While this course is aimed at beginners, it is expected that you should know a few of the basic concepts of programming before arriving. You don’t need any experience in JavaScript specifically, but it’s good if know about the following core concepts in any programming language.

  • Variables
  • Functions
  • If Statements
  • For Loops
  • Lists or Arrays

If you have never done any programming before, it is recommended that you spend a couple of hours learning some of the basics online so that you can get the most out of the week. A couple of good places to get started if you’re interested in learning some of the basics before the course are…

  1. Code Academy - Introduction to JavaScript: Code Academy offers interactive, online courses for learning programming. Working through the first few free lessons of the Introduction to JavaScript course will help you good background knowledge for the Game Development course.

  2. Code Combat: This website aims to help people learn coding by playing a game which requires you to write code to proceed. Playing through the Kithgard Dungeon and a couple of levels of the Backwoods Forest will give you a big head-start if you’ve never coded before!

If you’ve never coded before and you don’t have the time to go through the background materials that’s okay too. It might take a little longer to get going, but I’ll be on hand to help and there will be a collection of tutorials available on this site that you will be able to work through at your own pace if you need to spend a bit of time learning some of the core concepts during the week.