You have made it this far, congratulations, you are now ready to fly on the world of game development, whatever your choice may be. You have now learned what you will go for, you know what are your tools, your weapons of mass destruction to use in the war of game creation.
But there is still one question... How do i start?
The good news is, that once you clarify what you want and/or like, getting pretty damn good with it is only a matter of time, practice, effort, talent and skill.
So, you Programmers, go out write some apps! You always start with a "Hello World" program, and keep climbing up to calculators, to desktop apps, to mobile apps, to designing your own database and hosting your website and web services or even on a custom made cloud platform, you could get into your scrap metal and code how it works, and then eventually start writing your own game logic code..!
Go buy books, read them all, study online, view tutorials, write programs, applications, libraries, everything you possibly can until you get familiar with intermediate to advanced programming paradigms and design patterns.
Artists, go and study online for a specific 3D/2D asset creation toolkit, Sound Engineers, do the same with your virtual composition creation software, and become experts with the software itself. Then all you have to do is create, create, create, create and CREATE stuff!
Make models, animate them, texture them, plan out your UV mapping, and keep doing the same, learn from your mistakes, keep getting better, and study design paradigms online. Same principle applies to Sound engineers.
Designers, ought to spend some time thinking about what makes a game fun, what do the players want from it, what's the experience they need to pass through a custom home-made virtual world which is consisted of its' own culture, background, religion, beliefs, characters, villains, sidekicks and pets, animals props and everything you could possibly think of.
Try to get in sync with your brain while you sleep. When you manage to befriend your subconsciousness, you now have divine and infinite inspiration for your games. Try to hear what your players hear, see what they see, feel what they feel, act like them, and keep designing game prototypes, get your ideas straight, keep an archive, always stay on the lookout for new things, try everything, listen to music, play an instrument, see a movie, read a book, study social science, do whatever to broaden your horizons and capture as many feelings and essense as you can!
QA Testers, you must keep doing what you already do, play games, and play a lot, and be skillful at it! When you are able to try out everything in a single game and possibly sum up all possible achievements / trophies you are on your way to becoming a great tester and the ideal person to ask for finding bugs. When someone has done everything in a game he is the ultimate being of discovering everything in a game. It's pros and cons, everything!
Generally, what a game developer must always do at all times, leisure or not is to have a lot of creativity, will to go from one edge to the other, he must experiement, try out new stuff, and keep studying and reading and researching for life! And the most important thing:
"They must never cease to be gamers and should keep playing every possible game they can get on their hands. Without passion for games, the game dev biz is not for you."
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Brick #9: Tools, tools everywhere!
So, you know what you are going to be but you don't know which are the best tools to do the job?
In this short post we will give you a basic outline of the tools available.
Programmers:
Based on the technology you are going to work in your project you would go with something that can be used alongside it..! For instance, if you are an XNA programmer / Monogame user / C++ programmer you would go with Visual Studio. If you are going the strict C# way without some DirectX wrappers, you could also use Visual Studio along with Expression Blend. Then again if you are a flash programmer, Adobe Flash CS5 and newer would do just the job for you, whilist if you code in java, eclipse or netbeans is the way to go!
Then again, there are game engines in which you can make games quick and rough. Some industry-based engines you could use are the Unity 3D game engine and the Unreal engine. There are also many commercial engines that can produce AAA quality games such as Cryengine, gamebryo. That would solve your problem.
Artists:
Photoshop and illustrator are your best friends on this journey if you plan on creating 2D graphical assets, or even pixel art, textures, spritesheets, UV maps and such.
If you are on the 3D edge however, there are programs such as 3DsMax, Maya, Blender, Houdini, Cinema 4D and ZBrush that will make your modelling, rigging and animating lives easier.
for the musicians and the sfx experts, there are plenty of software out there, that can help you compose your very own music, such as flstudio, adobe audition, magix music maker, and other.
Designers:
You can use anything, since there is no specific tool for the job, you can either start prototyping in photoshop, write down some ideas in MS Word or even in that post-it note besides your pc monitor, you can check out other illustrations and pixel art of other users and get inspired, play games and write everything you can on notepad, as well as grabbing game engines that write the code for you, or are just event based.
