Tips for a wannabe gamedev

[tritosine2k]

(...) as the future looks grim. (...).

(...)
And assets are great to have. You can use and re-use them throughout many projects, piece them together as you need to have a mockup that can be shown around to people.
The most important part is proving to others (and perhaps yourself) that it's not just another vaporware.

seconded, absolutely go for that
&
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/posts/7664380/
<--
strongly suggest going for content like this, you can have fun with it even without a game as background, like setting google earth to 10 FOV* (minimum) and match some IRL area you like with its demolished/swapped counterpart. It's not hard to look better than google earth's 3D. This might even convince peers/family much earlier than whatever number-crunching gimmick-mojo.

* https://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2014/10/using-kml-change-field-view-google-earth.html

 

[bionicman]

Exactly what it says on the title. What advice and recommendations would you Codexers give to someone with little experience to programming interested in making a rpg?
Which game engine is more noob-friendly? Godot? Unity? Gamemaker? Should one aim for a free engine, or is one that requires buying like Gamemaker infinitely better?

Pick a game engine which would save you the most time. The popular ones are popular for exactly that reason (Godot, Unity, Unreal, etc) so pick one of those and stick with it. For indies, time is most expensive since the teams are small (Age of decadence took, I don't remember, 10(?) years to make, with only a few team members).

What if someone wanted to make a game with non-standard game elements like the "odometer-style numbers" system from the Earthbound series, which hasn't been used much in other games if I'm not mistaken?

Like spectre said in this thread, ideas don't really matter much in the games market, unless yours is *revolutionary* but also executed perfectly. Just because you have a good idea doesn't mean it will sell, e.g. infiniminer was minecraft before minecraft but was overshadowed by the latter cause of worse execution). When it comes to success of indies, the most successful ones are visually interesting in some way (whether it's aesthetically beautiful or intricate/interesting enough), so focus on the visuals.

What about music? Is it harder or easier to implement compared to graphics and animation?

Depending on what your skill in music-making is and what sort of music you aim to make (also the difficulty of making graphics and animation varies too based on 9999 factors)... Just by asking this I assume you have 0 knowledge and skill, so best would be to hire a musician (or do what Jeff Vogel does: no music in the game, just some free track from the web on the main menu).

If you want to game dev, the best thing you should do is: participate in game jams with a deadline (this will pressure you to finish a game on time and be aware of your own abilities, i.e. how much you can make in a certain amount of time). That's what helped me the most anyways.

 

[spectre]

Yeah, music is that one thing that's easy to overlook, yet a game like TFTD would be half as scary without that soundtract, which was specifically designed to build tension and work the way it does.
Still, sound design typically comes later down the pipeline, so it's excusable. You get some visuals, tell the musician what you want, show them the art so they can get their groove on.

And since we're now talking about assets, one more thing to pay attention is copyright. I've seen my share of drama when 3D modellers were caught snagging shit off turbosquid, claiming its their own.
Unfucking that ate a lot of progress. Sadly, as the project lead you need to develop an eye for this, because copyright claims is something that can sour your morning drink.
You can trust what you develop yourself, but you should still keep the source files around (what you need is to be able to prove incremental progress) in case some dumbfuck decides to steal your shit.
Demand the same from your teammates and make it crystal clear who gets to own what, sign paperwork if you need to, so if they leave they don't peddle it to the next guy's project.

 

[J1M]

Hard not to recommend Godot for 2d games. The script language it uses is similar enough to python that it translates well to a real world skill and the engine is gaining a lot of popularity with indies.

And you have the option of scripting in C#.

 

[Zanzoken]

I know Reddit is cancer but I have found r/gamedev has a surprising amount of helpful information. Just ignore the political discussions about the game industry and look for threads linking to free assets and tutorials (they are typically among the most up voted).

Kenney.nl is a good resource if you just need basic free assets for prototyping, placeholders, or hobbyist projects. They also have a couple of neat tools for asset creation... they're not free but if you want to make your own low-poly 3D models then they're the easiest method I've seen.

There also seems to be a plethora of free / cheap music and sound effects out there, so I'd probably look to utilize those unless you're already skilled in those areas.

