Do you like playing video games, always have a trick to finish the game or beat your opponents in your game, or have an imagination so vast that you can imagine a character or even your own world? There are many tools you can use to turn your strengths into video games. You do need programming skills before that. But if you can, you only need a mouse and keyboard and a capable team.
Step
Part 1 of 2: Finding the Necessary Tools/Apps
Step 1. Create a text based game
This type of game is probably the easiest to make, although not everyone is interested in creating and playing a game that doesn't have graphics. Most text-based games focus on stories, puzzles, or adventures that combine storytelling, exploration, and puzzles.
- Twine is an application that is easy to use in your browser.
- StoryNexus and Visionaire are options that provide more gameplay options and static images.
- Inform7 is a better tool or application because it has a large community and supporters.
Step 2. Create a 2D game
GameMaker and Stencyl are great options if you want to create 2D games in any genre, and they both give you the option to use programming code without having to know how to program. Scratch! is also a tool that you can use to create browser games.
Step 3. Trying to make a 3D game
Creating a 3D game is much more challenging than a 2D game. So, get ready for a long tough project. Spark and Game Guru can help ease your task by allowing you to create your game world without having to understand programming. If you have programming knowledge or want to learn programming, try the currently popular game engine, Unity.
If you want to create your own 3D models, you'll need 3D creation software like 3DS Max, Blender, or Maya
Step 4. Take a programming-focused approach
Even if you have a programming background, you may want to use one of the engines above to create your first game, and you shouldn't have to take a different, more difficult route. However, some people prefer to be in control of all aspects of the games they make and want to build them from scratch. Ideally, so that you can combine all aspects of your game in a neat and clear manner, you would prefer to build your game in an Integrated Development Environment such as Eclipse and not in a text editor.
While you can indeed make games in any programming language, C++ is a great tool that has many of the resources and tutorials you need to make games
Part 2 of 2: Making the Game
Step 1. Define the concept
For your first project, creating a simple game from a genre you like is a good starting point (for example, a platformer or role-playing game). Before you start, jot down any ideas you have about the game, and try to answer some of these questions:
- What are the main components of the gameplay? Examples of these answers include defeating enemies, solving puzzles, or talking to other characters in the game.
- What kind of gameplay do you want in your game? For example, you might want your players to fight real-time enemies that require agility in button combinations or turn-based ones that require strategy and tactics. Or if your game focuses on talking to other characters in the game, will the player be able to change the plot or storyline if they make a different choice, or the plot is more linear so the player has to make the right decisions.
- How is your in-game mood? Cheerful, spooky, mysterious, or uplifting?
Step 2. Create a simple level
If you use a game engine or game creation tool to create your game, try to get creative with that engine or tool. Learn how to place moving backgrounds, objects, and characters. In fact, you can try to make the characters in the game interact with the existing objects, or try to explore the objects that are already provided in the tool or software that you are using and see if there is any interaction that can be done with the object.
- If you don't know how to do something, look it up on the tool or engine's website or look elsewhere on the internet such as forums.
- For the first project, there's no need to worry too much about lighting or other graphic details.
Step 3. Design your main gameplay
Designing a gameplay requires a few tweaks and modifications to the game's software, and requires building a more complex system if built from scratch. Here are some examples:
- If you're making a platformer game, do you want your character to be able to double-jump or jump in the air or some other special move? Also try modifying the height of your character's jump and the response of the various interactions that the player gives (such as holding down a button for a few seconds).
- If you make an RPG or horror game, with what weapon will players start the game? Choose two or three weapons that players can upgrade, then test them out. Make sure the choice of weapons is interesting and varied. For example, you provide three types of weapons, namely weapons that are strong, that can injure more than one enemy, or those that make enemies weaker. Don't make one weapon much stronger than another unless the weapon is indeed more expensive and difficult to obtain.
- In dialogue-based games, do you want the player to be able to select a dialog "branch" on the screen, or just read the instructions given to perform a specific task and open the next dialog? Do you want the game to be linear and one-way, or to have multiple plots and endings?
Step 4. Create multiple levels
Three or five short levels are reasonable targets for your first game. You can always add them later anyway. Always keep your main gameplay in each level, and make each level have different challenges or increase. You can make the levels sequential where players must complete one level to play another level, or create separate levels where players can choose the level they want.
- For platformer games, one of the challenges given is usually faster enemies or moving platforms.
- Action games can introduce a new enemy with each level, a powerful enemy or boss, or an enemy that cannot be defeated without certain tricks or weapons.
- Puzzle games usually stick to one type of puzzle and make it more difficult with each level, or introduce new tools or obstacles for which players have to think harder.
Step 5. Create long and medium term goals
A game sometimes has something called “secondary mechanics” or “secondary gameplay”. By using mechanisms from the main gameplay, such as jumping, players can also use secondary gameplay such as stepping on an opponent when landing or collecting items. This secondary gameplay can be used to become a long-term achievement in the game, for example by collecting coins in each level, players can save them and buy upgrades that can help finish the game.
From the example above, you may have unknowingly entered the secondary gameplay. Just make sure that your players can immediately realize about the aspect you are installing. If after 10 minutes your player just thinks your game is just shooting enemies non-stop, in a few minutes he will definitely be bored. If he earns a coin after defeating the first enemy, he will know that he has a purpose, or at least wonder what the function of the coin is, and will eventually continue playing
Step 6. Do a test run
Try each level you create a number of times, and ask friends or people you know to help you try it. Try to play the game with various approaches, ranging from using the proper way, or using strange and unusual ways such as ignoring the mission and directly fighting the final boss, or trying to finish the game with the worst resources. The testing process is a long and frustrating process, but fixing bugs and perfecting your gameplay is something you should do before your game is released.
- Here's enough information on your test team. They need to know basic things like control, but they don't need to know everything.
- Give your tester a feedback form so you can jot down all that information and read and refer back to it later. In this form you can also ask some specific questions about your game.
- The testers who can help you the most are people who don't know you and don't hesitate to give you criticism and suggestions.
Step 7. Improve the graphics and sound in the game
While there are plenty of game assets out there that you can use, take the time to customize all of them to make them look perfect. If any aspect isn't perfect or doesn't look right, replace it with something else. Learn pixel art if you want to change an image in your 2D game, or use software like OpenGL if you're working on a 3D project. Add a light effect to let players know which path is the main path to take, or a particle effect that shows a cool attack effect, or movement in the background. Also add sound for footsteps, attacks, jumps, and anything else that requires sound.
