The prototype above for Tarot was written in C, which is the programming language I know best. C is quite low level when compared with languages used these days, which is good if you need hand-written speedy code. The downside is that it’s easy to get bogged down in small implementation details. I spent a lot of my time in the prototype above writing code that comes for free with the libraries that come with Python. You’ve also got to put some effort into managing all your data, which is distracting when you’re intending to belt out ideas.

Python is nice in that it has libraries for near everything and a syntax that makes it easy to cobble parts together. It’s a lot faster to get something up and running in Python than with C, even with the use of libraries. My main drawback with Python is inexperience; I’ve been using it for a year or two now, but I’ve only written rather small programs and my code tends to be somewhat “C-like” rather than using the full strength of Python.

Flash is something I’ve dabbled in, but it hasn’t yet clicked with me. I still think it’s worth learning as posting apps and games to play in web browsers online is really useful, but I’m uncertain as to whether it’s worth using by me as a prototyping tool due to my unfamiliarity with it.

Summary: Python seems to be best for messy on-the-fly code, which is what I write when I prototype. C is good if I can plan the code in advance. Logically it seems best to start in Python, then move towards C if I need to.

And I’ll try to blog more in 2010 as I go (I’m not a natural blogger yet). Should be an interesting year.

Ok, now, that is not the main subject of my comment.
Actually, I read your blog because I am also lurking into the possibility of making games myself as job. (I also followed the Andrew Russell blog). Both blogs are very interesting.

I think it is good idea to make a lot of small projects to learn. This makes you more and more familiar with a technology, and you can do better and better things in less and less time. So your 1 week “contest” was a great idea.

Now, what I do not understand is : you are trying the same thing in Python. So you will spend time again to learn a new language, get Python installed, get proper Python games libs, learn their APIs, read Python games tuts and so on…
That’s a lot of time that you could spend trying new game mechanics instead, isn’t it ?

You spent time to learn Flash, I think, that could be helpful to prototype games.

I just have the feeling you are spending more time learning games technology than writing games themselves.

So I am curious to know why ?

Ok, so thank you for your very interesting blog anyway. Looking forward to read it further.