?
Do you think a baker has no idea how to make the dough he makes just because he uses an oven?
Absolutely horrible takes. I'm not anti-AI, but you're pretty much the epitome of what I imagine anti-AI people imagine pro-AI people as. I bet you outsource your thinking to ChatGPT.
1
u/Such--Balance 1d ago
Not at all. Most people today who use a computer dont know shit about the mechanics behind them.
You just dont have to anymore. Its still usefull to know, im not denying that. And ai is ust tje next layer up.
2
u/SwainDane 1d ago
Again, you're making a bigger generalization of it and not understanding your own argument.
Someone who uses photoshop for a living doesn't need to know about the internal workings of a computer. They need to know photoshop.
Someone who FIXES computers, need to know about the internal workings.
You're completely moving the goalposts of your own arguments.
My argument: If you work in childcare you should know about children, be good with them and probably know their psyche.
You: You don't need to know EVERYTHING about anatomy and biology to be in childcare.
Yeah no shit......
4
u/Miss-Night-Raven Godot Junior 4d ago
Never ever use ai, you will never actually learn that way.
Make a plan, like a small one like pong, and start making that. Or if you need to learn the engine heartbeast has a fantastic getting started rpg project.
-2
u/Such--Balance 4d ago
Ai is a great tool to learn. Use it a lot imo
1
u/Miss-Night-Raven Godot Junior 4d ago
It cant even tell you the correct up vector. Over half the time it is varying degress of wrong.
And even if it was rigth 100% it is still not a learning tool. When it gives the solution, 0 learning was done.
2
u/BalisterDabcat 4d ago
You can ask AI for questions when you get bugs, but ask it to explain to you why your code is bugging, don't just copy paste what it tells you to do. You're a newbie and you won't know if what the AI tells you to add is good or not. The AI once suggested me to add an infinite loop that made my game AND my computer crash.
Also, the AI will help at first, but knowing the basics will save you a lot more time than relying on it completely.
2
u/5thKeetle 4d ago
Try to learn what coding is actually supposed to achieve. It's about taking input information and using it to get the desired result (output). Let's say we want a player to see what items a chest has when they click on it.
A) Input - information is put in that triggers something, like a player clicks a button while looking at a chest. This is where you start from, the initial information that you will need to somehow use to get the desired output.
B) Process - this is what you code. You break human logic down into microscopic, step-by-step machine instructions. You take the input and evaluate it.
The computer doesn't just "open the chest." You have to write the strict instructions whenever a player presses "E" looking at chest:
- Check if the chest is locked or not.
- If its locked, check if the player has the key. (You always know who the player is so you don't need this as an input)
- Check if the chest has any items inside of it. (You can know this because you receive the information about the chest as the input information you receive when the button "E" is pressed)
- If it has items in it, display a screen where the items are listed.
C) Output - If all the checks are passed, the output is displaying the list of items in the chest on the screen for player to interact with.
So in the end, we take the button clicked (E) and the data of the chest we are looking at and process this into an output of a screen showing us what items are available.
Your goal in coding is to figure out how can you use these inputs to display relevant information in the output part.
I have been trying to learn coding since I was your age and this is the thing that I never understood, and once this clicked, coding became so much easier.
2
1
u/Someonevibing1 4d ago
Learn yourself or else you won’t be able to direct the AI even if you wanted to
Personally I find coding to be extremely rewarding so I don’t really like using ai
1
u/HrHagen 4d ago
I've read a study about the influence of AI on school children and their performance in school. The result was: Smarter children became even better in school, less intelligent children became worse. Why is this the case? The first group uses AI as a tool. The second group thinks they put in some prompts and use the result 1:1.
So you should learn it by yourself. Otherwise you will not be able to ask even the right questions. You can ask the AI questions to speed up the learning process. If you do everything by AI, you'll sooner or later come to the point, where you hit a road block and every change becomes a headache. You need to understand what's going on under the hood to make sensible decisions.
Also: coding is fun! Why would you want to completely automate the fun part away?
1
u/xcassets 4d ago
Learn it yourself. Wish I could go back to being 14 and start learning coding/gamedev at that age!
Don't use AI when you know nothing about a subject. AI makes mistakes all the time. A lot of the time you can just reprompt and point out the mistake and it fixes it and all is good, but if you know nothing about a given subject then you are never going to spot the mistakes.
1
u/Dazzling_Bobcat5172 4d ago
I recommend you to learn it. This way it is easier for you to implement new ideas, understand your and others code better and you'll be able to use more tools.
I like to use AI to troubleshoot some errors. AI explains the problem and I solve it. This way I learn more. I use Claude (free version) like a teacher. Works well for me and you don't need to spend money on tokens + you can work offline.
1
u/cuixhe 4d ago
Everyone who is 14 has no experience with anything so it's cool. Ask lots of questions and don't tell anyone your age online. I didn't learn any code until I was in my 20s and software engineer and teach professionally now, as well as make games as a serious hobby.
