Want to make your game? Check this FAQ

[papel]

So, you decided to make your game, but still have a few questions in your mind. I know you won't even check that sub-sub forum of Dev Help, so here the thread shall remain! Before you even start, answer yourself: do you even have time to invest into learning and doing the necessary work to create your game?

Do you, now? Well, let's do this small thought experiment:

Suppose you had a team ready to make your game idea a reality and the only thing they have to make it happen is a PDF you've sent them. There is one catch: anything that isn't explicitly detailed will be done the wrong way. How would you write that?​

Spoiler: Thought experiment

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TLDR of the thought experiment:

• Identify ALL the mechanics you expect to use in the game (movement, menus, player interactions, combat)
• Explain how each of those mechanics are supposed to work and how they interact with each other (player interacts by pressing X when the sprite is facing an event tile; combat is real time and similar to Secret of Mana)
• If any of the mechanics you want to implement are uncommon (IE: ordering several characters like in a RTS) or new, evaluate how hard it'll be for you to make it work
• Define a clear START and END of the project. By END it means all the essential features and mechanics are working as intended and, if there's a story, you can finish it.

On to the FAQ proper. Yes, "Which engine should I use?" and "Where do I get free assets?" are answered below.

Spoiler: FAQ

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Other things to be mindful of:

• Don't set your expectations too high.
• Always compare what you expect to accomplish VS. what you can actually accomplish with your current knowledge and resources
• Your first game will NOT be a magnum opus
• Until you have a decent experience in game making, or have loads of money to throw at a team, don't even bother with your dream game
• Feature creep kills more games than you'd imagine. Yes, this happens even in straightforward Visual Novels, usually as "new story branch" and "new character"
• If you wait for "inspiration" to work on anything, your idea will rot faster than a banana
• Be ready to deal with problems on top of problems on top of problems.
• Don't be an arrogant shit. Being an arrogant shit with an ego bigger than the internet is a surefire way to kill your chances of success, even if you actually manage to deliver.

 

[Rafster]

Q: What's feature creep? Can it happen to my game project?
A: It's what happens when the core game is set aside to add the shiny new thing tm. Suppose you're making a Visual Novel in RenPy and had an eureka moment, "I'll add slot machines!" Great, you spend the next 2 months on the slot machines, realize you can't make it fit in the game at all, but don't want to throw away your work, so you leave it there. Then you have another idea, "This new character is going to be awesome!" Alright, another month or two go by and you realize this character will require a huge amount of rework on the rest of the story. "Oh, a beach scene is going to be great!"
In short, feature creep is "shiny new thing syndrome" or "I just had a great idea! syndrome", something that frequently steals your attention, looks great but, most of the time, ends up being underdeveloped, half baked or a bad idea in the first place. In the example above, a simple VN development just saw 4 months of nothing of value being added.
So, yeah, that can happen to your project, no matter what type of game it is

Happened to me. I'm still making a "sandbox" in twine (due to release on april or May this year), and back in october I had the amazing idea (you know, the eureka moment) to include a battle system to the game that wasn't planned at the beginning (well, to be honest it was something I really wanted but couldn't make a system that I would like until that moment). Took me two months to not only code it and design it, but to add some battles to the game. I had to go without updates for 2 months on my dev thread here on F95.

Now it's an integral part of my game, but I often wonder what could have happened if the battle system were a failure...that could have ruined my project.

Feature creep is a threat, lurking on the shadows and attacking any innocent dev at any moment.

 

[clero]

Thanks bro. Do you like Machinations framework? I am learning to use it and I have to say that I like it, even if I don't know how useful can it be for a porn game. BUt it is still a nice tool.

 

[papel]

I didn't know about that one. Checking it out, it looks like an excellent tool to use to visually create and test the logic of each system you intend to use in your game.
The community/free version seems very limited, but depending on what you're doing, it still has more than enough features. I'll probably give it a go in the near future.

 

[ThiccLoverr]

ty for share this info

 

[DillyDubzee]

Thank you for this list, it seems well thought out and I can see myself coming back to this in future when i start making games

 

[Deleted member 4238737]

I am really going to start making games because a hentai game site — ironic

 

[coffeeaddicted]

papel Very good point and so spot on.
Have i known before. Wasted times.
I think, most people should just make a VN (simple) and conclude the game in a relatively short time.
Myself, i got distracted. So many shiny assets, so many great looking females. So not so great males.
Constant search and nothing getting done.
I think they call that the developers curse.
Though, at least i was able to learn some tricks along the way. In retrospect, my first attempts were shit. Renders looked ok but overall it wasn't good.

The thing is, VN's are so easy to make compared to real games, that it is very tempting to say, i am making a game on my own.
It can become reality, but all the points presented should be really followed to make it a success.

 

[papel]

I am really going to start making games because a hentai game site — ironic

Not really. Pretty much everyone getting into game creation decided on that because they played one or more games they liked. The same can be more or less seen with most other arts, like music and drawing, "This is amazing, I want to do stuff like this!". Not that different with hentai games. Granted, more often than not, the motivation is "hey, this game is making loads of money, I can do that, too!"

papel Very good point and so spot on.
Myself, i got distracted. So many shiny assets, so many great looking females. So not so great males.
Constant search and nothing getting done.
I think they call that the developers curse.
Though, at least i was able to learn some tricks along the way. In retrospect, my first attempts were shit. Renders looked ok but overall it wasn't good.

