Just statistics. 2.8 billion gamers around the world. Wow! If you play games and periodically thinking about create your own game this article will be usefull for you. In this topic we will tell you what skills are needed to become a game developer and create your first game.
Idea
Start from idea. Idea is not only verbal explanation of your future game to your friends. Idea is structural document where you fix your basic thoghts about game, make pictures of general game menues and gameplay moments. It’s information will help you concentrate on code, not on remembering what did you want.
Technology
You must make a choice one of available technology. On start it might be a simple technology and preferably technology must be free and no cost. Otherwise your attempt can be failed. Use a comfortable technology like a Windows Forms(details below) or HTML or similar. Yes, big companies do not make games on this technologies, but for the first project and fast result it will be right choice.
Toolset
Explore different instruments for coding and content creating. Start with simple widely known tools. Like in the previous topic i reccomend you to use free tools like Visual Studio Community for codding, Blender for 3D modelling and GIMP for picture creating.
Concentration
Yes, concentrate on your game and your idea, not on future profits. Forget about million dollars on your bank account and your photo in economic magazine. Remember, earn money from games very hardly. You will spend years while you earn your first dollar on your game. Be strong, imagine goal and move to step by step.
Read books
Once upon a time when i was young i wanted to become a game developer. I started with book C++ Builder for beginners. In this book i read tutorial named «catch the button». I made this simple program but i wanted to more. On holidays i modified this game and did remake named «Sea Battle». I replaced the usual buttons with ship images, learned change a cursor to cross and learned if\else construction. It was amazing and very interesting. So every book can give impulse and encourage you to a new project.
Imitate
See what do other developers and make the same or similar. For example see what games create Compupico team. If you have Android device you can find Compupico games on Google Play and try it. Before you criticize please make the same or better =)
Practice
So lets create our simple first game. We will create simple game named «The Dark Castle». Purpose of the game — save the princess from terrible monster. Game will be start with main menu. On the background will be Dark Castle image. We’ll make three buttons «Fight with monster», «About» and «Exit». When player click button «Fight with monster» we will be redraw background with battlefield image. On the battlefield we will be draw princess, monster, buttons with weapons and health progress bar. One time per second player wil be hit by monster and it’s health status will be decrease. After clicking on weapons button, monster will be hit by player and update their health status. If player will be faster than monster, princess will be free, otherwise game over.
We need two backgrounds images (castle and batlefield), two monster picture(good health and bad health), two princess picture(in prison and free), three weapons pictures (hammer, axe, sword).
We will be use next tools. For picture drawing will be use GIMP. For programming we chose Visual Studio Community Edition for Windows Forms(C# .Net Framework).
Interesting? In the next post Make content for the game «The Dark Castle» we will be make content for our game. Thank you for reading!