Developing a game

Have you ever decided to make a game? If yes, did you finish it? What kind of game was it? :)

@tilenm: I had an iphone game developed at one stage, and use to program small flash games online :) Simple 2D scroller types. I can make 3D models so I'm currently looking into playing around with the unreal 4 Engine

@aki2017: So great man! So is your aim to make money off a game development?

@tilenm: Thanks! Oh it's more for fun at this point. Don't know anything about marketing and exposure :) Learned that the hard way with the iphone game hahaha. Do you do any game development?

I have made a fighting game. Unfortunately, it's only on the programming side that it "works". Like Aki2017 said, I'm doing it mostly for fun because I dont have many art assets, also I don't know how the market works.

Anywho sometime down the line in the future I want to start doing a small platforming game.

I made a few short games in RPG Maker 2000, when I got bored of it I started trying to build prototypes for all kinds of stuff like an ATB battle system or a Harvest Moon game. The Harvest Moon game actually had potential, but the artist left the project after losing a lot of work when his PC crashed ... he said. Later I started working on a Java (yeah I know, stupid choice) project to build a SRPG. The scope I wanted it to be was way to high, but I did make some small thing to show where I wanted to go with it. It became to much work though. I also created some small crap games in Flash and for a work during my study I created a 2D space shooter with a friend. Nothing is really noteworthy, I guess the space shooter is the best of it. I also did other stuff like a metal community website for Switzerland, it was actually pretty popular for such a small scene. But my team and I just didn't have the time to keep it alive and so it died slowly.

Hi guys, I haven't done any games yet. I didn't have any course in programming as well. However, I am very interested in making games. I was just wondering if making simple games would take me to study a course, or can I learn something about it from internet? I just want a start up for this.

@aki2017: Well I hope you manage to turn this around, but having it as a hobby is great as well! ;) I actually just got into it, yes. I'm in the marketing section of a Young indie team, so my main objective is actually going to be what you said you are missing :P But I'm also starting to learn how to do textures, so hopefully I'll be useful on more areas soon. ^^

@outworld222: Well it's something nonetheless! In which language are you programming? :)

@ArchoNils2: That's a damn shame, man. If you'll ever look for a team to start fresh,, let me know. There are some great sites and forums where you can search for all kinds of people. I was actually a part of a project (which turned down South about 2 months ago) where we were able to build a team of 35 people and they were all willing to work for free. You'd be amazed how many peope, skilled people are willing to join to get some experience.

@graysmith08: Not at all. There are some good books you can find online that help a lot. There are also good courses on YouTube, so there's that. But if you have money for a paid course, it certainly wouldn't hurt to try it out. Let me know if you need any help with finding the books and yt courses. I can ask our programmers about that stuff if you want me to and get you the links.

@tilenm:

I had one rpg on the pc, still do but I'm stuck in a writer's block. But like Toby Fox, I'm going out on this by myself because I don't like depending on other people. It's been on hiatus for almost a decade though. :( These days, there are many developers out there willing to let the public use their game engines to make videogames with little to no programming experience. For a small fee, of course. Rpg maker is a popular one, and also game maker. Some success stories from those programs include Corpse Party and Undertale. Seeing how popular they got and how strong their fanbases became, really gives me hope!

It really depends on what you want to do. If you use tools like Unity or Unreal Engine, they already take a lot of work away from you and you will find stuff other people created you can tweak. If you want to get into it slowly, I actually suggest any recent version of the RPG Maker. It comes with enough assets to build whatever you want. It comes with a very easy way to build logic. But you can then go into the code you generated and work in there. So if you have a smiple event like "Press button in front of NPC, show Textbox with "Hello" and move NPC 3 squares away". You can actually check what code was generated out of it.

Currently I'm the Lead Programmer for a core system of a big bank here in Switzerland. So I do already develop software most of my time :D I do have some private projects from time to time. I had the biggest Pokemon Go Map in my region for a while or build a website to coordinate the my wedding. If there would be a project that really interestes me, I might be willing to work from it. The main problem is, that I only really enjoy some niche genres. I don't want to be part of Zombi Shooter 235423 or Asset Flip 135425. I'd rather want to work on something creative or a nische genre, maybe something that doesn't even really exist? I do back a lot that looks interesting on Kickstarter.

@tilenm: C++

Hey @tilenm

I know developing a good game, but I am worried about creating a trailer can you help me out with it!

I really don't have enough money to study a course yet, but am planning to. And if you can provide me some links that can help me in learning some skills about it, I will greatly appreciate it.

What I want is to learn the basics for now. I'm curious about the RPG Maker that you mentioned. I was wondering if it was like a software, or just to be used in the website. Anyway, thanks.

@killered3: Well I certainly hope for the best and wish you all the luck! :)

@ArchoNils2: I see you are very busy as it is! :P In what language are you programming?

@sonakshi: Hi! What do you need help with? The tools for creating a trailer or an idea on what to focus on?

@graysmith08: Hey again. So I asked our lead programmer about how could a newbie programmer like you start off and this was his reply:

"If he wants to end up making games, I suggest to start with C. And move on to C# and start using Unity.

There are two main things about Programming. Syntax and Algorithms. Syntax is basically how you write a line of code.

Algorithms is like the soul of programming. If you know how to create algorithms to solve problems, you can do whatever you want to do with the code.