The challenge with using third-party assets in professional projects seems to be (1) the time you spend sifting through them all to find what you need, and (2) making sure your game maintains a cohesive style and doesn't feel like a bunch of store-bought stuff thrown together.

 

[J1M]

Ideas are very important. The advice that ideas are worthless was potentially true decades ago, but the workers in the game industry are different now. In the days when that advice originated, there were new genres and game modes being invented every year. The industry has been in a period of stagnation for some time now. People are hungry for novel experiences.

As a counterpoint I will give you this list of flawed recent games that introduced people to new ideas and spawned entire genres:
-Slay the Spire (Card Battler)
-Defense of the Ancients (MOBA)
-Auto Chess (Auto Battler)
-PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (Battle Royale)
-Dark Souls (3rd-person Wait, Dodge, Wait, Action)
-Cookie Clicker (Idler)
-DayZ (Survival)
-[Who cares, really?] (Walking simulator)

That said, for learning how to make games, ideas aren't important and you should start by trying to clone another game. Once you have learned some skills, try your hand at one of your ideas.

 

[Catacombs]

Just ignore the political discussions about the game industry and look for threads linking to free assets and tutorials (they are typically among the most up voted).

That goes for all subreddits. Too many people get into their feelings about the posters on that site.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ideas are very important.

People skills are also very important. If you're really good you don't even have to write code yourself but can copy it from someone else in the office. Just like school assignments.

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Exactly what it says on the title. What advice and recommendations would you Codexers give to someone with little experience to programming interested in making a rpg?
Which game engine is more noob-friendly? Godot? Unity? Gamemaker? Should one aim for a free engine, or is one that requires buying like Gamemaker infinitely better?

What if someone wanted to make a game with non-standard game elements like the "odometer-style numbers" system from the Earthbound series, which hasn't been used much in other games if I'm not mistaken?

What about music? Is it harder or easier to implement compared to graphics and animation?

Just to know.

Find a game you enjoy and would want to work on yourself. Then look at the credits and the time it took to make.
If you want to make a game by yourself, then find a game one person made in a reasonable period of time. For example, Magicite.
No, you will not make some special system to make an MMORPG by yourself. No, you are not better than professional game developers.
Yes, you can make a fun game. Just be realistic.

Lots of great indie games are a total mess under the hood. That isn't good but it doesn't really matter. It's a game. I have seen the source files of award winning games and they look like dog vomit. Nobody cares, the game is fun.
Aim to do things well but shippable is all that matters in the end.

Pick an art style that is production friendly. Do not make something that requires 10,000 ZBrushed-to-hell retopo-ed Substance Paintered models. 3D is fine, just keep it simpler. 2D is also fine.

Unity and Unreal are not necessarily the best engines for total noobs. They may not even be right for your game.
If you do choose something like Unity, can you get a plugin that does 90% of what your game needs? And can you just drop the 10% that the plugin doesn't do?
Professional game developers compromise like that all the time. That's how they ship games. They work with what they are given and drop things that are too hard, too broken or take too long to finish. They also ship with bugs.
Love2D might be a better choice if you are ok without a graphical interface. Defold is another Lua engine that might be better for you.

Maybe you don't even need a game engine. Could you make an RPG in something like Yarn? Yes, you could. I recommend you read the blog posts of Choice Of Games who have made some successful interactive novels.

If you want to make a non-standard game UI, accept that it will probably suck unless you get a lot of feedback and testing. Will people test your game for you? Maybe, maybe not.

Get constructive critique and APPLY it. Don't bother getting critique if you are just going to blow it off and not make changes.
People that can take critique and apply that critique to their work are rare. Most people throw a fit and say the critique is stupid and you are a meanie. If you can take critique, you will improve 100x faster.
Learn to separate the critique from the person. Sometimes the biggest asshole will have the most helpful critique. I love blunt honest critiques.

Music isn't harder or easier than graphics, it's just different. It does take up a lot of room on disk so be prepared for big file sizes if you are doing anything with samples or non-chiptunes.

Do NOT stream your work online on Twitch or some other platform. You will just be answering dumb questions and killing time. None of those people will buy your game.

