Whether you're self taught or actually went to a school for it, a single person or a team, what was the first thing you learned when entering the world of game design and development?
Game developers, what did you learn first when entering your field?
- Thread starter Jin-tan
- Start date
That you will only make something passable after many years of prototyping and releasing games. The first thing I learn and I'm still learning it x'D
Anyway there's a bit of trap in the question that some may fall for... It's not the same designing games than making games.
Anyway there's a bit of trap in the question that some may fall for... It's not the same designing games than making games.
- May 2, 2018
- 726
- 2,511
Not a real game dev here, but I'll throw in my two cents until more show up. I think most game designers start as game players, the way I imagine most writers start as readers. I was always interested in making games, but at the time I was in school the indie scene was practically non-existent and the main way most people got in was years of doing QA. Starting at the bottom of an industry with brutal hours and extreme turnover didn't seem like a viable career path at the time. So I got a degree in computer science, I learned programming among other things. Fast forward some years and you have breakout hit games designed by 1-3 people and I'm wishing I had the proper training. The problem is that I've already got a full time job and stopping it to get official training isn't really an option. So you are left to self educate. Back to my point of game designers being game players. I think if you find yourself playing a game and thinking about all the ways in which you would change or tweak it to be the game you want it to be, you might be itching for some game development. I don't mean things like "this is too slow" I mean really thinking about actual changes. You see see how the designer decided to get from point A to point B and it's unsatisfying, so you mentally remap the path from point A to point B. I'm not sure if I'm being clear, but hopefully you get my point.
I'm dipping my toes into making a game (very very slowly). I think most games here (and maybe elsewhere) break down into three main pieces: writing, programming, and art. I have fundamental understanding of programming so learning the specific context of a platform like Renpy wasn't that tricky. I don't consider myself a writer or an artist, so I set out to understand more about those areas. I looked for information on writing novels, characters, story arcs, screen plays, etc. On the art side, I quickly found out most of the 3D games used Daz (or something like it) so I started figuring out how that worked. I had some minor experience with 3d modeling and rendering from way back when, so it wasn't entirely new to me. I also looked into photography and cinematography. Things like lighting, focal ranges, framing, etc. If you are doing things on your own you really need to have some level of skill in all three. You can decide for yourself if you want to focus on story, gameplay, or visuals. Even if you aren't on your own, it doesn't hurt to gain a little experience in all the areas so you can have meaningful feedback to the people doing those pieces.
TLDR: I learned programming first at an actual school, but not for making games. I self taught art and writing later on.
I'm dipping my toes into making a game (very very slowly). I think most games here (and maybe elsewhere) break down into three main pieces: writing, programming, and art. I have fundamental understanding of programming so learning the specific context of a platform like Renpy wasn't that tricky. I don't consider myself a writer or an artist, so I set out to understand more about those areas. I looked for information on writing novels, characters, story arcs, screen plays, etc. On the art side, I quickly found out most of the 3D games used Daz (or something like it) so I started figuring out how that worked. I had some minor experience with 3d modeling and rendering from way back when, so it wasn't entirely new to me. I also looked into photography and cinematography. Things like lighting, focal ranges, framing, etc. If you are doing things on your own you really need to have some level of skill in all three. You can decide for yourself if you want to focus on story, gameplay, or visuals. Even if you aren't on your own, it doesn't hurt to gain a little experience in all the areas so you can have meaningful feedback to the people doing those pieces.
TLDR: I learned programming first at an actual school, but not for making games. I self taught art and writing later on.
The first thing, I learned was the way the game "works" reading a few books had helped me form a vision in my head.
You don't want a visual novel to have text pop up in speech bubbles on top of the characters head
if that's your main way to tell the story.
(Early stages even that vision was not clear because I didn't know programming)
When I worked on the first projects for other people I realized, fast enough,
that the "tech" or proprietary "engine" used in creating the game
has a more pivotal role for adapting you vision into a game.
Game jams, where I played a minor role, creating fast art but I had time to glance over
and see how others were programming the games.
So the second thing, I learned was to chose the engine to do the right job.
The third thing was never reinvent the wheel use the right tools invented by others.
The best way to chose the right tool was to read the documentation first,
if the addon has no documentation (why are you buying it?).
