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I coded a shoot 'em up alone at 18 after learning Lua in a single week

DamixLord · 20 hours ago

Hey everyone. I'm new to the "real" world of programming because I used to just code alone in my room, strictly on my own PC. My name is NZUKOU DAMIEN (my username is DamixLord), and I'm an 18-year-old developer based in Cameroon.

I've been a fan of programming since I was 12. Since then, I've messed around with several languages: Python, JS, Go, and now Lua. I don't even know why, but I just love Lua for no specific reason, so I wanted to learn it. In one week, I learned variables, functions, tables, and OOP (especially metatables, which I absolutely love). I wanted to build a project to check if my fundamentals were solid enough to reach an intermediate level, and that's how I made SPACE CONQUEROR.

I didn't go with a traditional OOP approach; instead, I mixed it up with metatables because I enjoy it, and honestly, it was a blast. I'm looking forward to your feedback, advice, etc.

Just a quick heads-up (because I have to, since some people on Reddit jumped all over me for this): I did feed my code to an AI to make it more readable (because I do weird things like declaring variables that are as long as a highway), and I copied snippets here and there because my math and logic skills can be pretty bad. I'm not writing my first article to brag or pretend I'm a genius (honestly, I have major imposter syndrome). I'm doing this to get feedback, chat, and learn from my mistakes.

Thanks again! (And one last thing: while making this, I realized that my first real project is very similar to the one Elon Musk coded when he was 12, Blastar. Coincidence? I'll let you be the judge).

The Project : https://github.com/nzukoudamien/Space-Conqueror

2 comments

  • al_borland · 20 hours ago

    > because I do weird things like declaring variables that are as long as a highway

    Don't let people talk you out of descriptive variable names. It makes code much more readable, easier to understand, and will help when you come back to it later. We're not battling to save every bit anymore and editors have auto-complete.

    Congrats on the project, I can't say much more, because GitHub locked me out for clicking between files too fast... I guess that's a thing now.

    • DamixLord · 9 hours ago

      Thanks

    • 369548684892826 · 19 hours ago

      Have you seen this 2D game engine called Love? It's for Lua, and I've heard it's very good

      https://love2d.org/

      • DamixLord · 8 hours ago

        Yes, I've heard about it; I'm working on it.