Do NOT talk about what you are going to do. When you talk about your plans, you lose motivation to actually finish them.
Keep it to yourself, then post the completed work, get critique, and apply the changes. Repeat until done.

Don't stress about one project. Each project builds on the last. Don't think you need to make a masterpiece. Just make something. Then another thing. Etc.

95% of people will hate your work. That's normal. Don't worry about it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

o, you are not better than professional game developers

Have you seen the crap they put out lately?

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Have you seen the crap they put out lately?

No

 

[Burning Bridges]

Unity and Unreal are not necessarily the best engines for total noobs.

This sentence carries so much irony.

Have you seen the crap on Steam lately? 99% look like someone started indeed as a total noob, got carried away by a few sample apps and the immense "ease" with which they are created, then found out he couldn't progress further and eventually lost interest. It's like someone was fooled by a sales video for "learn any language in 21 days", then immediately began a career as interpreter and now his clients go nuts because he sends text through google translate.

 

[Krice]

I would start from the design. First a generic idea of the game world, what it's about (and never change this idea during the development). Then I would design ten distinct creature types, including the player (if humanoid, then human is a good generic race to start). The design at this point doesn't need to be detailed, but after than I would begin the real development by starting to add RPG stuff one thing at a time. Hit points, stats etc. and make them actually work. After that the essential part is combat, how it works. You could test it without even creating any kind of actual game, just make game object data attack other entity and show debug messages how it works. Everything should be easier if you get to this point, because you know the most important part of the gameplay more or less works and you can start adding more stuff.

It's quite common that people get this backwards. They think game design is easy and programming/graphics/etc. is hard, but especially programming is really easy compared to a good game design.

 

[spectre]

People are hungry for novel experiences.

Not sure what people are hungry for. So why the fuck I'm quoting this?
What I think is this, people will buy (perhaps play; presumptuous, I know) what's popular, what youtubers tell them to play.
Case in point: Among Us. Wasn't the first game in its genre, arguably isn't even the best in the genre.
It was carried entirely by stremers, memes, and all that viral stuff old farts like me won't get.

Baba is You is definitely one of the most innovative games I've seen in recent years.
I don't think it was a big hit, nor is it ever going to go viral like the above.
People (me included) just go: oh, that's so adorable and clever. Everyone should at least have a go at it.
Then they play a few levels, maybe, and never mention it again.

Question is, to what extent should you consider mass appeal as an indie dev?
What about making a game you will want to play yourself (you should still bounce it off some serious criticism)?

I know I was the first one to bash ideas in this thread. Let me rephrase myself:
If you decided to get into game development, you probably have this idea in your head about the game you want to make.
It can be vague or very specific. Doesn't matter. This idea is sacred, hold on to it'll be the guiding light along your journey.

What matters is perspective. The idea needs to be tempered by your knowledge of what is feasible - your own abilities and limitations of the medium.
You should be open to the concept that "your" idea has already been tried by someone. We're not the unique snowflakes we like to think we are.
I've had this happen numerous times. I entertained a buch of ideas for a short story in my head, only to discover some no-name schmuck already published that
in a Sci-Fi anthology in the 1980s. My ideas were still mine and I cherish them for it, but it gave me an interesting perspective, comparing an actually made thing with an idea in my head.
I keep beating around the bush, so what I'm trying to say here is best summarized by the man TS Eliot himself:
“Immature [ ] imitate; mature [ ] steal; bad [ ] deface what they take, and good [ ] make it into something better, or at least something different.”
He obviously said this about poets, but if you ad-lib it with, say, game designers, the message still rings true for me.
Innovation for innovation's sake has always been a dead-end concept for me. Feel free to disagree.
But in the context of a wannabe gamedev, you first learn the notes then you improvise.