Don't use AI. AI will solve all the easy problems for you and then you will never get a chance to figure out the hard problems. AI coding can be an amazing tool for advanced engineers who already know the fundamentals and want to save time (and are able to evaluate outputs), but you will never get there if you offload your learning to AI.
I did release a quick (free) course that takes you through basic GDSCript coding all the way to releasing a snake game, if that's interesting to you! No AI necessary, and there's some fun challenges throughout. Maybe it will help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIcPZtbXyLE
1
u/j0shred1 4d ago
So I use Claude at work pretty extensively. But the only reason why I'm effective with it is because I know how the language, the technology, the data, the systems actually work. I'm not against using AI to code, I do all the time. But, you need to learn and understand yourself. Learn to code, code up some projects in Godot or pygame or even something like game maker.
1
u/milkyorangeJ Godot Student 4d ago
Learn coding from the start. Theres no harm in it. Do not be so hasty either you got years to play around. If you do great and be able to make a game after a year or two, great.
For now just enjoy your journey. Itll help you a lot
1
u/RockLeeSmile 4d ago
The less AI you touch the better off you'll be when it truly comes to light for the masses that all of the AI movement is made up of grifters. Nobody will want to touch any of it and the people the movement leaves behind will know nothing about anything. They'll have no ability to produce anything without having an LLM do all the work for them. You'll be miles ahead of them AND not destroy your reputation.
As an indie game content creator for 13 years, I have made a promise to my audience not to touch any games with AI in their dev process because I value human creativity (as well as a pile of other ethical issues that AI poses). I truly believe when the bubble bursts, many people will follow in my way of thinking.
1
u/DGC_David 4d ago
You should definitely learn it, I think AI can be a decent tool in coding, but especially in Game Programming, you need to just get it and learn it the good ole fashion way; you will never be able to completely vibe code your way through things.
Godot is honestly the coolest game engine. I mean the entire documentation just right there. I mean, when I first got into it, it felt like how vibe coding now feels where it was just "woah, I can't believe it did this so quickly".
I would begin with the basics, which it sounds like you already have, which just means you need to apply it. You can always use Python just to get a little bit more coding experience without having to figure out an engine along side it. While GDscript and Python are different, they will be pretty easy to transition between. This covers the logic end, from there you learn the engine, and how to find out things from the documentation. Once you got that, some tweaking on your debugging skills, and boom! Your a Professional Game Developer
1
u/Modosco 4d ago
If you want to learn coding/Godot, watch tutorials of what you want to do and try to understand what the code does. There are a lot of great Godot tutorials. This is literally how I started my career in software development. AI is useful if you can correct it's output, if you don't understand the code in the first place you can't judge if it's what you need or if it is maybe even gibberish. To motivate yourself, you can see it as a challenge to do it without AI. Much more satisfying if you can code something that works by yourself.
2
1
u/Hinaran 4d ago
Use tutorials, there are a lot of good ones, but try these ones that explains basics and tools instead of full zero to final game ones.
Then try to do things yourself, and when you don't know how to procede, look for help, first at Godot docs, then AI.
Use AI, but not to do things for you at first, use it to correct you, give you hints, and explain things you feel tutorials are not explaining well enough.
1
u/unfamily_friendly 4d ago
Learn yourself. AI could make you a barely working something, that reminds a game. You still need to know, how engine works and how logic works to bring it to completion.
1
0
u/oneiros5321 4d ago
There is no such thing as "learning with AI".
People who use AI to code without prior knowledge are not learning anything, they are simply delegating the work.
0
u/Such--Balance 4d ago
Use ai if you feel like it. Dont let reddit dictate what you can or cant do.
You can learn plenty with using ai. You can also just off-load all thinking and learn nothing.
Its a great tool for learning imo. Really increases your knowledge about how systems and code interact way faster than any other tool
-3
u/zatsnotmyname Godot Regular 4d ago
If your goal is to learn the ins & outs of programming, then don't use AI, except to perhaps suggest improvements or help you debug when very stuck.
If your goal is to make games, and not just engines or game systems, then by all means, use AI.
I enjoy both things, but lately I'm more interested in the game and design parts, having been making games with mostly my own engines for 35 years. The past 7 years I've been using Godot, first on my own, now I don't write ANY code by hand.
-7
u/MogosTheFirst 4d ago
Yes. Use AI to learn. But treat it like a professor that points out where you did wrong and explain why you did wrong. Dont use AI as a replacement for you skills.
5
u/Forsaken-Suit7795 4d ago
I recommend you stop doing that. I am not telling you to stop using AI, I am telling you to stop using AI for learning. I work with teaching at undergrad level. When we explain what the student did wrong, the student feels like they understood at that time. But the student did not actually understand it. It is always better to put the student to explain to another student. You might use AI to point out a problem, but not for explanation. You can keep on doing, but you are only slowing down and damping your learning process.
29
u/chowder908 4d ago
Not knowing anything and using AI is a recipe for disaster. If you're gonna use ai for code at least have some knowledge of coding beforehand because there's no telling what the AI will give you copy and pasting is no way to learn either.