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No, really, you can! Well, probably. I hope Don’t go out looking for software and great - but don’t go on a recruitment
so anyway. That’s what I’m going to write books to buy, thinking that the more stuff drive. There are ways to cover for all the
about, so let’s just pretend I’m correct for you buy the better equipped you’ll be to skills you’re lacking. That way you can
the sake of argument. If you’re interested make games. All the software and in- start learning how to make games before
in making video games and are not do- formation you’re going to need to make you have to deal with how much of a bitch
ing so already, you’ve probably built up games is available on the internet for team management can be.
a bunch of reasons in your head for not free. You don’t need to spend any mon-
being able to make games. ey - it won’t give you a leg up. All you
need is self-motivation, and money can’t
The obvious one is that requires a lot of buy you that.
programming and that’s very hard work.
TIP #3
Let me tell you now that I’m a terrible
coder - so if I can somehow put a game
TIP #2 Tiny scope
together, so can you. The tools to make
games have become so simple over the
past few years that pretty much anyone Don't form
who has a basic grasp of logic can find a
tool that works for them. teams
TIP #1
Don't waste
money
You Can Make Video Games
years. I’m sure you’ve got a masterpiece the belief that it has to be brilliant can of lectures or books you can read on the
brewing in your head, but trying to make stop you from ever making anything. subject. In fact, let me give you the single
that right out of the gate will be a huge most important lesson in game design
disaster. Even if you finished it, which you you will ever hear:
probably wouldn’t, it would be a mess.
You need to come back to that later, once TIP #5
you’ve got some experience and have a
better idea what you’re doing.
Ditch the design
GAME DESIGN 101
document
1. There are no rules
TIP #4 to game design!
You don’t need a 20 page epic bible all
They’re not all about how your game is going to work. I
believe the best approach is almost al-
Braid
ways to try and get something playable
in a rough form as quickly as you possi- It’s definitely worth reading up online to
bly can. Once you can start playing your see what other people have to say about
game and experimenting with how you game design. There are a lot of forums,
can change it you are going to find a lot articles and video lectures on the topic
more ideas begin to flow. They’ll be bet- and understanding what people have to
Don’t feel under pressure to make your ter ideas than you’ll come up with star- say and why they’ve come to their opin-
first game into an amazingly original, ing a word processor trying to imagine in ions on the topic is helpful in understand-
clever, quirky breakthrough in video your head how the game will play. ing what’s important to you. However you
game design, or something that nobody shouldn’t get it into your head there are
has ever seen before. You can just pick Iterating over your game through lots of universal principles you need to follow.
a game genre that you love and have a different builds where you play with ide- Even for some of the most basic design
go at it. Whatever you make will be in- as and find out what does and doesn’t rules (games should be fun, accessible,
fused with your own style from how you work for you is going to teach you more completable or fair) I’ve always found
interpret that genre - and that’s enough. about game design than any well for- games that break that rule and are still
Agonising over the first step because of matted design document, any number amazing works.
Game Maker
One of the most basic tools and an amazing starting place for many people is
Game Maker. If you download a copy of this and follow the tutorials you’ll be
making games in minutes not hours. It has a simple drag and drop approach to
building the pieces of your game and the logic that powers it.
If you have any doubts about it restricting what you want to make check out
Spelunky to see what it can do once you’ve got a bit of experience. The only
downside right now is this is primarily a Windows tool as the Mac version is a bit
ropey but they are working on that.
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker
Stencyl
Stencyl is my favorite tool right now for making 2D games. Like game maker is
lets you build game using drag and drop logic blocks. However it run on cross
platforms and the games you make compile out to Flash meaning they’re a lot
easier to share.
The workflow is a little bit more complicated than Game Maker but the results are
great once you’ve learned how to deal with a few idiosyncrasies of how it works.
http://www.stencyl.com/
Ren'Py
If you’re a writer or an artist and are not looking to play around with game me-
chanics Ren’Py will allow you to make interactive stories with optional graphics.