The thing is, VN's are so easy to make compared to real games, that it is very tempting to say, i am making a game on my own.
It can become reality, but all the points presented should be really followed to make it a success.

I've also dabbled a bit with Daz, download some 400gb of stuff and... Never actually used any of it, save for a single render. Big waste of time and bandwidth in my case. You got better use of it, since it looks like you're still using it and got better at doing renders, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Design/art direction (or consistency) of the game is also very important. It's very easy to tell an amateur from someone who knows what they're doing in the visual sense: it's damn easy to spot things that are "out of place".

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Not really. Pretty much everyone getting into game creation decided on that because they played one or more games they liked. The same can be more or less seen with most other arts, like music and drawing, "This is amazing, I want to do stuff like this!". Not that different with hentai games. Granted, more often than not, the motivation is "hey, this game is making loads of money, I can do that, too!"



I've also dabbled a bit with Daz, download some 400gb of stuff and... Never actually used any of it, save for a single render. Big waste of time and bandwidth in my case. You got better use of it, since it looks like you're still using it and got better at doing renders, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Design/art direction (or consistency) of the game is also very important. It's very easy to tell an amateur from someone who knows what they're doing in the visual sense: it's damn easy to spot things that are "out of place".

Since i am here.

It's hard to quantify really. In my personal opinion, it is a waste of time.
For one, you need to spend some serious time to learn everything. Lightning is a big issue i think. I know i suck at it. Because every angle produces a different situation, you spend more time just to get the lights right.
Most importantly, you become a nerd. You remove yourself from life, spending countless hours doing things that may end up in the garbage bin. I know i did. When i started out, i spend literally 12 hours just doing scenes and renders.
But, there are people that do a good job, making good games and i have pull my head down in awe.

It is very tempting to think, i can do that too. Well, there is always the purple eye look starting off. Like a honeymoon.
You think you can do it and oh my, it isn't really great but hey, the story will good.

For myself i think i can say, i am trying because i haven't anything to do at the moment. It's a bridge for me.

Making money. I think that's the biggest hoax. Sure, you can make money. If all stars are aligned right, you may get even popular and people really pay you serious money. But there is of course then the obligation to deliver, otherwise money will faint away.

In theory, it sounds very easy to make a game. The way i see it, you have a couple things to get together. You images (renders, drawings or whatever one uses). The coding. It isn't rocket science but if you never coded before, it will make you cry. More over, find the error causing bug in your code without help.
For that reason i was looking into RPG Maker. Seems reasonable to make some game with it. Though you still need to learn the software and some coding.

I did not count how much i downloaded. I did buy some stuff that i think is great. In the end, i have several GB of stuff i probably never use. Hoarding. It's a thing. (i don't think i have that much. Certainly not 400GB. )

I mean, if not a adult game, perhaps one can make something actually useful and make a great scene of a apocalypse or something.

At least i have the knowledge to make my personal lewd scenes minus animation. I think that is just really hard to learn.

But you were right on spot and for that i thank you. I believe that one motivation for people to making a game is, because what is there isn't maybe what they want to see.
If i am honest, most games are actually boring and besides playing it once, there isn't a reason to play it again. Ever.
These games lag the replayability of regular games which is actually sad. Because it is difficult to make more than one path in a game, it usually ends with false choices. At least that is what i call it.

There is one game i actually hold dear. It isn't you usual bang fest but rather romantic. I am not telling.

To your point about story and scene, i think true as well. Though you can learn it. I would even argue it can be getting worst than a B-Movie.
I mean i see some really crappy movies and of course crappy games.
There was on, when i started out with all this, that was mentioned as it was removed from Steam. I think it was Rapegame.
I checked it, and it's garbage.

So i am thankful for other to waste their time and enjoy their work as a game. I know that there goes a lot of time in it. So for who ever want's to do, go ahead.

I think you probably better off making assets and selling them on DAZ or whatever to get actually something in return. Less wasting time for some game that may never see the light of day anyway.

 

[Kurogami32]

is it fine to use smutbase assets to create a parody game using renpy & daz then post on patreon or subsribestar?

 

[papel]

is it fine to use smutbase assets to create a parody game using renpy & daz then post on patreon or subsribestar?

You're better off asking individual creators/artists, especially if what you end up using is original content (not ripped from anywhere) of theirs.

 

[Axi_Ohm]

New dev here. I was just about start my 2nd week of "feature creep". Thanks for making me aware of this rabbit hole before I plunged deeper. Even though I worked out all the things I wanted in my game... The new features, man. They're just so... shiny. Kinda hard to wrangle the team when its just me and myself.

 

[Deleted member 7138255]

.

 

[Marshall 77]

hi, for a small vn how many render is good?
what about words too?

 

[papel]

hi, for a small vn how many render is good?
what about words too?

Depends entirely on your plans. If it's your very first project, something that a player can complete in ~8 minutes should suffice as a VN.

I have no idea how many words or renders that would sum. I guess around 2k words and 8 renders, maybe?

Again, it depends entirely on what you plan to do.

 

[osanaiko]

https://f95zone.to/threads/how-much-content-should-there-be-on-release-html.200576/
https://f95zone.to/threads/i-want-to-write-a-choose-your-own-adventure-game.123428/