As a counterpoint I will give you this list of flawed recent games that introduced people to new ideas and spawned entire genres:
-Slay the Spire (Card Battler)
-Defense of the Ancients (MOBA)
-Auto Chess (Auto Battler)
-PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (Battle Royale)
-Dark Souls (3rd-person Wait, Dodge, Wait, Action)
-Cookie Clicker (Idler)
-DayZ (Survival)
-[Who cares, really?] (Walking simulator)

I know it's splitting hairs, but I see a lot of this stuff as a refinement of older ideas.
First MOBA was a Warcraft mod, someone had the good idea to throw out all the regular units and focus on heroes... and it somehow worked even better for a lot of people.
My point, it was built on an existing system, didn't come out of nowhere.
Slay the Spire immediately made me think about Etherlords,
There were plenty of 3D hack and slash games similar Dark Souls, especially if you consider the consoles. Personally, I am reminded a lot of Rune.
Battle royale is not a new concept, plenty of multiplayer games had king of the hill modes.
Survival games - there was this oldie, Robinson's Requiem. We weren't ready for it back then. DayZ isn't at all like RR, but a lot of the games in the genre are.
Walking simulators - makes me think of those adventure games of the early CD-ROM era which were all graphics, but very little gameplay.

Not saying there wasn't any innovation, progress or breaking new ground in gaming, just pointing out that sometimes you just make something new of an existing idea
rather than re-invent the wheel. Sometimes the technology isn't there, other times the target audience isn't there, so perhaps luck is a factor.

That said, for learning how to make games, ideas aren't important and you should start by trying to clone another game. Once you have learned some skills, try your hand at one of your ideas.

I actually don't disagree with you J1M. First you learn, then you make your dream game. It's a process. Cheers.

 

[Zanzoken]

Baba is You is definitely one of the most innovative games I've seen in recent years.
I don't think it was a big hit, nor is it ever going to go viral like the above.

I agree with a lot of what you posted, but not this. For an 8-bit puzzle game made by one guy, Baba is You is an overwhelming commercial success.

As is often the case I couldn't find official sales numbers, but we can fall back on the two common methods for estimating PC game sales.

1) Steamspy, which estimates between 500k and 1M owners.
2) Number of Steam reviews (in this case 12,885) multiplied by 50, which generates an estimate of 644k copies sold.

Even if the majority of those were on sale, the developer made enough off the game that he should never have to worry about money again. As an indie dev that's like hitting the lottery.

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Baba Is You was made with Multimedia Fusion 2. You can make a cool game with pretty much any engine.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, but who actually plays this shit?

 

[spectre]

I agree with a lot of what you posted, but not this. For an 8-bit puzzle game made by one guy, Baba is You is an overwhelming commercial success.

Well, I couldn't get the actual sales stats as well, I was mostly gauging popularity using steam charts peak players and averaging at 200-400 players it's obviously past the obscure indie treshold, but i've seen it featured on steam a few times, so that's expected. These are far from big boy numbers though (IIRC, Fallout 3 of has similar stats in present year, of all things).
Still, you are probably right, it did far better than I thought it had any right to.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

One thing you should keep in mind once you get to develop an RPG -- content is king and shouldn't be rushed.

Good level / encounter design can elevate a mechanically inferior game, but if they suck, they'll drag a superior game down.

 

[Barrishimi]

Wanting to make a RPG, hey? COOL! I use RPG Maker MV --- which uses a pretty basic form of JavaScript and is SUPER easy to learn how to do switches, events and even cutscenes. Dialogue, adding characters, and even adding custom enemies and even music is possible. Good luck!!

 

[lightbane]

Thanks for the help so far! I'll have all of that in mind if/once I make something. Initially I considered writing an interactive story (a "quest" if you know the term) for some of the ideas to see how these go, but obviously they need rework as a story for a game wont' work for a quest (or a book). What do you guys think?

Changing the topic, what should I do regarding social media? Thankfully I have little interaction with it, but it seems to be a necessity if you wish to promote a game. Any hints regarding that? Just to know.
Related to that, what should I do if I ever came across the Woke Brigade's wrath? These people are always looking for someone to blame for any reason, real or invented, and nowadays it seems the "just ignore them bro!" tactic doesn't work that much, as they can and will fabricate evidence, exaggerating stuff or warping it as necessary, if they can't find anything about you online (or simply attack you in your private life). The "worst" thing I done online, besides being a RPGCodex member and despising the alphabet group for the blatant encroaching they're doing, is to write some stories in a few forums here and there. Your thoughts?

