How Can I Create a Game? I’m a Complete Beginner

[Lyndon0]

Hello everyone,

I’m interested in creating a game similar to "Apocalyptic World," but I’m not sure where to start. I don’t have any knowledge about programming or game development, and I’m unfamiliar with all the technical terms. I’m really starting from scratch.

My main question is: Does creating a game like this require learning programming? If it doesn’t, is there any guide or tutorial that I can follow to make a game similar to "Apocalyptic World"?

If it does require programming, I would like to know what specific programming skills I need to learn, from the very beginning to the end. I have no experience at all, and I don’t even know what programming is or what the terms mean, so I would appreciate it if anyone could explain it in the simplest way possible.

Thank you so much for any help or guidance!

 

[Gagagoug]

I'm also a total beginner, but I guess trying to look at Daz for 3D characters, and Ren'Py for how the software works could help? I'm sure you can find a youtube tutorial or two on these.

 

[Kuviragames]

Just go step by step. You want to create a game like "Apocalyptic World"? Find out what engine it is. HTML+CSS and Java? in that case. Start using google and youtube what HTML is. From here follow tutorials like "HTML Basics" and "How to XXXXXX".

I would suggest to start smaller. Use renpy and create a small game. Renpy uses python and the basics are very easy.
Starting with something like "Apocalyptic World" without any knowledge will maybe lead to a lot of errors and mistakes. And if you don't know how to fix them you won't have much fun creating it.

 

[aereton]

Everyone posting good resources, however I would like to give you some general advice for starting out.

As you are a complete beginner in everything software development, I'd implore you to store your big game idea for later and start with simpler, smaller and more manageable projects. Try creating a small, linear story in RenPy (if you want to learn developing VNs), or simple games like Tetris, Snake, etc in whatever engine/framework/language you want to learn.

This has the benefit of smaller scopes, smaller goals and less motivational loss. Everyone who first gets into software (and especially game) development has this big, grandiose million dollar idea. Jumping straight into that while not only learning a new programming language or a framework or an engine but also basic software dev concepts will make you want to pull your hair out sooner rather than later.
People who keep making games over a longer period of time are those who either heeded advice like mine, or are the 'one-in-a-million' type of guys who can manage anyway (which, by definition, you most likely are not). It's just simple survival bias, really.

You can use this time to flesh out your 'real' game idea with an exhaustive design document, or at least with some idea collection in a Google drive document or whatever.

A good, concrete, roadmap could look like this (it's just a suggestion ofc):

• Pump out 5 different game projects over the course of this year
• Make sure that each next project builds upon what you learned in the previous one
• Make sure that each next project pushes you to learn something new, gets a little more complex
• If you want, you can try your hands at documenting your learning process in a dev blog or something, this can help to strengthen your understanding of what you are learning

After doing that, you will be in a much better place skills-wise and you will start to see all the flaws in your previous works. This is completely normal and a good indicator of how much you learned.
And as a little bonus, you just built yourself a nice little portfolio without realising, if you ever want to work together on something with other people.

 

[osanaiko]

I definitely agree with "start small" philosophy.

Even a small game is 100s of hours of effort.

There's a lot to learn, and there is way way more required that you would imagine at first.

However there is some good news:
- there are a lot of resources to learn from
- there are supportive communities
- in the end, making a small porn game under a pseudonym is a very low stakes endeavor, so you don't need to worry about embarrassing yourself or disappointing anyone.

Some other advice:
- perfectionism is your enemy: just get to 90% good and move to the next task. there's only so much time can be spent as a solo dev otherwise you will never finish. (The exception to this is you must be 100% tested. graphics minor quality issues doesn't stop the game from being playable. but obvious bugs are death)
- be very very organized with your assets. naming conventions, consistent image sizes. Use backups!
- don't be afraid to rework stuff if it is wrong. yes, it feels like throwing away previous effort... but in the long run, working around problems rather than fixing them just leaves you with a big mess. Eventually it's possible to find you've painted yourself into a corner.
- you don't need to "program" very much if you are making a basic VN. But once you start adding stats / inventory / shops / game-time-loops / quests or events, then it can get trickier. Ask for advice, don't go burrowing too deep down the rabbit hole - there's often simple ways to do stuff that are non obvious when your mental model is not fully developed.

 

[CircleJerks]

The 3 big things I can say are:

1) Start small:
No point and have a multi level open-world immersive SIM if you never even put a square on top of another square and made it to move around. Do little VN games with renpy to get into coding and problem solving and build up from that.

2) Learn to name EVERYTHING correctly:
It's so easy to get lost when assets, no matter what kind, are all writen "final version final v2 for real this time final final", have your assets ready, normally what we do is something like "Actor_Naomi_Happy", "Bg_Bedroom_Night" , "SFX_Spook/Sfx_Boo" and "Music_MainTheme" to make sure, no mather what, when you look at your explorer hundreds of files, you know exactly what they are.

3) Don't know? Google.
You will never stop studying, so when you don't know, hit the books(google). Try not to get addicted with stuff like chatGPT tough, it may not help you in learning problem solving and critical thinking in game development.

 

[RuneF]

This thread is a treasure trove of helpful insights and advice.

For the dev veterans here, do you have thoughts on the ease of learning one engine over another? I'm open to using any platform. How different is it to program a (small) game in RenPy versus, say, Twine+Sugarcube?