The forth way is not exactly related to game design or development
Making your websites, landing pages and having the right strategies to do marketing
or find a way to showcase what you are doing with-ought having to be 100% advertising.
Hope that answered a few questions.
You don't want a visual novel to have text pop up in speech bubbles on top of the characters head
if that's your main way to tell the story.
(Early stages even that vision was not clear because I didn't know programming)
When I worked on the first projects for other people I realized, fast enough,
that the "tech" or proprietary "engine" used in creating the game
has a more pivotal role for adapting you vision into a game.
Game jams, where I played a minor role, creating fast art but I had time to glance over
and see how others were programming the games.
So the second thing, I learned was to chose the engine to do the right job.
The third thing was never reinvent the wheel use the right tools invented by others.
The best way to chose the right tool was to read the documentation first,
if the addon has no documentation (why are you buying it?).
The forth way is not exactly related to game design or development
Making your websites, landing pages and having the right strategies to do marketing
or find a way to showcase what you are doing with-ought having to be 100% advertising.
Hope that answered a few questions.
1 DAZ
My wife used to re texture clothes back in the sims2/sims3 era, she taught me everything I know about photoshop, then I actually did a course in 3ds max and game design in unreal engine. I dropped out not to far into the unreal side of it, but had done the 3ds max bit. Then the sims 4 came out, I must of made 500 objects for that game, they are still floating around on the web. Then i discovered VN's and simply wanted to make pretty girls. When you use one 3d program the rest are not that hard to get a working knowledge of, I had to use blender as a bridge between the sims and max and I picked up the basics of that easily enough, I can even fudge around maya, so getting used to DAZ was not that much of a leap for me personally, except of course the fucking lighting side of it.
2 Renpy
I have made blogs before, fucked around with web design, real hack jobs, I could only really do enough to get by, so when i looked a renpy, although python is a different language, it is more logical to me than HTML, so it intrigued me to learn it as I am a logic thinker by nature.
3 Story
I just make that up as I go along, I know the overall arch, but most conversations don't come to mind until I am making the scenes up for a particular path, I have no writing skills at all.
My wife used to re texture clothes back in the sims2/sims3 era, she taught me everything I know about photoshop, then I actually did a course in 3ds max and game design in unreal engine. I dropped out not to far into the unreal side of it, but had done the 3ds max bit. Then the sims 4 came out, I must of made 500 objects for that game, they are still floating around on the web. Then i discovered VN's and simply wanted to make pretty girls. When you use one 3d program the rest are not that hard to get a working knowledge of, I had to use blender as a bridge between the sims and max and I picked up the basics of that easily enough, I can even fudge around maya, so getting used to DAZ was not that much of a leap for me personally, except of course the fucking lighting side of it.
2 Renpy
I have made blogs before, fucked around with web design, real hack jobs, I could only really do enough to get by, so when i looked a renpy, although python is a different language, it is more logical to me than HTML, so it intrigued me to learn it as I am a logic thinker by nature.
3 Story
I just make that up as I go along, I know the overall arch, but most conversations don't come to mind until I am making the scenes up for a particular path, I have no writing skills at all.
- Nov 16, 2017
- 1,393
- 2,674
I would think that the first thing any developer, of these form of visual novels and games ( or even main stream games), learns, would be that being a developer is hard work... It's time consuming, requires various developmental skills with regards to the utilities being used, and if you want to make a good overall product then there is a certain level of innate or learned talent needed to succeed in the long term... Also, a developer needs to be open to hearing public opinion about their products... You can't please everyone, and you are your own worst judge of your own projects... This is because you have the inside scoop, you know what it took to make it, you know how the story was meant to play out, you know what your intentions were, and in essence you are innately biased to your own creations... Communicating your ideas and thoughts to the public (through your VN/Game development), in a way that makes sense and gets your ideas/thoughts across, when folks read/play your project, is not an easy task at all... The general readership/player base is a mixture of varying personalities, experiences, desires, maturity levels, reading levels, etc... Welcome all opinions, bad or good, and take in what you think will help, and ignore things you don't want to hear...