Although it has a scripting language it’s one of the simplest I’ve ever used and is
close enough to just writing in natural english. I’ve seen a writer produce his first
game in under an hour of being exposed to Ren’Py and I’ve seen artists produce
beautiful visual novels in a weekend.
http://www.renpy.org
Unity
If you want to work with 3D then I can not recommend any other tool than Unity.
The free version is missing only a handful of advanced effects you’re unlikely to
need initially and once you’ve done some initial tutorials it’s the friendliest 3D en-
vironment you’re going to find. However unlike Game Maker and Stencyl you are
going to need to do some coding here, it can be very basic javascript but working
with 3D does require a bit more time investment from you to get things working.
http://unity3d.com
Flixel
If you’re more of a programmer than I’ve given you credit for and actually want to
be working with code for your first game then you should check out Flixel. It al-
lows you to use open source tools to compile your code into Flash games. Flixel
itself is a library that will give you all the common features you’re going to want in
a 2D game so you’re not doing everything from scratch. Flixel has a huge com-
munity and masses of finished games to demonstrate what it can do.
http://flixel.org
You Can Make Video Games
RESOURCES
I said earlier that you shouldn’t go on a recruitment drive - so you might be worried about how you’re
going to provide the assets for your game if you’re not a good artist or musician. Here’s some advice
and links to free tools and sites you can use.
2D Graphics
If you’re going with 2D graphics and you’re not an artist then my biggest recommendation is for you
to make your own - but keep them simple. Some of the most impressive indie games I’ve played have
had really primitive graphics but they’ve used their limitations to make a distinctive style - whether that
means going with vector lines, crude pixel art, simple geometric shapes or even ASCII art. Just find a
style you can produce quickly without it getting in the way of development. I shouldn’t need to recom-
mend any specific 2D art software to you, there’s tons out there.
If you really don’t want to make your own art, steal it! There are a ton of sites with sprite rips of classic
2D games. You can’t make a career on stolen game sprites but no one is going to be sending you legal
threats for you making your first few simple games that way.
3D Graphics
There are a few tools for doing really easy 3D modeling. SketchUp (http://sketchup.google.com/) is
incredibly easy to use and can have you building levels in minutes. Its only drawback is it draws very
straight geometric shapes. If you want to sculpt more organic shapes then check out Sculptris (http://
www.sculptris.com). For a fully featured free 3D modelling package you have to check out Blender
(http://www.blender.org), historically this was hard to recommend with its very obtuse interface but that’s
all sorted now and it’s a much nicer tool than it’s ever been.
If you’re happy to drop in pre-made 3D assets check out Turbo Squid (http://turbosquid.com) and The
3D Studio (http://www.the3dstudio.com) these sites are full of both free and paid-for models created by
3D artists. There’s a lot of great stuff in there you could just drop right into your game.
Sound
Sorting out sounds isn’t too tricky. If you want to record voice or your own foley sounds then download
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) or if you want retro chip sound effects there’s SFXR (http://
www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html).
If you want more specific stuff then two great sound directories are Free Sound (http://www.freesound.
org) and Sound Bible (http://soundbible.com). If you go through their archives you should be able to find
anything you need.
Music
When it comes to making music if you’ve got a Mac then GarageBand should come installed on it - this
is one of the easiest music packages I’ve ever come across. On Windows I’d rather not recommend a
specific music package as there thousands of them, including many great free ones. Googling around
should help you find one that suits you.
When it comes to pre-made music you might want to check out Incompetech (http://incompetech.com/
m/c/royalty-free) first. It’s the site of one musician, Kevin McLeod, who has produced an absolutely huge
archive of free music he’s composed across all genres for people to use for free. What a guy. If you want
a wider choice then check out Indie Game Music (http://www.indiegamemusic.com) which has free and
paid-for music from a ton of people.
WRAP UP
So, that’s it. I’ve tried to give you everything you need to get started. Come up with a simple game idea, pick a tool for your skill set,
find content where you need to and just make the game. Don’t talk about making games, don’t argue about it on forums, just MAKE
GAMES. We need more voices to help grow this medium and you can be part of that. I want to play your games - so I need you to
get started!
“We must make the games we wish to play in the world” - anna anthropy