Video games are an amazing electronic art form, and there are already many amazing great games out there to play and experience and enjoy. But have you ever thought to yourself, I wish I could make my own games? If you have the passion and dedication, you could actually teach yourself how to make your own games using the internet. I’m writing this as a sort of guide for anyone who would be interested in the idea of game development as anything from a hobby to a full blown profession. I am by no means a part of the latter category but I’ve gotten my feet wet enough to know the water’s fine and can show you where to step. I wish it would one day become as easy enough for people to make their own games as it were for people to record themselves on a camera and upload it to youtube.
I hope that this guide inspires someone to start a new revolution in independent game design that creates a gaming Renaissance. Maybe someone will take a look at this and think about coming up with a free and open standard for a games console that anyone can manufacture and anyone can program a game for. Perhaps this very guide could spawn the birth of a new era in human interaction and creativity through the power of imagination!Or at the very least,I hope, you might find it somewhat informative.
Steps toward game development.
Passion
- Maybe you’ve heard of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the video game industry is able to rake in year after year and think to yourself, man, I would love to make a game and get filthy rich. People hear all the time about how small teams of developers, as small as even possibly one person can write a game using a Software Developer's Kit for iOS or Android and publish it on the iTunes Store, or Google Play and make millions of dollars in a flash! Money can sometimes be a good motivational factor for a some people. However, with a labor intensive job like game design where one must have a large amount of knowledge and dedication to get projects done on time, (or done at all!) it really helps if you’re already a gaming enthusiast.
If you already love video games and know which ones are popular and which ones are your favorites then you already have a basis of ideas for what makes a game fun. We’ve all seen and played horrible games made my companies that clearly had no passion for gaming, and no ideas for what constitutes as fun. Games like abysmal movie tie-in games, like anything made by LJN on the NES or Batman Forever for the Super Nintendo, or shovelware crap like Ninjabread Man for the Wii. And if you do love video games, chances are you’ll never stop exposing yourself to games new and old alike and do lots of research on video game history.
Learn the classics from every system and how the current systems came to be. Watch game reviews until your eyes bleed. Participate in community gaming events like hobbyist leagues, conventions, and tournaments and initiate and hold your own gaming events. Make fan films or animations about your favorite games, or write a blog or a song about them. Take advantage of sites that allow you to build and customize games like RPGmaker.
Communicate with fellow gamers over the internet using forums or chat rooms. Read top 100 lists for classic gaming systems. Spend discretionary income on classic gaming systems easily found online or at thrift stores, flea markets,pawn shops,garage sales, independent game shops, and used media outlets.
Gamer Culture Resources:
- http://www.gamasutra.com/ - A website founded in 1997 dedicated to news on gaming and game development.
- http://www.gamedev.net/page/index.html - A forum for Game Developers
- http://www.video-game-forums.com/ - A general video game forum covering all modern systems and more
- http://kotaku.com/ - A popular game news blog
- http://destructoid.com/ - Another popular gaming blog
- http://www.ign.com/ - A gaming news website, I stopped taking the articles seriously but it’s stil a good resource for video game reviews and footage.
- http://www.gametrailers.com/ - A streaming video site focusing on upcoming game trailers and original content.
- http://cinemassacre.com/http:// - The home of the Angry Video Game Nerd. A film maker who focuses on comedic entertaining retro game reviews.
- www.newgrounds.com/ - A source for original flash games, animation,art and music generated by users for users.
- http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming - Part of the wonderful web aggregator reddit. This is their largest general gaming community.
- http://boards.4chan.org/v/ - A source for orginal content and discussions, though generally NSFW you can find some gold posted sometimes.
- http://rpgmaker.net/ - A community for playing and making your own Role Playing Games using existing game engines.
- http://www.sploder.com/ - A community for making your own general games from engines.
Programming
- One big aspect of game development is computer programming.For learning programming at a fundamental level and to make a large library of software and resources available to your disposal instantaneously, you should definitely check out free and open source software. For computer gaming development open source can provide such tools as easy to learn programming languages like Python and Lua. You also have text editors such as Emacs, and Gedit to write your software.
There are also free operating systems to run your software such as GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu, and Linux Mint. Or, there are BSD and other operating systems, which are known as “Unix-like”, for sort of emulating or performing similarly to an older proprietary (as in not free) operating system called Unix. The beauty of free software from a programmer’s standpoint is that free software is not only free as in no charge, but that the program’s source code, (sort of like a recipe for a program) is made freely available so that you can observe it, study it, correct flaws, and do with it what you wish so long as you maintain the rights of others to do the same.
