That First Game "Wall"

Hi.

My name is Shortman, and I have just begun my adventure into the great wonder of game-making. I have no background in coding, programming, or any other artistic/digital matter. I have a degree in biology, and I work as a microbiologist; however, I have always loved games and the idea of making my own game even if no one ever plays it.

I have had multiple ideas come to me over the past couple of weeks, and I was recommended by a friend to write them down and share my ideas. I originally started a few weeks ago with game maker studio, and I have come to Unity to try my hand at creating a solid indie game.

The point of this thread is to get input from the community. I was hoping I could get some responses in regards to the struggles that I will be put through while game making, and maybe some additional ideas for getting through those struggles. I also was curious on how each of you overcame that "Wall" of your first game, or if you are overcoming it now, please share your experience.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that I am not at all experienced with Unity or coding, so if you have useful tips that you want to share. I am all ears, and I am willing to learn. In addition if there is any help I can provide, feel free to ask.

Shortman

 

Is it a coincidence that the shortman also works in microbiology? I think not.

Anyways, the best way to make your first anything is to get your feet wet and do it! Don't worry too much about trying to match the quality of other indie titles out there initially, just try to get something going. As for learning...Unity has a series of tutorials. I also have written a series of Beginner's tutorials. Keep in mind the most popular programming language used with Unity is C#, so references like learncs can come in handy. If you get stuck in any tutorials, always feel free to ask questions on the forums, since everyone here was a newbie at one time or another and have probably run into the same problems.

 

....The name shortman is irony based on my RL height. I have always played short races in games with the name Shortman, so my occupation is just the universe adding to the irony in my life...

Thank you for your advice, Iron-Warrior. I have watched quite a few tutorials on youtube over many different styles of genre. I am lowly novice at C# right now, and I am even worse at creating the artwork for the games, so right now my platformer is simple filled in 32x32 blocks. It works though,which is all that matters; however, I did do a remake of asteroid with kinda okay graphics. I am currently working on one of those clicker games, but I am attempting to add an additional element to it.

Shortman

 

Welcome to the Community,

It seems you have already made a good start into game making. Curiosity is one of the best motivators. The tutorials are a great start and it seems you have already done so but you can really learn a lot by adding your own features to the sample projects. Building on existing games is a great way to learn how to do things without having the burden of dealing with everything at the same time. Eventually you'll know enough to be able to create your own game and put things together.

Cheers

 

Glad you started small, that's the best way to learn.

You may want to visit the asset store and play a bit with some free assets.

Good graphic assets always motivate me and inspire me (at least more than placeholder cubes).

 

Don't sweat too much using just cubes and whatnot. There are projects I have spent months on that have extremely simplistic graphics. I would recommend grabbing a nice tile texture, which I find to be super useful in just giving the world a feeling of scale. As well, if you're interested in the art side of games it can be great to learn how to put together a good looking game with just basic shapes, colours and lighting. You can make some very good looking stuff with good colour composition!

 

One of my first original game attempts was a bacterial simulation. http://blog.boredmormongames.com/2014/02/mind-blowing-images-from-other-dimension.html?m=1

Anyway, for first game advice, I would suggest making a quick and dirty clone. Make something like flappy birds or space invaders. Follow the process all the way to a public release. Convince your mum and any friends you can gather to play it.

Then you can call yourself a real developer and move on to making bigger things.

 

Welcome!

The best starting advice I can give (other than do the Tutorials!) is to not be afraid to fail. By this, I mean to stop thinking of doing stuff, and just start doing stuff. Don't be concerned initially about doing things the best way, or optimizing performance or anything like that.

It definitely helps to have a simple idea to start with, but it also really helps if you're passionate about it. If you're going to clone a game, pick a favorite from your childhood. Maybe try to improve upon it in some small way, even. If you don't want to clone something, just try to keep your idea basic. For my first game, I wanted to create a 3D version of the viking board game hnefatafl, because I wanted to try playing the game and realized no 3D versions existed. But I had to trim the feature list way down to be able to manage it. My second game has really upped the ante feature-wise, but even that is getting the feature axe every now and then to ensure I can finish it within the decade.

Try to learn one thing a day. If you figure out how to get a ball moving around based on keyboard input, or understand lighting a bit better, or successfully write your first recursive function, these are all things that take you one step closer towards achieving your goal. Remember that nobody is born knowing how to do this stuff, and the only way to figure it out is to dive in and get your hands dirty.

Good luck, and have fun!