Would anyone teach me how to make a game?
- Thread starter Tataro
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I hate to be the one to say this but learning to code by directly jumping into game development is the worst and most difficult way to learn programming IMO.
You are eager to learn ... good... start by learning the basics of any programming language ... python is a good start and will help later if you use renpy
or if you are more into art start by learning how to make some characters.
You are eager to learn ... good... start by learning the basics of any programming language ... python is a good start and will help later if you use renpy
or if you are more into art start by learning how to make some characters.
To explain and discuss in-depth would take years to cover everything. There are so many different engine, 3D modeling software it wouldn't be possible to cover everything. So in turn I'll give a brief explanation of what my journey was like and some tips to get you started. Check the spoilers.
My Game dev journey
With that said, I'll only give a brief overview of what to look for to get you started. By no means am I a professional, the knowledge and skills are all acquired through my own trials and errors and a lot of time and I mean a lot, going through documentation, tutorials and searching the web for any information pertaining to what I'm trying to achieve.
This is very brief and by no means cover's everything needed to make a decent game or vn. There are a lot of moving parts going into game/vn development, and isn't just something you can quickly do in months. Just take for example AAA companies, they have teams and yet it still takes 2+ years to release games. This isn't to discourage you from pursuing development, by all means if you're dedicated and passionate about it chase after it. Just know it's going to be a bumpy and rough road.
My Game dev journey
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With that said, I'll only give a brief overview of what to look for to get you started. By no means am I a professional, the knowledge and skills are all acquired through my own trials and errors and a lot of time and I mean a lot, going through documentation, tutorials and searching the web for any information pertaining to what I'm trying to achieve.
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This is very brief and by no means cover's everything needed to make a decent game or vn. There are a lot of moving parts going into game/vn development, and isn't just something you can quickly do in months. Just take for example AAA companies, they have teams and yet it still takes 2+ years to release games. This isn't to discourage you from pursuing development, by all means if you're dedicated and passionate about it chase after it. Just know it's going to be a bumpy and rough road.
- Jan 4, 2018
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A great starter language if you've never programmed before is
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. I still love playing around with this language from time to time even though I've been coding off and on since the late '80s in about a dozen languages.
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uses a simplified version of it implemented in Javascript for their intro coding program, which I can highly recommend as a great starting point for anyone interested in getting into coding.
- Mar 27, 2018
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Thats amazing guys, thank you both so much. I really had no idea where to even start and needed something like this. Cheers!
Depends on what you want to learn.
Real gameplay like moving around with 3d dolls and many gameplay elements with engines such as unity or unreal.
Takes a huge amount of time to learn.
Simply want a basic VN with some branching choices. A couple of days to learn with Ren'py.
VN with more than simply choices but navigation and stuff. A couple of months.
So the time depends on what you want to achieve. From a couple of days to months and years.
Then you need to know what style of art. 3d can be learn rather easy. Some weeks to learn daz3d. (Being great at it takes way longer)
2d art depends on how good you already are at drawing. Not recommended for beginners.
If you want a simple story. You just need to have grammar in check. If you want a heavy story. Study story writing techniques. Takes a couple of weeks.
Overall, as you can see, many stuff to consider and start learning. So it's impossible for someone to teach you. Best to google it. Tons of guides online.
Real gameplay like moving around with 3d dolls and many gameplay elements with engines such as unity or unreal.
Takes a huge amount of time to learn.
Simply want a basic VN with some branching choices. A couple of days to learn with Ren'py.
VN with more than simply choices but navigation and stuff. A couple of months.
So the time depends on what you want to achieve. From a couple of days to months and years.
Then you need to know what style of art. 3d can be learn rather easy. Some weeks to learn daz3d. (Being great at it takes way longer)
2d art depends on how good you already are at drawing. Not recommended for beginners.
If you want a simple story. You just need to have grammar in check. If you want a heavy story. Study story writing techniques. Takes a couple of weeks.
Overall, as you can see, many stuff to consider and start learning. So it's impossible for someone to teach you. Best to google it. Tons of guides online.
- Jan 4, 2018
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I would tend to caution against following Egglock's path, especially as someone completely new to game and asset development. It'll work if you are tenacious and self-motivated with a strong drive for learning a lot of stuff at once with steep learning curves. But it's probably a recipe for failure for most newbs out there.
UE4 is an impressive engine that is meant to be used by decent sized teams with a fair bit of experience; trying to make it work solo is generally a bad idea, even if it is possible. The engine is a beast, it wastes system resources like they're going out of style because it was meant to be used on beefy workstations that will typically set you back a few grand to build. The source is a tangled mess that only the most brave and experienced should ever attempt to traverse. So if you run into issues or limitations that aren't on Epic's top priority list, consider yourself thoroughly screwed.
A far better indie/solo friendly general purpose engine would be
If you have a particular game genre in mind there are also some other engines that can be even better starting places. Such as Ren'Py for VNs or RPGM for RPGs. Game Maker can be a decent starting point as well if you want to jump straight into making games, but it is very limited and some times promotes bad practices to get around it's shortcomings and it scales very poorly. It's good for prototyping game ideas, but sorta bad for fleshing out anything advanced.