 

[spectre]

When it comes to the woke crowd, I think you worry too much. Especially if you're not American. Let these cunts boil in the shitstew of their own making.
If you're from Spain, just tell them you're latinx and throw in some comemierdas and culos for good measure. You are now immune to their bullshit.

Jokes aside, the more troublesome lot don't even play video games, so a small project shouldn't attact any unwanted attention. You'll worry about it when you're famous.
You'll quickly burn out losing all that time shitposting rather than learning or working, and once you start doing the latter in earnest, you probably won't have too much time to waste
on social media. I'd keep those activities to the minimum, and your messages laconic, so that people who are interested can at least google you.
When it comes to advertising, I think it's better to find some indie-friendly streamers and throw some freebies at them, so they'll do the work for you.
Especially if you don't consider yourself a social media animal, or have trouble keeping your opinions to yourself.

 

[Catacombs]

despising the alphabet group for the blatant encroaching they're doing

 

[CanadianCorndog]

Thanks for the help so far! I'll have all of that in mind if/once I make something. Initially I considered writing an interactive story (a "quest" if you know the term) for some of the ideas to see how these go, but obviously they need rework as a story for a game wont' work for a quest (or a book). What do you guys think?

Changing the topic, what should I do regarding social media? Thankfully I have little interaction with it, but it seems to be a necessity if you wish to promote a game. Any hints regarding that? Just to know.
Related to that, what should I do if I ever came across the Woke Brigade's wrath? These people are always looking for someone to blame for any reason, real or invented, and nowadays it seems the "just ignore them bro!" tactic doesn't work that much, as they can and will fabricate evidence, exaggerating stuff or warping it as necessary, if they can't find anything about you online (or simply attack you in your private life). The "worst" thing I done online, besides being a RPGCodex member and despising the alphabet group for the blatant encroaching they're doing, is to write some stories in a few forums here and there. Your thoughts?

Social media is a waste of time other than blasting screenshots and videos of your work. TURN OFF COMMENTS. The people on Reddit/Twitter/etc. are just looking for people to attack. They aren't even interested in games.

Don't piss away your time on Twitch either. It's a time sink and the 20 or so people who hang out there watching game development are irrelevant.

Places with fans of a genre, like RPGCodex, are infinitely better and will give you valuable feedback. Just don't shit on other developers like you see in company specific threads.

A great 30 second video with gameplay is what appeals to fans of games. Get help if you suck.
Videos with pseudo-Pixar animation and animated stories work for people that don't play games but if they miraculously download your game they won't stick around. No retention.

Don't be afraid to juice up your promo videos! Add extra vfx, blood, explosions, magic, whatever. Make it over the top, especially on Steam which skews to an older demographic. Appeal to gamers. If you get them to download, and the game is decent, you can have solid retention.

Advertise your game around other games in the same genre. Don't advertise your RPG next to a sports game.

Streamers can be good if your game is good. If your game sucks, you won't see a bump. Just don't blame the streamer.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Changing the topic, what should I do regarding social media? Thankfully I have little interaction with it, but it seems to be a necessity if you wish to promote a game. Any hints regarding that? Just to know.
Related to that, what should I do if I ever came across the Woke Brigade's wrath? These people are always looking for someone to blame for any reason, real or invented, and nowadays it seems the "just ignore them bro!" tactic doesn't work that much, as they can and will fabricate evidence, exaggerating stuff or warping it as necessary, if they can't find anything about you online (or simply attack you in your private life). The "worst" thing I done online, besides being a RPGCodex member and despising the alphabet group for the blatant encroaching they're doing, is to write some stories in a few forums here and there. Your thoughts?

You worry too much, especially at this point. You're here to make games, not to deal with this crowd.

As long as you stay professional with your customers, you're going to be fine. Just get ready to deal with tough situations once in a while.

Streamers can be good if your game is good. If your game sucks, you won't see a bump. Just don't blame the streamer.

You're oversimplifying, since that statement is only true if your game is suitable for streaming. Some games are more interesting to play than to watch someone play them.