Total Newb here. What sort of courses should I take when just starting out, if I was more interested in building games? How did you get started in the field? And what do your parents think you do, if they were to try and explain it to their friends?
Thanks!
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For people new to code in general, a great place to start is with HTML and CSS, and then JavaScript. The combination between them will enable you to make projects that enable a user (or player) to make choices that are then reflected back in what they’d see next. There are a few Codecademy projects that do this type of thing, like this one, which you may want to take after taking HTML & CSS and JavaScript. That’ll give you a sense of what’s required to make a game, and it’s actually one of the most complex things you can do with code, so this lesson is a long way away from making a “AAA” game like you may be used to, but it’s a start and you’d understand gaming a bit better from the technical side even with this experience alone.
As for how I got going, the department I worked for in university wanted a website, and I said “let me try this” and logged onto the infamous w3schools…
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Hi Peter! I’m Jamie on the Curriculum Design team. 
On Codecademy, actually. This is a real story.
“make the internet”
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To add a few more examples of games on Codecademy:
https://www.codecademy.com/courses/kano-pong/0/1
https://www.codecademy.com/courses/javascript-beginner-en-x9DnD/0/1
https://www.codecademy.com/courses/javascript-beginner-en-Bthev-mskY8/0/1
https://www.codecademy.com/courses/conditionals-application/0/1
There’s also things like the final Codecademy Pro project for the JavaScript course, but that’d be another step up in terms of complexity.
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My first time learning to code was with Codecademy and after going through some of the content I decided to take a couple classes in college. I think the best way to get started is to do two things: (1) have some sort of structure and (2) don’t learn alone!
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