We are talking about GameMaker, Multimedia Fusion 2 developer , Construct 2, Torque, RPGMaker, anything that you can tinker with, try out your ideas and have a game prototype ready in less than an hour or so if you know what has to be done and how it gets done right.
QA Testers:
The absolute tool for a tester would be a notepad, and his gaming system. The tester needs to be proficient with Word / Excel and other similar programs as he will need to point out all the possible bugs of the game and give a detailed report to the programmers about it.
In this short post we will give you a basic outline of the tools available.
Programmers:
Based on the technology you are going to work in your project you would go with something that can be used alongside it..! For instance, if you are an XNA programmer / Monogame user / C++ programmer you would go with Visual Studio. If you are going the strict C# way without some DirectX wrappers, you could also use Visual Studio along with Expression Blend. Then again if you are a flash programmer, Adobe Flash CS5 and newer would do just the job for you, whilist if you code in java, eclipse or netbeans is the way to go!
Then again, there are game engines in which you can make games quick and rough. Some industry-based engines you could use are the Unity 3D game engine and the Unreal engine. There are also many commercial engines that can produce AAA quality games such as Cryengine, gamebryo. That would solve your problem.
Artists:
Photoshop and illustrator are your best friends on this journey if you plan on creating 2D graphical assets, or even pixel art, textures, spritesheets, UV maps and such.
If you are on the 3D edge however, there are programs such as 3DsMax, Maya, Blender, Houdini, Cinema 4D and ZBrush that will make your modelling, rigging and animating lives easier.
for the musicians and the sfx experts, there are plenty of software out there, that can help you compose your very own music, such as flstudio, adobe audition, magix music maker, and other.
Designers:
You can use anything, since there is no specific tool for the job, you can either start prototyping in photoshop, write down some ideas in MS Word or even in that post-it note besides your pc monitor, you can check out other illustrations and pixel art of other users and get inspired, play games and write everything you can on notepad, as well as grabbing game engines that write the code for you, or are just event based.
We are talking about GameMaker, Multimedia Fusion 2 developer , Construct 2, Torque, RPGMaker, anything that you can tinker with, try out your ideas and have a game prototype ready in less than an hour or so if you know what has to be done and how it gets done right.
QA Testers:
The absolute tool for a tester would be a notepad, and his gaming system. The tester needs to be proficient with Word / Excel and other similar programs as he will need to point out all the possible bugs of the game and give a detailed report to the programmers about it.
Brick #8: What's my role in all this?
Most certainly, a good question, and the answer is a counter-question:
"Which of the jobs already mentioned in the games industry intrigues / excites you the MOST? "
And should you answer the question at once, then you are set! You have found your role and can skip the rest of this post.
If you haven't answered right away, or just said "I am a game developer" as we said earlier, you have no idea what your role will be. We already talked about a game developer, who is just someone involved in the whole game-making project/process and we don't care about his role / specialty.
That's what we want YOU to know for yourself.
So i have a quiz ready for you. Answer the following questions, in a multiple choice pattern, and pick the answers that best fit your personality.
1 - When someone asks you what does your dream job include you think:
A - Programming for games!
B - Drawing Art for games!
C - Create Virtual Worlds in your head!
D - Play games!
2 - When you hear the word programming you think:
A - Solving problems in a creative way!
B - Lines of code that just render stuff on screen.
C - Game Functionality that's based on rules.
D - You still think of video games.
3 - Which of the following terms triggers you emotionally?
A - Artificial Intelligence
B - Official Soundtrack
C - Parallel Universe
D - Beta Testing
4 - While playing a game, you get fascinated by:
A - The functionality
B - The Graphics
C - The Story
D - The Game itself!
5 - You enjoy:
A - Math, Logic, Engineering
B - Arts, Music
C - Creativity, Emotions
D - Fun, Fun, FUN!
6 - Which of the following tasks would be easy for you to do in 2 days:
A - Write a mobile application
B - Create and Animate a 3D model
C - Create a world in your head along with stories and characters
D - Find all possible bugs for a game as well as going for all the achievements.
7 - What's the most important aspect of a game?
