Tutorial A Newb's Guide to getting into game development

MrBree

Member
Jun 9, 2017
171
157
I'm starting to approach the idea of developing my own game. But before I do so, I wanted to break down the steps needed start getting into development.
Not the actual development of a game, but how to get to the stage where you are ready to develop.

As this site doesn't seem to have a guide, I'm writing my own and asking for feedback to see if I'm even on the right path in the first place. These steps can likely be switched around, but I wanted to ensure the basics are all there (and to get some further suggestions before I actually proceed).

1) Play a variety of games.
See what other people are doing, learn from it. Check out their writing, their graphics and their code. Find out what they are doing right and wrong.

2) Write your story.
The basis of any game is a good story. You can change story details later, but this will help you flesh out your approach to the game, and have something to show and work towards. As a newb, a simple basic story to start out is best. You can go further as you are more experienced. (You really want a world-spanning story? That's chapter 20. Your first game is the intro. Not even chapter one. The intro.)

3) Pick your coding and graphic tools.
This depends on many factors including your own existing ability, the learning curve and what would work best for the story itself.

4) Learn.
Review tutorials, read forums (any suggestions?) Practice your coding/design skills. Take your time to ensure your skills are up to snuff before starting. Taking a year or more on this stage can be recommended.

5) Proof of concept.
Practice, practice. Build a proof of concept game to see how much you can do as practice. See how well the vision of your story can match your capabilities. Adjust as needed, (learn more or downscale or get help..) Don't bother releasing this publicly except to perhaps a few testers.

6) Build a team.
This may or may not be optional. But a team to work with you and help you develop specific aspects where you are weak can help enormously. You need to have a clear 'pitch' for them first, and clearly understand how and where they will help and how you can best work with them.

7) Plan.
A good game can possibly take years to complete, especially if staggered into monthly Patreon releases. Make plans for how you are going to manage the project longterm reasonably considering your capabilities. (always UNDERpromise and over deliver.) Be mindful of how to achieve this without burning out, which is a curse for many developers starting out.

8) Limited release Demo?
A small release demo to gauge feedback. Perhaps here alone. ;-)

Note: How to best release and market a game is an art to itself.. You should consider your first release as a test of your vision. Be mindful of what you wish to achieve here, and how you want to market the game. Some people like more fleshed out first releases, so you should be mindful of what you are providing for that first impression.

I'm quite sure there are many more steps involved, but these sound like good recommendations for someone to start out. Any criticisms or further suggestions?
 

groove888

Member
Apr 12, 2017
214
210
8) Limited release Demo?
A small release demo to gauge feedback. Perhaps here alone. ;-)

IMO better things would be small finished game (30 min of gameplay) that contain everything you want to do in the longer game.

Gives everyone a clear idea on your skill in all part of the game (Gameplay, story,writing,sex scenes,minigames,quests,...)

It allow you to thoroughly check what idea were good and what are the limit of the platform you use before you jump in a long drawn out development.

I think it would also help out in planning the longer story knowing these limitation, problem and other stuff beforehand.

The visit was a good example of that. Began as a small game got turned into a longer one.
 

Apisoh

Newbie
Dec 19, 2017
92
72
IMO better things would be small finished game (30 min of gameplay) that contain everything you want to do in the longer game.
Wouldn't an introductory chapter with a sex scene thrown in work for that?

Suppose you plan on making a game with 10+ potential sex partners. Planning for at least one of those sex scenes to happen early on to give people a taste of what's to come wouldn't force the developer to introduce that many characters while allowing for the environment to still be explored.
 
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groove888

Member
Apr 12, 2017
214
210
Wouldn't an introductory chapter with a sex scene thrown in work for that?
Take everything I say with the adequate amount of salt (I am afterall nothing else than an avid player).
While it might it might also not. What I mean is it isn't an exact science and will depend on your skills, the reception of your game,...
If your game is panned for some reason you've "wasted" this storyline you wanted to tell, I am sure that you might be able to create another good story but it's still a waste.

Also making a small self contained game shows that you're actually able to make satisfactory ending(s) to the game you're creating which you usually cannot get with an introduction.

Suppose you plan on making a game with 10+ potential sex partners. Planning for at least one of those sex scenes to happen early on to give people a taste of what's to come wouldn't force the developer to introduce that many characters while allowing for the environment to still be explored.
To be honest if you want to do that I still think a small game is better since to fully test how your game might pan out because you need to introduce at least 2 character IMO so that player can get a feel of what happen when you interact in the presence of 2 girls you have boned, what kind of ending they can expect,...
 

xht_002

Member
Sep 25, 2018
342
352
learn to use a good engine so you don't waste your time in the future, which the engine choice has the limit of visionaire studio or unity, so you can make different types of games without having to recode the whole game mechainic to your style of development, game play. art style

play adventures of willie d for visionaire studio advanture games, visual novels are also possible
unity can do everything is you want to do some core coding

unreal engine is a waste of time, everything takes way to long to do simple things, and not worth bothering with
 

xht_002

Member
Sep 25, 2018
342
352
also free scripts to makes breasts and butt cheek jiggle in animations




other needed scripts come from








 
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Nov 1, 2018
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It really lacks something like this Tutorial...

I'm having more and more the urge to create my own in Ren'Py but I don't know where to start from...
How to match the Graphics and Animation of an ICSTOR/Smokeydots ?
Can I do everything on DAZ3D ? How to pass from the crappy models of my beginers skills to the photorealistics results of the Stqrs of the industry above ?
Do I need a monster PC ? IS there any other soft than DAZ3D ?

Mostly on a visual side, graphics and animation, what are the best tools ?
How to find someone to help me in the Graphic/Animation side to team up with ?
 

hrhr

Member
May 13, 2019
193
160
Thanks for the thread, I was just scouring the forum looking for something similar. Any tips on reverse engineering a game? I was looking at some files from Peasant's Quest but got discouraged because either there was some extra effort to obfuscate the code(beyond simply formatting it all in a single line) or a lot of it was auto generated by the engine(I have no experience at all with engines so it might be the case). One of the files was obviously done on some sort of platform, since it was simply attributing values to some variables(modeling the characters, apparently) and another was over 10k lines long but it mostly consisted of setting methods(this.X = Y etc). My experience with programming is also limited so bear in mind the issue might have been my lack of knowledge. One of the reasons I'm trying to get into this is practicing programming though, so any tips regarding that would be greatly appreciated. I thought of sharpening my coding skills for a while and only delve into the engines themselves, graphics and such in the future.