Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 4: Preparing for success
• Part 2 of 4: Assemble a team
• Part 3 of 4: The process in a nutshell
• Part 4 of 4: Finding information sources
• Tips
• Warnings

Today, more people are playing video games than ever before, leaving a lot of room for new game creators to put something great in the market. The whole process of creating a game is complicated, but you can do it yourself with little outside help, and little or no money. This article will show you the basics you need to develop your game and make it great. Just start with Step 1 below.

To step

Part 1 of 4: Preparing for success

1. Understand your game. You will have to do some planning and think about the big issues if you want the whole process to run smoothly. What genre of game will it be (RPG, shooter, platformer, etc.)? What platform is your game being played on? What will be the unique or prominent features of your game? The answer to each question requires a different set of resources, skills and planning, as they impact game development in different ways.
2. Designing a good game. The design of the game is very important, so you will need to work this out before you start making the game. How do the players progress through the game? How do the players communicate with the world? How do you teach players to interact with the game? What kind of audio themes and music will you be using? This is all very important.
3. Be realistic. If producing games like Mass Effect were easy, everyone would do it. You have to understand what you can and cannot do without a huge studio and a lot of experience. You also need to be realistic about what you can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. If you are not realistic about what you can do, you will likely quickly become disappointed and give up. We don't want you to give up!
4. Make sure you have good hardware and software. Making a game above the "mobile" level usually requires a very good computer. If you are using an older system, you will not be able to make the game on your computer. You also need quite powerful and very specific software for making games. Some programs are free or cheap, but others can be expensive. Good software is discussed further on, but you will at least need 3D programs, image editing software, text editors, compilers, etc.
   • You need a powerful processor (at least a quad-core, and preferably one of the new i5's or i7's), lots of RAM and at least a high-end video card.

Part 2 of 4: Assemble a team

1. Play small games yourself, big games with other people. If you just want to quickly develop a mobile game with straightforward visuals and programming, that's fine. That's a good project to work on yourself, because you can use it to show future employers and investors what you can create. But if you want to make a more serious game, you need more people to help you. Indie games usually have a team of around 5-10 people (depending on the complexity) and more famous games can work up to several hundred people!
2. Assemble your team. You need a lot of people with many different skills (such as artists, programmers, etc.) for most types of games. You need programmers, modellers, visual designers, gameplay or level designers, audio experts, as well as producers and people for marketing / financial aspects of the business.
3. Create a design document. Think of this as something between a resume and a battle plan for your game. A design document summarizes everything about the design of your game: the gameplay, game mechanics, character, plot, etc. It also clarifies what needs to be done, who is going to do what, what the expectations are, and the overall timetable. for finishing things. The design document is very important to not only keep your own team on track, but also to display to potential investors.
   • Your game design document should be split into parts and include a detailed table of contents.
   • Common elements include the game's story, major and minor characters, level design, gameplay, game art and graphics, game sounds and music, as well as control layout and user interface design.
   • The design document is usually not limited to text. Usually it also includes design sketches, concept art, and even examples of videos or sound clips.
   • Don't let the design document and its layout restrict you, or worry too much about it. There is no standard size or required parts. Just have a document that suits your game.
4. Think about money. It costs money to make a game. The tools are expensive and very time consuming (time you could spend doing things that actually make money). It gets more expensive the more people participate and the more complex their skills have to be to make more and more advanced games. You have to figure out where you are going to get all the money and you have to discuss with your employees how, when and how much they will be paid before they can actually get started.
   • The cheapest way to make a game is to do everything 100% yourself. But this is difficult if you lack the skills, and it also requires a lot of different skills. For the most inexperienced people who want to create something themselves, a simple clone of an app is usually the best they can deliver. Even if you are going to make a game yourself, you still have to pay a licensing fee for most of the good game engines, as well as many of the app stores and other retail locations. Do not forget the taxes on the money you earn with it.
   • For an average quality indie game, you will need about a few hundred thousand dollars. Well-known titles often cost millions of euros to develop.

Part 3 of 4: The process in a nutshell

1. Do the programming. You will have to choose an engine for your game. The game engine is the piece of software that controls all the little details about how the game works (like the AI, physics, etc.). Engines require tools that sometimes come with them, but sometimes need to be created from scratch that allow you to interact with the game and create the game within the engine. Once you've got that done, you need to find someone who knows the scripting language used by the engine. Scripting tells the game engine what to do. This usually requires certain programming skills.
2. Create the content. You will also have to start creating the actual content for the game. This means modeling the characters, creating the game sprites, the environments, any objects the player can interact with, etc. Excellent skills with 3D software and visual arts are usually required to complete these tasks. It is also good to plan this carefully in advance.
3. Find people who want to test the game. You need people who want to play the game from front to back. Don't worry about mistakes: people should at least play it to find out how those other people view and experience the game. Something that goes without saying for you can be very confusing for someone else. A tutorial or story element may be missing. You never know. This is why it is important to get an outside viewpoint.
4. Test, test, test. Once you have finished creating your game, you are not actually done yet. You will still have to test everything. Everything. You have to go through every possible scenario in your game to make sure there are no errors in it. This takes time and manpower. Allow plenty of time for testing!
5. Demonstrate your game. Show people the game as soon as you finish it. Show it to companies who might want to invest in it, as well as the people who might want to play it! Create a website for the game and development blog, post screenshots, video walkthroughs, trailers, and other content to show people what kind of game you made. Other people's interest will be critical to the success of your game.
6. Release your game. There are many places where you can market a game, but this will depend on the type of game you have created. The app store and Steam are currently the most accessible to newbies. You can independently release your game on your own site, but the hosting costs are often prohibitive. You are also less visible.