- If programming is a part of game design that really interests you, be advised programming is very math heavy and you should try learning all the arithmetic you can.
Programming Resources:
- http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html - A programming guide by the well known author and software developer Eric S. Raymond
- http://www.youtube.com/user/antiRTFM?feature=watch - A youtube user who provides good guides on multiple programming languages.
- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming - A wiki for Super Nintendo Homebrew Programming, a good learning experience and fun for retro enthusiats
- http://gamedev.allusion.net/softprj/kos/ - A web page for a homrbrew Sega Dreamcast operating system called KallistiOS.
- https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#referencelibrary/GettingStarted/RoadMapiOS/Introduction/Introduction.html - An introduction to developing Apps for Apple’s iOS that powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
- http://www.htdp.org/2003-09-26/Book/curriculum-Z-H-1.html#node_toc_start - An expansive guide on developing programs that focuses on small fundemental details.
Python Programming
Python, Blender and PyGame
- The language I started learning with, and the language that I’ve seen in a lot of research as being easy to learn even for people who have no experience in programming is python. Python is a general purpose programming language that is included in the default installations of many common operating systems such as Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X.
Python Links
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKTZoB2Vjuk&feature=channel - Google’s own Python Class
- http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ - A completely free and expansive book on learning to program in python.
- http://www.pygame.org/news.html - A development environment that provides tools for designing games with the python language.
- http://rene.f0o.com/mywiki/PythonGameProgramming - A tutorial for both the Python language and PyGame.
- http://txzone.net/2012/01/introducing-python-for-android/ - A tool made for the purpose of converting a python application into a program for Google Android Devices.
- http://inventwithpython.com/ - A free online book that teaches python programming and game design with python.
HTML Design
Another good skill to have for game development is web development! Naturally after you’ve made a game you’re going to want to share it with people. Whether as open source, or for profit itself, a website is a good way to generate a passive income stream so that you can focus on your new passion and hobby of game development. You can do lots of things with your game on the web like advertising, developer’s logs, uploading video trailers, etc. The most basic and fundamental skill you will need for web development is knowing how to write in HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language. Much like a programming language this is what every website is written in.
HTML Tutorials
http://code.google.com/edu/submissions/html-css-javascript/Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, and Creativity
- Game design generates many technical problems that can only be solved with a sharp mind that’s capable of solving difficult problems, and critical thinking is necessary to come up with scenarios and characters that would fit well within gameplay mechanics and hardware limitations. Creativity in all different aspects as well would be beneficial to game design, anything from drawing to creative writing, to musical ability, etc all wind up in one form or another with game design.
- Another aspect of this is being well rounded. Learn as much as you can about whatever you want and don’t stop thirsting for knowledge and new experiences. The more you understand about the world and what goes on in it the more ideas and experience you can put into great gaming experiences. Even Shigeru Miyamoto used something as simple as a scary dog bite as a child as an inspiration for the character chain-chomp. The creator of earthbound based the main enemy of it’s game, Giygas as a distorted memory he had of a rape scene from a vintage japanese snuff film. The world all around us if filled with a wealth of ideas and it takes a creative mind to copy, transform, and combine all kinds of different elements into something new and exciting.
Artistic Abilities
Maybe programming isn’t your thing, and you wouldn’t want to be a producer. Maybe you want to design levels, or characters, or costumes. Maybe you want to design the box art or instruction manual for a game. Visual arts is one of the biggest parts of Video Game Design from Graphic Arts to Multi-Media Design. As such you should have functional knowledge of drawing techniques and fundamental elements, as well as being familiar with visual art software such as Adobe Photoshop.
Artistic Resources:
- http://dev.drawspace.com/ - Basic Drawing Lessons.
- http://www.drawright.com/ - Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain by Betty Edwards is a highly regarded book that looks at the technique of combining elements from an artistic work and viewing them as parts of a whole piece.
- http://www.creativecrash.com/ - A community for Computer Graphics Software
- http://www.good-tutorials.com/ - A website full of user submitted tutorials for Adobe Photoshop
- http://www.gimp.org/ - A free and open source alternative to the commecial graphics editor Adobe Photoshop.
- www.blender.org - Blender is a free and Open-source 3D image editor and animator written in Python. Blender can be used for video effects, CGI Animation, and Video Game Development.
Schooling
Maybe teaching yourself isn’t for you but you’re still interested in pursuing a career in game design. Here is a list of colleges that you can research for further information on an education in the field of Game Design.
Good article with lots of links; much love.
ReplyDeleteExpect a game with Vocaloid and firearms, on Newgrounds, by some dude with a name based in chemistry.