Lastly, 3D is a terrible place to start in terms of game development if you are using it for anything more than prerendered stills/animation clips. To increase your chances of success you should start small and in 2D, or even straight up text based. Learn the ropes of how games actually function at their most basic level and build on that knowledge step by step. Once you are comfortable with the basics of 2D you can start to consider moving on to 3D, if that happens to be your goal.
I can provide some useful links a bit later when I have some more free time to dig around for them. On general game development, Godot in particular, and various aspects of asset creation (both 2D and 3D). Just let us know a bit more about what it is you hope to accomplish so you can get more focused and relevant feedback and advice.
UE4 is an impressive engine that is meant to be used by decent sized teams with a fair bit of experience; trying to make it work solo is generally a bad idea, even if it is possible. The engine is a beast, it wastes system resources like they're going out of style because it was meant to be used on beefy workstations that will typically set you back a few grand to build. The source is a tangled mess that only the most brave and experienced should ever attempt to traverse. So if you run into issues or limitations that aren't on Epic's top priority list, consider yourself thoroughly screwed.
A far better indie/solo friendly general purpose engine would be
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. It's lightweight, it has a surprisingly clean C++ code base, open-source under a very permissive MIT based license and it has full support for both 2D and 3D. It also easily exports to most major platforms, comes with a very nice Python-like game scripting language (GDScript) that is easy to learn once you've picked up the basics of game logic and programming. It has built-In editors for coding, animation, shaders, tile maps, 2D/3D scene layouts, etc. Plus a pretty nice debugger and all of the API reference material easily accessible from within the GUI itself.If you have a particular game genre in mind there are also some other engines that can be even better starting places. Such as Ren'Py for VNs or RPGM for RPGs. Game Maker can be a decent starting point as well if you want to jump straight into making games, but it is very limited and some times promotes bad practices to get around it's shortcomings and it scales very poorly. It's good for prototyping game ideas, but sorta bad for fleshing out anything advanced.
Lastly, 3D is a terrible place to start in terms of game development if you are using it for anything more than prerendered stills/animation clips. To increase your chances of success you should start small and in 2D, or even straight up text based. Learn the ropes of how games actually function at their most basic level and build on that knowledge step by step. Once you are comfortable with the basics of 2D you can start to consider moving on to 3D, if that happens to be your goal.
I can provide some useful links a bit later when I have some more free time to dig around for them. On general game development, Godot in particular, and various aspects of asset creation (both 2D and 3D). Just let us know a bit more about what it is you hope to accomplish so you can get more focused and relevant feedback and advice.
- Aug 9, 2016
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That is a decent choice. RenPy makes a lot of things straightforward and Python is quite "amateur"-friendly to get into.
My advice (as someone who learned Python via H-game dev involvement a few years back) is start small. Many first-time developers have grandiose plans, and they vastly underestimate the complexity and -at times- tediousness of making a game. It's a prevalent reason why so many get abandoned.
First of all, have a quick glance over the RenPy documentation, the very basic stuff.
Don't bother ingesting every advanced concept of the engine because most will fly over your head or mislead you if your understanding of the foundations is faulty. You don't need to touch python at this point, just know it exists.
Then start making very small projects for yourself that utilize basic stuff. Character placement, UI elements, textboxes etc. Make a short 10-screen VN with a couple of choices. Just text, no art. Be fully aware that your first projects will suck (they did for everyone and you'll see it yourself down the line) but oftentimes trial and error is a great way to find your way around things.
Slowly become friends with the documentation while creating slightly more complicated concepts (transitions/overlays/event triggering).
Then, depending on how you envision your game, you can start laying the foundations for it. You will most likely stumble on roadblocks that never crossed your mind, but if you've got the basics right moving on should not be much of a challenge.
- Jun 2, 2018
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I'd just stick to focusing on mastering the syntax of the programming language u plan on using first. Don't worry about understanding every little detail in the beginning just read and write lots of code. Personally I recommend using
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just to get a feel for coding then remove the training wheels by moving on to using an integrated development environment of ur choice like eclipse or notepad++ while following youtube videos on various programming techniques by skilled devs like how to create collision. Code theory isn't something u grasp in a night so don't worry if u feel completely lost at first. Also, don't just copy code once u get a feel for the syntax. Take code, modify it, and see how it changes. I'd start with something simple like html then work up to javascript. Once u gain fundamental mastery of the syntax and have a vague understanding of code theory, I recommend java bc its robust (can be easily ported to any platform) and java handles all the memory management for ya so u don't have to worry about memory leaks like u do with C++. Bear in mind I don't really consider myself a true programmer so I imagine what I've said seems rather amateurish to a professionals eyes but this is what I did in order to learn programming some what. Best of luck with ur studying.
- Jun 10, 2017
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That's a good advice that should be gave more often. Even nowadays, many schools and even universities start teaching programming by teaching
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, and Processing is its successor. The purpose and simplicity of Logo, with the moderns paradigms and syntax.It's a simple and playful way to learn how to structure your code, what too many indies coders still miss.
- Jan 4, 2018
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@anne O'nymous - Ya, I've looked at Logo a bit in the past. They had a lot of good ideas there, but I've never been a fan of Lisp-style syntax. So it was nice to come across something like Processing which, as you said, took up that same mantle and gave it a major face lift to modernize it. I kinda wish I could use Processing more, it's just such a fun language to play around in and experiment with. I really like the approach they took where each script you add to a project is basically a class definition; I found that to be one of the easier ways to introduce people to the basics of OOP.