So, the question seems vague but I will elaborate.
I’m a software developer, but I don’t do games; yet I have an urge to try and make something.
It just seems so overwhelming, I know I want to make a game where the main character is a cat and you have to complete missions, but where do you even begin. Where does the art come from? How do you refine your idea, if all you know is you want a cat game? How do you choose an engine? Do you just start with the basics and get a cat walking around and see what comes next? If you can’t hash out the idea then so you have a right to even try and make a game? Is it best to follow tutorials to get used to making games? I feel the answer to that is no as before I become a software developer, tutorial hell was a thing and I realised I needed to make things for me to actually learn.
Sorry for all the questions, this was just a stream of thought.
Just like anything else, one chunk at a time.
You can start with a story and build the game off of that, or you can start with the gameplay and build up from there.
Sometimes you just have to start, and see where it goes. Pick an engine and start building something, don’t be afraid to throw it all out and start over from what you’ve learned so far. Make a game that has some of the elements you want to use and try it out, then throw it out and make a different game with other bits. Start small and work up.
The biggest problem is thinking it has to be perfect to move on to the next part.
You can commission art, or you can buy some models and just use those.
You can also just build everything from the ground up, but it would be hard to do that for your first project.
Thanks for the reply.
This makes a lot of sense, particularly I am drawn to the “start building something” and the way I interpret this could be making some basic platforms at different Z Axis’s and work on the movement for the cat, then throw it out (well keep it saved somewhere to look back to) and work on something else, like the environment or whatever. Then hopefully this will inspire other ideas and the game will grow from there.
I am going to start and see how we progress. Thanks again.
If you need inspiration PirateSoftware has some good pieces on getting started with game programming and regularly runs game jams.
Thanks. I’ll check that resource out.
I don’t write games but a lot of people that do often say something similar. Do play tests for the concept/mechanics.
This way you don’t spend time/energy and resources on art and assets that won’t be used, etc.
Similar to a minimal viable product in regular dev or, perhaps a better analogy, technical demos.
You want to write a site or app that fetches API data for GPS, calendar and Weather and show them together? You don’t start with the UI. You start with:
- Can I get the GPS coordinates
- Can I call another API and get the weather for those coordinates?
- Can I get the coordinates or other info for some future location?
- Can I send that to get the weather?
Once you know you can and that it “works” you build around it.
So like you said. I have boxes, and this other box (or static PNG of a cat) moves around them and when I move this way it drops the box down on another box.
Does that work? Does it feel “fun” to arrange them? No, it feels tedious or can’t get the collision right? Then let’s try a different angle or taking the part that did work and iterating on it.
This also leaves you open to random bugs that end up being “fun” when you lean into them.
Game Makers Toolkit has some good videos on his journey making “Mind over Magnet”. Here’s the playlist.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc38fcMFcV_uH3OK4sTa4bf-UXGk2NW2n
There’s also PirateSoftware whose entire stream is devoted to “go and make games”
Thanks for this. This will be very useful. There is so much to learn, and honestly that’s what keeps me not sad all the time. I never really care if I drop a hobby and move into something else as it’s the journey that I find pleasure in.
How? Blood, sweat and tears mostly.
Usually it’s not recommended to start with your “dream game”. Pick an engine (I like Godot), grab some Kenney art assets, and get to work on a pong or snake clone. This can be using written tutorials, videos, or hard mode, read the docs and piece it together.
Trying to learn a language, learn an engine, learn the art pipeline, learn game dev concepts AND dream up a new game concept with custom assets simultaneously is trying to boil the ocean. Start small: add a start menu, add a scene. Make jpg appear and move using player input, add an obstacle, add a death scene/restart. Iterate from there.
The process of making a game on your own involves failing to make the first 10 games you try to make on your own.
Ultimately, it sounds like you already have a good handle on everything that goes into it, and are just hoping to hear it’s not actually as hard as you think it is… it is hard. Know that going in, and assess if you will be able to do it. But give yourself a bit of benefit, getting most of the way tends to increase your resiliance to the final hurdles.
I recommend reading about Daisuke Amaya (a.k.a Studio Pixel) and his creation, Cave Story.
He made the game in the course of five years and moved to a less intensive and low pay job to work on the game. The man made the art, soundtrack, the program he used to compose and render the said soundtrack and the fucking game engine. He’s also called “The father of indie games”
I was a pro game developer for 19 years, more or less. After my last job ended, I self-published an indie game. To this day, it’s not made enough money to trigger a single payout. I failed. So it’s fair to take my advice with a grain of salt, if not a whole block. But here’s my two cents anyway.
Start by sketching and writing. Think of verbs; games are all about doing things, even if it’s just advancing through a conversation. Your protagonist is a cat, so cats run, jump, explore, play. Think of why the protagonist is doing things. Where do the missions come from? And in this case it’s hard not to look at Stray. There’s almost always something that’s come before, even if it’s not super high-profile like Stray. Think about what you want to do different.