Then there are other things like Object orientated programming. But they come later down the line when he starts using c#. Once he learns that, every language will feel familiar to him.(edited)Alternatively he can start with HTML to get basic idea about programming. It just takes like a hour to learn. Pretty easy stuff.

Theres this site called Khan academy. He can try that. Or enroll in a coursera course (you only pay if you want a certificate).I also bookmarked a comment on Programming I found a few months ago on Reddit. (prepare yourself for wall of text)

Programming isn't just syntax and compilers, it's a whole logical thought process that shares the same process of building a home. You must have a great foundation of what computing is, how pieces work and how to really think abstractly.

Programming is great because there is never the "best" solution to a problem, Yeah you can get that algorithm down to O(1) but you always strive to do it better, faster, larger scale then before even if before was the best.

Programming teaches you how to think differently. It teaches you to think abstractly and more of the how does this work, and the big why does it work this way. Your total thought process becomes a puzzle that you are constantly trying to solve.

Programming also teaches you patience, Programming is one of the most stressful and aggravating things you can ever do. Some people try it once and think what the ****! I can't do this! then give up. Others will excel at the theories behind computer science but during implementation time, they become overwhelmed and let their code "run-away" from them. (Run-away means you lose the complete picture of what you are trying to create and solve)

Example: yeah you need to create that round-robin scheduling algorithm? Okay what is that? You look it up and say okay cool easy to do, a less experienced programmer will Google what it is, then try to implement it, normally they will not end up getting the problem the 1st compile, that's okay! we are suppose to do incremental testing anyway! They try to see what the error or unexpected output is. Yeah, you can figure out where you're missing that } or ;, but what happens when your program gives you 5 instead of the 3 you were looking for?

Most unskilled programmers become frustrated, start doubting yourself then you just become flushed and become scouring google for more examples until you just try to copy and paste code into your program. This is your code getting away from you, you now have no clue what is what, where is this method? This is where most programmers give up, they can't figure it out.

A skilled and experienced programmer knows how to let there mind run free, they don't let problems and code run-away from them. They understand the complete picture and knows the what and how of a FIFO Queue, Stack, Binary Tree, Linked List. How arrays work, what datatypes are best, what looping structures are better.

This is something that comes with experience, not one day of googling and understanding that.

Everyone can become a "programmer". Syntax and algorithms will come with time, but patience and your thirst for success must be something you stride for."

The languages I know best are Java and PHP. But I have written code in all sorts of languages like assembly, c++, c sharp, asp, python, jython or perl. And of corse some lolcode ;)

Wow. Thank you so much for this encouraging message. Will make sure to keep this in mind while doing my research. I have this longing for solving things out. And, I really would want to learn. I will have to learn some basics now start with C. Thanks again.

@tilenm: Oh nice! Best of luck :D Is the game on Kickstarter or anything to check out? Might need to keep you as a contact if u know how to market properly hahaha. Texturing is hard to start with but gets easier as you progress.

@ArchoNils2: Cool! We're coding in c# and we're currently searching for a programmer. If you know anyone who wants to get some experience in game development, could you please direct him/her to me? We're searching for people who are willing to work to gather experience, but we have some pretty advanced programmers, modelers and concept artists that Will supervise them.

@graysmith08: No problem at all! I hope you make it. Best of luck with your career! ^^

@aki2017: Thanks! Not yet, but we plan to do a kickstarter campaign. :) hehehe no problem, add me on Discord TilenM.#9751 if you want to! :)

@tilenm: Tell me more. What project are you working on? How far are you? How do you keep in touch with each other? Do you work with a concept? Is the concept being done while you code? Do you work with something like Scrum? How do you manage the Code? Git? Do you habe a Buildserver? Do you run tests automatically? do you have tester? What software are you using? Jira, Bitbucket and Bamboo? Do you check the quality of the code with something like Sonar? What does the programmer have to do?

@ArchoNils2: We're working on 2.5D platformer and we expect to release it in about a year or a year and a half. It's metroidvania based in futuristicish time and it follows a story of a teenage girl that lost her mother to a government research facility and is on her quest to get her payback. We are still in the beginning stages actually, we have some concept art and basic movement scripts done and some lore, but that's about it for now. We were actually first working on a MMORPG - we were actually able to recruit a team of 35 Young enthusiasts that were all working for free and the team was from all over the world (literally all continents were covered). But we soon came to realize that working on a project that big and with no personal contact except Discord server it would be an eutopia to finish it in under 10 years (we wanted to have it done in 4). Also, some members were completely unresponsible and unserious, so we decided to break the project, take 15 of the best people with us and start on a new, much smaller one, so here we are now. We are currently at 18 members covering all areas - programmers, concept artists, one texture guy, one composer, modlers, sculpturers, animators and lore writers (I myself am responsible for the marketing, I wish to make a career in digital marketing in case my History uni degree which I'm working on doesn't pay off, and that's a perfect and free opportunity. I also help with the story, recruiting and project managment). As said, we are all conected through Discord by type chat, but we have a general voice meeting 1 or 2 times per month. We use Google docs to keep the work organized and the team is also using Git. The programmers are writing in C# in Unity. We are not yet at the stage whe're we need testers tho and all the requiered tests for the code are done by programmers. For more info you can add me on Discord, I'll be glad to talk further about the game. ^^ (It's Tilen M.#9751 and NOT TilenM.#9751)