Part 4 of 4: Finding information sources

1. Try out programs for beginning playmakers. There are several great programs that beginners can use to create simple games. The best known are probably Game Maker and RPG Maker, but Atmosphere and Games Factory are good too. You can also use software to teach children to code, such as MIT's Scratch. They are surprisingly good for teaching you the basic skills you need.
2. Learn about the different graphics software. If you don't hire a professional to create your images, then you have a lot of study to do. You will have to learn some complex graphics programs ... but you can do it! Photoshop, Blender, GIMP, and Paint.net are good places to start with when creating the visual elements of your game.
3. Consider building brand awareness the traditional way. It will be a lot easier to make a successful game and entice investors with experience, knowledge and a well-known game linked to your name. That's why it's probably a good idea to work for a traditional well-known game developer before trying to break through. This may require training or acquiring some skills first, but you will keep striving for your goal and it will be well worth it in the end.
4. Try to gain brand awareness within the indie community. The indie game development community is large, supportive and welcoming. If you put in the time to support, promote, discuss and assist with their projects, they will answer positively. Talk to them, get to know them, and let them get to know you too. You will be amazed at what you can achieve with such a support community.
5. Crowdfunding if you're serious. If you want to make a professional game that stands up against other serious games, you need money. Fortunately, things have really changed in recent years and crowdfunding has made it possible for strangers to create excellent games. Meet Kickstarter and similar websites. Be aware that you really have to work to run a great campaign, which means setting realistic goals, advancing great rewards, and communicating constantly.

Tips

• Don't expect your first game to be an instant hit. If you've really put a lot of time into it, that may be the case, but it's unlikely.However, don't give up right away, listen to others about what went wrong and what they thought was right. Implement the success aspects in your second game and improve or remove the less popular or bad aspects of your first game.
• Keep learning. If you ever need help, ask questions. There are tons of helpful people out there who can help you create a game, so never be afraid to ask for help or look it up. And don't forget, there's always room for improvement, so keep studying and learning more about game creation.
• Don't forget to back up your files often. You never know when the computer will crash.
• Practice as much as you can so that you keep getting better at making games. As is always said, "Practice Makes Perfect!"
• Test. Test. Test. One of the most annoying and confusing things is finding critical flaws, misses, and bugs in your game after it's released to the public. Divide your game into phases such as 'development' (still in the works), 'alpha' (initial or early testing phase), 'closed beta' (a pre-release test for selected people) and 'open beta' (a pre- release test for the whole public). Pick the right people for the closed beta and alpha stages and collect as much feedback and constructive criticism as you can. Use this to improve your game and fix as many bugs as possible before release. Note: Add a "pre" or "version xx.xx" to your stages to refine these stages even more. Make sure it is clearly marked as a development version, if it is.
• Make your game a hype and advertise. Let's face it, you are not the only amateur game maker. While you are releasing a game it will be overshadowed by newer and / or better released games. To counter this, make your upcoming game known by all possible means. "Leak" some details here and there. Announce a release date so people can look forward to it even more. If appropriate, you may even consider paying for advertising.
• Remember, a team is always better than solo work. You can significantly reduce workload and time by dividing employees into graphics and coding teams, then add more departments like writing and composing, etc. This is an important area that depends on what software you choose. since graphics game software like the BGE, Unity, and the UDK have little support for teamwork, and editing the code directly and using a version control system like git is probably a better idea.
• After all, never give up. Making a game can be a boring, exhausting and frustrating process. Sometimes you feel the urge to just give up and do something else. Do not. Take a break, stop for a while, and put off working on it for a few days. You will return there with more confidence.
• Draw up a work plan. If this is your first time creating a game and want to make it easy for you, and just want to experiment a bit, then this may not be necessary. However, it can keep you on track and become especially important if you have a promised release date. Make a rough plan for when you want the game to be completed and then divide it into sub-sections, such as coding / graphics stages, etc.

Warnings

• Royalty! Be as original with ideas for your game as possible. If you can't think of anything new, take the game from some aspects of an existing game and change it. If you absolutely need to use copyrighted aspects of games, such as a plot, characters, or music, mention the original creator (s). Concepts (gameplay, how you code, etc.) cannot be copyrighted, although character names and narrative universes are automatically protected.

• Make sure you respect the license of the tools you use. A lot of commercial software (like Unity) prohibits commercial use (that is, you can't sell a game you made with it) without paying for an expensive license. This is where open source software can really help as you can create commercial products with it. But be careful with "copyleft" open source software. The GNU General Public License is an example of such a license. It stipulates that you must release software under the same license. This is okay for games and you can still sell it if you keep the graphics and stuff to yourself. However, there may be legal issues if you are using a closed source software library such as FMOD. In addition - especially if you are a good programmer - you can have access to the source code and know what you are working with, and you can debug and add functions as you see fit. Learn more about open source (also called "free software" by the movement's founder --- free as in freedom, not price) here.