 

[osanaiko]

Twine+sugarcube is well suited to the style of game which has "rooms" that show some text and image/videos interleaved, and you click links to navigate between "rooms". It runs on a browser and can be extended with Javascript, so theoretically it could be adapted to do all sorts of more complicated gameplay flows - but now your in custom game engine development land. In some ways it is kind of like the legacy of the old "interactive fiction" adventure games. If you have HTML/CSS skills then you can somewhat customize the UI, but not many devs spend time on this because it is just eye candy. There's a reason why nearly all Twine games play the same and look the same - that's the path of least resistance.

In summary: To make a basic mostly-text game, this is the easiest platform.

Renpy was specifically created to be a platform for making "visual novel" style games, like the Japanese dating game genre: large background images, foreground character sprites, and a smallish block of dialogue to click through, occasional menu choices. Special scenes would have full screen images, then back to the regular game. Since then, more and more work has been done to extend the capabilities. With the screen system and "animation/transform language" there is a lot of flexibility in building more interesting custom interfaces. In the age of Daz, full screen renders rather than background+sprite has become more common. And for devs who want to spend the effort, a UI with "click area on screen" is possible so games can be made that remind of the old Day of the Tentacle and brethren. There are many other "vn engines" around, but very few of them implement all the quality of life features that are built-in to Renpy.

In summary: the perfect choice for a VN, and can have more interesting UI if the time and effort are expended.

 

[finndem]

Can anyone point me at good resources for... I guess, 101-level 3D modeling? Like, the very, very basics: what program(s) I might need, what costs I'm potentially looking at, etc? A lot of the posts I've seen skimming through this forum are addressed mainly at people who already sort of know what they're doing, whereas I (and I think the OP) are more at the "how do you shot web?" level. For example, I've heard of Daz and Blender and SFM, and I saw someone mention elsewhere that you should probably look into a character creator program before trying to work in Daz, but... I don't really know where to go from there. Is Daz a good program to work with for a newbie? Should I be looking at other programs as well? Are there costs associated with this? (I think I've heard people talk about buying Daz assets, so I'm guessing there's stuff you need to buy.) Etc etc

 

[osanaiko]

Can anyone point me at good resources for... I guess, 101-level 3D modeling? Like, the very, very basics: what program(s) I might need, what costs I'm potentially looking at, etc? A lot of the posts I've seen skimming through this forum are addressed mainly at people who already sort of know what they're doing, whereas I (and I think the OP) are more at the "how do you shot web?" level. For example, I've heard of Daz and Blender and SFM, and I saw someone mention elsewhere that you should probably look into a character creator program before trying to work in Daz, but... I don't really know where to go from there. Is Daz a good program to work with for a newbie? Should I be looking at other programs as well? Are there costs associated with this? (I think I've heard people talk about buying Daz assets, so I'm guessing there's stuff you need to buy.) Etc etc

With absolutely no irony, the "Donut" blender tutorial from Blender Guru (

You must be registered to see the links

) is a good introduction to 3d modelling if you are a complete noob.

Daz is not a 3d modeller, its a "figure poser" and rendering GUI. It's free for the program, the assets cost money. You use the "purchased" (Arrr matey) 3d assets but it's virtually impossible to make anything new within Daz. Daz has a pretty shitty interface and various performance problems, but once you know your way around it, you can create quite good render output.

Blender is the primo open source 3d modeller (and lots of other stuff). It's pretty capable, but not the "industry professional standard" (that's Maya or 3dsmax). You can do a lot with blender.

SFM is not a modeller, its a timeline animation tool. I honestly don't know much about it, it's rarely used for games here on F95.

Character creation / asset creation is a whole different world from using pre-built figures in Daz. It's a fine hobby if that's what you want to do, but will consume 100% of your energy.

If you are aiming towards learning to 3d model so you can start creating your own unique characters and then use them in a 3d rendered adult game... then be prepared to walk a long road. That's like 2 years full time study/practice. Nearly all game creators use existing figure assets and environments, throw them into Daz, and go from there. Technically you should be paying money for these assets, but while experimenting and learning, I'd imagine most people "try before they buy" from various piracy sources. Morally, if you start making money from the outputs of the asset renders, then you should buy the source materials - creators need to eat too, and if they get starved then no more new assets...

 

[finndem]

Thanks! That's exactly the sort of info I need.

So, based on what you've said and bits and pieces I've seen elsewhere, can you buy Daz assets and then modify them in Blender (or some similar program)? Or does Daz have some limited modification ability of its own? I feel like I've seen people say things like "that looks like they took X model and changed it in Y way." Also, are there good places to browse the sorts of adult-oriented assets that get used here? I'm guessing your average model out on the web doesn't have detailed genitalia, for example.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Maybe you more capable in programming than me.
Me speak Basic but no C.

If one uses Renpy, there isn't too much required. Meaning, even i can do it on a basic level. Nothing too challenging.
Ever game engine requires some knowledge, as far as i know, because you want to make events or something that trigger action something.

There is also the option to make just a comic instead of a game.

I tried once to make mods for Bethesda games.
Learning the scripting is the biggest challenge and i didn't pass. So doing something in one area or the other, you probably should be learning the language they are using. Even basic understanding will already help.

Good luck.