This niche of the porn industry is chopped full of mostly amateur level developers... This market's trends are also driven by that same fact... It's not the readers/players driving this market... There are literally dozens of new developers starting projects every month... It's also the reason so many projects are mediocre or poor in overall quality, and many never even reach completion... You have so many folks who may be enjoying one or more VN/Games they've read and/or played, and perhaps they become inspired to try and make something of their own... And with so many tools being made freely available that do not require as much technical expertise to operate, that also encourages more first time developers to give development a try... A minor few do really well, some do alright, many are just so-so, many more are poor, and a bunch completely fail or never even finish... That is the hazard that accompanies slow forms of piece mail development, which is primarily how this market functions... A vast majority of the developers of these things in the western market release their products content in small increments, typically taking years to complete, if they make it that far... It's not like the main stream gaming industry, where most developers work on a project for a long while and then just throw the game onto the market...
You can usually tell after a few releases, what level or types of talent some developers have when it actually comes to making content for these things... There is a certain level of forgiveness depending on the style of VN/Game being made though... Such as when a developer has poor story telling skills, but great 3D visual creation talent/skills, yet the project is being purposefully designed to be a meaningless porn fest anyway... Primarily intended for masturbation purposes... The general group of players/readers looking just for masturbation material would, in most cases, care less that the story sucks or the text is horribly broken, if the images and animations helped them get their jollies... Where as the primary number of players/readers out there, who are looking for some good story along side their adult/erotic/sexual content, would probably either avoid that developer/project, and/or be the few folks complaining about it... That's just one example...
Zip
This niche of the porn industry is chopped full of mostly amateur level developers... This market's trends are also driven by that same fact... It's not the readers/players driving this market... There are literally dozens of new developers starting projects every month... It's also the reason so many projects are mediocre or poor in overall quality, and many never even reach completion... You have so many folks who may be enjoying one or more VN/Games they've read and/or played, and perhaps they become inspired to try and make something of their own... And with so many tools being made freely available that do not require as much technical expertise to operate, that also encourages more first time developers to give development a try... A minor few do really well, some do alright, many are just so-so, many more are poor, and a bunch completely fail or never even finish... That is the hazard that accompanies slow forms of piece mail development, which is primarily how this market functions... A vast majority of the developers of these things in the western market release their products content in small increments, typically taking years to complete, if they make it that far... It's not like the main stream gaming industry, where most developers work on a project for a long while and then just throw the game onto the market...
You can usually tell after a few releases, what level or types of talent some developers have when it actually comes to making content for these things... There is a certain level of forgiveness depending on the style of VN/Game being made though... Such as when a developer has poor story telling skills, but great 3D visual creation talent/skills, yet the project is being purposefully designed to be a meaningless porn fest anyway... Primarily intended for masturbation purposes... The general group of players/readers looking just for masturbation material would, in most cases, care less that the story sucks or the text is horribly broken, if the images and animations helped them get their jollies... Where as the primary number of players/readers out there, who are looking for some good story along side their adult/erotic/sexual content, would probably either avoid that developer/project, and/or be the few folks complaining about it... That's just one example...
Zip
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The first thing I learn is how to install UE4. Jokes aside, it's learning the intricacies of UE4. The sheer amount of things and work that goes into the pipeline to make a game A game. Though I knew from the surface there were things needed, but when I dug in and dug in deep, I found out that I was only scratching the surface of what I thought I knew.
As for game design, the first thing I learned is that, not only have plan A but plan for B-Z.
As for game design, the first thing I learned is that, not only have plan A but plan for B-Z.
The main thing is exactly what Zippity has said.
But another factor I learned real fast, which I was completely unprepared for was communication and PR.
As naive as I was, I just released my game and thought that was it. But it fast turned chaotic with tons of pm's about all kinds of stuff such as issues, people that wanted to be part of the project, people that wanted to help and questions. I also got told about the need of having (and joining) online forums such as discord, twitter and so on. None of the things I have ever really used before.
I remember talking with PhillyGames about it too. He was as much a noob with PR as I was, haha. He didn't even know how to make a tweet. What a scrub.
But another factor I learned real fast, which I was completely unprepared for was communication and PR.
As naive as I was, I just released my game and thought that was it. But it fast turned chaotic with tons of pm's about all kinds of stuff such as issues, people that wanted to be part of the project, people that wanted to help and questions. I also got told about the need of having (and joining) online forums such as discord, twitter and so on. None of the things I have ever really used before.
I remember talking with PhillyGames about it too. He was as much a noob with PR as I was, haha. He didn't even know how to make a tweet. What a scrub.