Sunday, August 28, 2011

Game Questions

I am staring a project where I learn how to make video games, and first I will do some research. These are some questions I want to find answers to:
  • What skills will I need to learn to design a game?
  • Is there software out there for kids to design games?
  • What kind of game do I want to make?

12 comments:

  1. I've been making games for 10 years, mainly online, browser based games but sometimes mobile. I have done some game design but I'm primarily a programmer. I can explain the entire process, if necessary, but here are some links as a starting point.

    Take a look at these tools that are good for young people starting to make games:

    http://gamesalad.com/

    http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/windows

    Another alternative that would be good experience but has a larger learning curve is learning ActionScript 3 and Flash.

    Or to really get into programming for iPhone, I would suggest: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/

    There is even a way for nonprofessionals to make games that run on the Xbox 360, its called XNA: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb200104.aspx

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  2. Hey gamer! I know you and I have played some games that scroll from side to side, or bottom to top. Remember "Jungle Hunt"? The little man runs to the side and jumps, swings, and swims! And I know you have seen "Pitfall" too. These kind of side scrolling games are classic and probably pretty easy to design. Have fun, and your blog is cool! -Dad

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  3. Ultimate Gamer MamaAugust 28, 2011 at 7:44 PM

    Way to go Ultimate Gamer!!! You've started your path and already have some great tips from people. Remember to be thinking about what we talked about on analyzing/reviewing games as you play this week, then later you can do your first game review and talk about things you like and things you might change. This is going to be so fun, and I am excited to learn from you!

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  4. Adam is right. 2d is much easier than 3d and there are still a lot of great game mechanics to think about such as the side scrollers, like Mario, or the top down games like Zelda, or Gauntlet. A lot of these games are built on a simple "tile" set in which you only have to create a dozen or so tiles and rearrange them in different ways to create different backgrounds.

    I also forgot to mention html 5. It’s quickly becoming a viable way to make browser based games writing fairly simple code in Javascript. A good starting point is to find someone else’s code online and start to modify it. With enough changes it will become your own game. Maybe even start by not changing the code at all, just change the art.

    Check this out: http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/

    Good luck!

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  5. Hey Ultimate,

    I'm Scott - I made games professionally for ... uhh ... way too many years! I wouldn't worry too much about "design" since your goal is to MAKE something. You're going to be doing all the code and art, so I recommend a very simple design at first, then you can add complexity later.

    Shane's advice to go 2D is a very good idea. I can give you some tips, but first some questions of my own:

    - What are your favorite games?
    - Do you play them on your computer, console, DS, phone or what?
    - Have you done any computer programming? If so, what kinds of programs and languages?

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  6. Hi Gamer,

    I like a lot of the games you like and also want to know how to make video games. I'll follow your blog to see what you learn and I'll let you know if I learn anything too.

    Ingram G.

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  7. Hey Ultimate,

    I checked out your favorite game list and I see that you dig Pokemon and some iPhone games along with some action-adventure stuff like Lego and Star Wars. Great!

    I recommend that you check out GameSalad, like Shane mentioned. They've just added some new support for HTML5 that would let you share your game with anyone with a web browser, as well as an iPhone, iPad (and likely Android phone).

    Check out their video tutorials on how to get started here:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/gendaigames

    And download the tools at gamesalad.com. Create one of their tutorial games to get a feel for how it works. I'm not sure how hard it will be since you haven't done any programming, but I know their whole goal is to get non-programmers creating games too.

    Another cool thing: if you do a game for iPhone or Mac, you could actually put it out there for sale really easily!

    Based on how that tutorial goes, think about what you could feasibly use that tool to do. Puzzle and physics games are pretty popular and sometimes very simple to create.

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  8. dad I just posted a new post on 9-23-11.

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