Название: How to Make a Video Game All by Yourself: 10 Steps, Just You and a Computer
Автор: Matt Hackett
Издательство: Valadria
Год: 2022 (v1.0.11)
Страниц: 186
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf, epub, mobi
Размер: 10.2 MB

Unleash your creativity and bring your game ideas to life with How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself. Written by games industry veteran Matt Hackett, this inspirational and motivational guide takes you through the process of discovering your passion, picking the right game engine, and finding the fun in your unique game.

Filled with advice, personal anecdotes, handmade illustrations, and quotes from renowned game developers, this book is the ultimate resource for creative folks looking to make their own video game. It’s a lean, practical guide that gives you the tough love and encouragement you need to ship your game! Let’s get started.

Early in my career, I used to frown upon drag-and-drop game engines that preferred graphical user interfaces over writing source code by hand. At the time, moving away from source code felt like giving up control. Later I learned a simple truth that is more important to me than control:
Players don’t care what technology was used to make the games they play. You might find the technology interesting, but that’s because you’re a game producer, not your average gamer. Gamers just want good games. The best tools are whatever tools (built by you or found elsewhere) that enable you to quickly and effectively complete the vision of your game. Nothing else is terribly relevant.

As a producer, it’s not absolutely necessary for you to learn how to program a video game yourself. Technically you could outsource this process by hiring a software developer to create the game for you. If that’s what you have your heart set on, go for it. Much of the information in this book should still be helpful. However, going down that path means making a lot of sacrifices and, in many ways, distancing yourself from the fate of your game. Someone else is doing the heavy lifting at that point, and it isn’t really in the “all by yourself” spirit. At their core, video games are just software, so let’s develop that software ourselves. The good news is: you got this. Modern game engines are so full-featured and impressive that you don’t even need to learn how to write source code to develop video games anymore! The perfect game engine for you is out there, we just gotta find it.

Some of you already have your game engine of choice and are committed to it: maybe you’ve been an avid GameMaker user for years, or perhaps you absolutely insist on using handwritten C++ because that’s what you became comfortable with in school. Maybe all this technology talk puts you to sleep because you just like to crank out simple narrative games in Twine. It’s all good. For the rest of you, it’s time to find a game engine that you can work with. Current industry leaders include Unity, GameMaker, Unreal Engine, Godot, Phaser ... but this list will change dramatically over time. Download the software, open it up, look around, and experiment.

It’s also important for the game engine you choose to scratch your itch. Perhaps you prefer to be writing code in the Python language or maybe you don’t want to be writing any code at all. Your game engine needs to scratch these itches or you’ll remain itchy. The game engine needs to click with you, meaning it simply makes sense and gives you good feelings. Complicated software like game engines have strong personalities of their own. Some will appeal to you while others will feel off somehow.