I would like to try and make a game. How do I get started? - General Discussion

#1 Posted by InfiniteGeass (2004 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

I'm a complete noob and only learned some very basic stuff in my Junior year of high school. If someone could just set me in the right direction I'd really appreciate it.

#2 Posted by Dagbiker (6360 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

You should decide a couple things,

what type of game do you want to make, a text based adventure, a 3d first person shooter, a 2d dungeon crawler.
are you going to make your own engine or will you use a preexisting one.

i would suggest www.gamedev.net they have all types of resources for all types of game developers.

#3 Posted by upwarDBound (654 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

Flash games are relatively easy to code. Maybe you should start there. There are several tutorials online to get you started.

#4 Posted by Khann (2048 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

http://unity3d.com/

Go there and read the forums. Good a place as any to start.

#5 Posted by Video_Game_King (29273 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

Go download GameMaker (or whatever it's called). That seems fairly logical.

#6 Posted by Underachiever007 (2460 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

"Try stuff out and see what works!" - Teddie

#7 Posted by ryanwho (12083 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

3 years of college.

#8 Posted by TotalEklypse (1000 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

@Dagbiker said:

You should decide a couple things,
what type of game do you want to make, a text based adventure, a 3d first person shooter, a 2d dungeon crawler.
are you going to make your own engine or will you use a preexisting one.
i would suggest www.gamedev.net they have all types of resources for all types of game developers.

Yea he about covers it. I would just add be prepared to hunker down for hundreds if not thousands of hours. If you are not ready for the work load then you will not get far.

#9 Edited by Gamer_152 (13243 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

It really depends how deep into this you want to go. Are you looking to do all your own art or pull from somewhere else? Are you looking at a 3D game or a 2D game? How much do you care about being able to create good game design? Are you interested in programming your game or do you just want to get something working by any means? If you want to take the fastest and easiest route on this one, go download GameMaker, find some free sprites and perhaps sound assets on the internet and just keep designing your game as you go. If you're talking about single-handedly making a game at a professional level though that is going to take years of learning to code, design, do art and animation, write, create music and more.

Moderator

#10 Posted by SerHulse (647 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

Before actually making your game, you should really get some good ideas written down about what you would like to make,

If you are serious about this, my tutor in University was telling me a good way to get ideas for creative media is to broaden your view and play as many different games as possible (including games of varying levels of quality). Buy a notepad and make notes on them. I jot down game ideas all the time, it's good to get a record of them going.

After you have some good ideas, try GameMaker for a quick and easy creator, forgoing most of the programming stuff and getting to the design, if you need more freedom than that provides start with XNA Game Studio, it's free and is in C# a relatively easy language to learn. (though would still take dedication on your part)

A great resource for this stuff is PixelProspector

#11 Posted by FollowSmoke (39 posts) - 1 year, 6 months ago

If this is something that you KNOW you're going to do and KNOW you'll never give up on... Go straight for the throat and buy a thick C++ book.