Art will come from you, if you go it alone and can’t or don’t want to buy art assets. Blender and GIMP are hard to learn, but free and powerful.
Your engine is almost certainly going to be Unreal, Unity, or Godot. Each has strengths and weaknesses, including the cost of use. You have to factor it all in.
I do think you’re right that you’ll learn more by making things than doing tutorials, but be aware if you start spinning your wheels on something. You’ll benefit from both.
A gamedev I know who has a currently running online MMO says:
"Don’t overthink it. When I learned gamedev I learned how to display something on the screen, I learned how to move things on a screen, how to play sound effects and music, and then rolled it all together to make a simple pong game. If you can make that you can scale up from there. Buy an asset pack off of itch.io for whatever genre you want to make. "
For context this guy made his engine from scratch.
By starvation.
I am not even kidding, see indie game the movie.
Games are art and making art in this works comes with the sacrifice of not being able to afford anything until you by chance become popular.
Thanks. I guess for me I just want something to focus on and can create over time.
Not really relevant but I’m fighting depression again and I really need something to focus on.
Most solo devs don’t do everything. They download packages of meshes (3d objects) to… Not reinvent the wheel.
You can, in most game dev studios, develop game logic, maps, textures, meshes, characters etc.
People can buy them, use them, modify them, etc.
That’s not to say none do. Just… The same ones don’t.
Then there’s the issue of like… Youre building in Unreal, and you want a portal that when you enter, you shrink my 10%. Okay that’s… That’s not in the engine. So. Yeah. The wheel you’re reinventing here is pretty big.
Idk if this fully elucidates. I’m in mobile and at work, hope this makes sense.
Just ask the guy who made Axiom Berge, Thomas Happy. Or Stardew Valley creator, Eric Barone.
Look at the gource utility commit visualization history of some open source games.
Hrm… I suppose I spent 15 years making other people’s games first. >_< More seriously, just start with small stuff. Make a simple 2D game with a something like the Love framework or Pico8. Then try to scale up a bit or use something a bit more powerful. If you are really want to make a game solo, then the best thing you can do is learn to control your scope. You’ll never be able to be good at every part of making games, so figure out what parts you want to work on and figure out how to make a game around those skills.
You also don’t have to make do it alone. You can hire out art, programming, sound, music, writing… really anything. Most “solo” devs do that to some extent. Also try and seek out your local gamedev community. Asking online is fine, but you’ll get more out of an in person conversation with someone who’s done it before.
Lastly, game jams. There are smaller game jams going on all the time, but the big one is the global game jam in January. I’ve always liked that one because there are always new people. In my experience, fresh gamedevs are always perfectly welcome. You’ll have someone else on the team that can rough out the structure for you, then you just need to apply what you already know as a software developer to fill in some blanks. People also like to do role bending at jams too. Programmers will try making art, artists will try making music, and sound people will try programming. Jam games are usually bad, so nobody will expect anything you make to be any good, but people generally have a blast doing it anyway. :) I like to rope people into making NES games every year because even as experienced game devs they are so sure they can’t write C code, let alone for something 40 years old, certainly not in 48 hours! They do just fine once they dig in. :D -> https://www.slembcke.net/nes/
If you want to see more of the nitty gritty, there are tons of devlog series on YouTube where you can watch people put together a game from scratch. GMTK’s series is pretty good, though keep in mind that he started with an audience so he had some advantages along the way!
Sacred Forest is another fun series I’ve been following, and ThinMatrix’s channel is popular and has already made a few games. Miziziziz also has a few series but I recommend his 4 devs 1 art kit jam series because it shows how a lot of small games can be made quickly
Well, for someone like me who had no inkling of programming skill until I forced myself to learn, let me tell you it was HARD. Everything about my game was a learning process but I took that as a challenge to improve myself and make myself more adaptable for future projects.
To give you basically a rundown of how I’m making my game is I first started with an idea. I liked playing Paper Mario and Super Smash Bros so I decided on gameplay similar to those two. Then, I chose Unity based on a recommendation from a teacher. As I learned coding through YouTube tutorials and asking questions on forums, I started with a simple script to control a tic tac that runs around a quick map I made with primitive shapes. And from that initial prototype I added more and more things. Different mechanics, quests, etc. For art, I’m making most of it on my own since I’m an artist first thing but most I’m getting from free sites like turbo squid or the Unity Asset Store. Music and sounds I’m using temp stuff until I can get to making them.
For myself, even making a simple mechanic of controlling your cat to explore an environment is a game. Sure, it might not be GTA quality, but it’s still a game. From here you can make something more interesting. I always say that in order for something to look beautiful, first it has to look ugly. Even a beautiful butterfly has to start as a worm.
Passion project “dev”.
Mechanics first. Placeholder template for what you need for visuals. There’re also free assets for that if you want to avoid your own altogether.
Sound is a set all on its own, so I would save that for the near-mid to near-end point (before finishing touches). That is to say, don’t think about it for a while.
Others have said, but take it like a cake. One piece at a time ;)
