Advice column

Fenn

Hi Guys and Girls.

I am starting a project and would love some advice.
Not to sugar coat it at all, I am building this game with little to no experience.
As such it is a basic racing game. (With some stretch goals)

Please advise what would be the best language or program to use.

Feel free to advise on anything you think a greenling like me should be aware of.

Thank you in advance

pieter

Build more than one prototype. The more prototypes you build, the better you will understand the type of game you are trying to make and the more opportunity you'll have to find fun gameplay experiences.

Build them fast. 2-4 weeks per prototype, maybe a bit more depending on complexity. Do not spend 6 months fine tuning something you are not sure is fun to play yet.

Get regular feedback. As soon as you have something that has some gameplay (Car on a track that can at least measure lap times) put it on this or any other forum so people can play it and give their feedback. You are the worst judge of your own work, rely on the honest (sometimes brutal) feedback of others to give you perspective.

Use whatever engine you're most comfortable with. GameMaker is great for 2D games, Unity and Unreal is great for 3D. Unity is great if you know C#, Unreal if you know C++. GameMaker is great for beginners. Just always remember the following:
Hyper Light Drifter was made in GameMaker.
Enter the Gungeon was made in Unity.
Both are fantastic 2D games. Making great games does not depend on the tools you use, it depends on your ability to use them.

Get started NOW! Like in now! Stop reading this reply and start making things. GO!

dislekcia

Also, if you're really new, it's probably a better idea to do as many tutorials as possible over the course of the next few weeks. Just spam them out so you have a better understanding of whatever systems you're keen on trying. Then, when you're feeling like you want to change every tutorial game so that it's better, you'll be ready to start banging your head against your own games from scratch ;)

Ramperkash

Seconding what @dislekcia is saying: Good tutorials are super useful. But if you really want to work on your own game instead, tutorials can often be tweaked slightly to result in your game instead of theirs. Although this makes fixing errors more difficult, I feel it's a decent compromise between learning and making the game you want.

I remember one of my first prototypes (probably not the first!) started as a pong tutorial and became a jump 'n bump clone. This game was a great learning exercise for me, as I found out how to do things, and almost immediately tried to solve my own problems with the tools I had just learnt. This solidified what I learnt, but my game was a bit lacking in the areas where the tutorial couldn't guide me.

Fenn

Thank you guys for the insight.
I have opted for GameMaker and am currently burning through the tutorials.
feel a bit weird about it because i have recently finished re-watching the old "Reboot" cartoon and i am abandoning all these tut sprites.. reboot :'(

Some of you may know that i am gunning for the role of producer.
if you have advice on this, or guidance, please don't hold back.
I was told best place to start is to actually make a game. i am working on that.
I was told that my soft skill set of Sales / Project Management / people Management isn't directly needed in startup indie level.. working on that.

Any thoughts?

dislekcia

Fenn said:

I was told that my soft skill set of Sales / Project Management / people Management isn't directly needed in startup indie level.. working on that.

I'd say those are very useful indeed, but only once there's something to sell and a team to manage ;) Most indie hopefuls are solo devs without products, so I can see how that logic might have gotten to you.

TBH I think your biggest issue with those skills right now is your location more than anything else, if there aren't game studios near you with 5+ employees, they're not going to be thinking about producer-type roles yet (no matter how much they probably should!) I'd suggest making a trip to other areas of SA especially to visit every studio you can.

Building your own games is still super great experience though! And it'll make you a much better producer, you really have to have intimate knowledge of the game production process to shine and that does differ from other development environments.

Fenn

Sage advice @dislekcia
Truthfully i am landlocked for the time being.
Do you (or anyone reading this) know of any studio in the greater DBN area?
I am thinking of assisting some indi-devs as a sort of Consultant.
Basically working out a timeline for the project, projected launch dates and budget issues.
getting everything to coincide with a "media launch" and a "minimum work, max return" work schedule.
Effective for 1 or 100 people.
(know anyone who would benefit from this?)

No one starts with all the skills, so i do expect to learn as well.
Getting into a production and helping a team of passionate individuals achieve something that was individually unobtainable is really what i want to do.
So like i said i am working on this.
I will get there.

Also thinking about (once i have some more exp) starting my own studio.
but that is a future discussion on a future board with future me and future you i am sure.

dislekcia

@Fenn: The only studio in/around Durbs that I know about that isn't regularly active on these forums (unlike @garethf and @roguecode, for instance) is Lighthouse Games Studio they seem to be pretty successful, but for some reason community vibes aren't their thing :) - I'd suggest reaching out to them to say hi.

I think that being a consulting producer for indie projects is a really good idea, but again, I think you're limited by the number of devs near you in that case. Production is a very hand-on sort of position, so unless you build a really robust pipeline to manage geographically disparate teams (which could be a super useful skillset/methodology to have BTW), it's going to be difficult to build up a base of clients/collaborators. I strongly suspect that you'll need to do things in-person first before the distance-work solution can happen as well.

That said, production partnerships are probably a space that's going to be growing in the SA game development scene over the next few years as people realise that production skills can have a multiplicative impact on results, but that they maybe don't have the space for someone full time in their studio. I think you're in a good spot to be, it's just going to take some work to build a reputation that will make projects come looking for you, that's all.