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.
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”
Look at the gource utility commit visualization history of some open source games.
Either you learn how to make the assets, use free ones, buy them or commission someone.
Hard to believe, because it’s such a high quality product. But every asset used in Diarrhea 4 was free. Apart from the fart noises. Those were made entirely by me.
Damn they made four of those turds? Series could have ended at #2, was the real high point.
If you can’t hash out the idea then so you have a right to even try and make a game?
This is the most important thing I see here, because the answer is always ‘yes’. Of course you have the right. Start where you’re at and figure out what you need as you go along. Your first attempt might not work, but what you learn from it will be invaluable.
As far as art goes, you can either find someone who is excited to work on it with you in their spare time (difficult to find), or pay an artist whose style you like to create art for you (possibly expensive). If you do the latter, it’s best to wait until you have a clear idea of what you’ll need so you don’t end up paying for assets you won’t use.
One thing you can do right now is create a design document. This is basically just a long, detailed description of what you would like your game to be: specific mechanics and systems you want to include, what the gameplay loop will be, the audiovisual style, everything. Include images mood-board style for your future artist(s). This document will give you an idea of the assets you’ll need, as well as what you’ll need to learn as far as coding. It doesn’t have to be followed to the letter, but it’s a good place to start.
Thanks.
This is very insightful and I hadn’t really considered a design document so I’ll look into the structure of those and hash out something.
One thing I’ll throw out there is while there are rare cases where a solo dev really does everything themselves, when you see a really ambitious looking result from a supposedly solo dev, it’s very likely they either contracted things out, bought/found assets, or had on and off help from people. It’s only solo in the sense it’s their vision and they get to put things together/make all the final calls on the game.
Making stuff solo is hard. I’m doing it right now and I’m purposely trying to use a lot of stock assets for art and music because the game alone is already a massive task by itself. Don’t be afraid to use what’s out there. If your game feels good to play most people will never worry about whether you hand built every blade of grass. In other words, go for as small a scope as you can, and don’t be afraid to cut corners.
Thanks. This is likely very true, I think Stardew Valley is a game where the dude did it all, but I guess that’s the exception and most games are collaborative efforts.
If you end up going in the Godot direction, a friend of mine has some useful tools to easily get started on animation rigging and controllers here.
He got started a couple years ago with no game dev experience, and he’s done a couple of game jams recently, but most of his time has been spent building workflow tools. A couple months ago he finally got around working on one of the original games that he’s wanted to make since he started.
People like that really aren’t fair, are they? Save some talent for the rest of us. 😅
It’s worth noting the dude worked his ass off and had financial support to pay living expenses from his partner:
For four years, he says, he worked an average of ten hours a day, seven days a week, on Stardew Valley. Luckily, he was living with his girlfriend, a graduate student in, appropriately, plant biology, and to help stay afloat he worked part-time as an usher at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre
Not diminishing his accomplishments at all, but I think it’s always good to compare effort to effort, resources to resources, rather than simply team size. Most people can’t spend 4 years with that pace without investment backing.