A - Mechanics
B - Aesthetics
C - Story
D - Repetitive Value
8 - Which of the following best describes you?
A - Someone who likes solving problems, and wants to discover the world.
B - Someone who appreciates beauty and enjoys music and movies.
C - Someone who likes roleplaying, fantasy, and has a lot of creativity.
D - Someone who would do everything possible in a game just for the thrill of it.
9 - Which of the following is your favorite item?
A - Keyboard
B - Pen & Paper / Musical Instrument
C - A lot of Post-it notes as well as Comic books!
D - Your Gaming System.
10 - When do you function better?
A - Whenever there isn't any noise at the room.
B - Anytime.
C - Whenever I am sleeping.
D - Leisure time!!!
And your results are:
Mostly A: Programmer!
Mostly B: Artist! (Either 2d/3d graphics or sound specialist)
Mostly C: Game Designer!
Mostly D: QA Tester!
"Which of the jobs already mentioned in the games industry intrigues / excites you the MOST? "
And should you answer the question at once, then you are set! You have found your role and can skip the rest of this post.
If you haven't answered right away, or just said "I am a game developer" as we said earlier, you have no idea what your role will be. We already talked about a game developer, who is just someone involved in the whole game-making project/process and we don't care about his role / specialty.
That's what we want YOU to know for yourself.
So i have a quiz ready for you. Answer the following questions, in a multiple choice pattern, and pick the answers that best fit your personality.
1 - When someone asks you what does your dream job include you think:
A - Programming for games!
B - Drawing Art for games!
C - Create Virtual Worlds in your head!
D - Play games!
2 - When you hear the word programming you think:
A - Solving problems in a creative way!
B - Lines of code that just render stuff on screen.
C - Game Functionality that's based on rules.
D - You still think of video games.
3 - Which of the following terms triggers you emotionally?
A - Artificial Intelligence
B - Official Soundtrack
C - Parallel Universe
D - Beta Testing
4 - While playing a game, you get fascinated by:
A - The functionality
B - The Graphics
C - The Story
D - The Game itself!
5 - You enjoy:
A - Math, Logic, Engineering
B - Arts, Music
C - Creativity, Emotions
D - Fun, Fun, FUN!
6 - Which of the following tasks would be easy for you to do in 2 days:
A - Write a mobile application
B - Create and Animate a 3D model
C - Create a world in your head along with stories and characters
D - Find all possible bugs for a game as well as going for all the achievements.
7 - What's the most important aspect of a game?
A - Mechanics
B - Aesthetics
C - Story
D - Repetitive Value
8 - Which of the following best describes you?
A - Someone who likes solving problems, and wants to discover the world.
B - Someone who appreciates beauty and enjoys music and movies.
C - Someone who likes roleplaying, fantasy, and has a lot of creativity.
D - Someone who would do everything possible in a game just for the thrill of it.
9 - Which of the following is your favorite item?
A - Keyboard
B - Pen & Paper / Musical Instrument
C - A lot of Post-it notes as well as Comic books!
D - Your Gaming System.
10 - When do you function better?
A - Whenever there isn't any noise at the room.
B - Anytime.
C - Whenever I am sleeping.
D - Leisure time!!!
And your results are:
Mostly A: Programmer!
Mostly B: Artist! (Either 2d/3d graphics or sound specialist)
Mostly C: Game Designer!
Mostly D: QA Tester!
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Brick #7: Game Genres
On to genres it is!
Besides the already mentioned Serious Games which is an upcoming and hotter by day genre, there are other genres as well, which are much more common and used to.
A genre, for Music could be "Metal" , "Rock" , "Pop" , "Dance" , "Ballad" , "Classic" , "Country" etc.
A genre for Movies, could be "Action" , "Comedy" , "Romance" , "Sci-fi" , "Horror", "Cartoon" etc.
And just like Music and Movie industry, the game industry has its' own genres as well..! Let's peek on some of them!
PLATFORMERS
We are talking retro-style 2D side scroller here where you control your character and usually the term "Platformer" comes from the fact that you have to jump on (or off) of platforms, utilize floating platform movement in order to proceed, or even jump on other enemies' heads to destroy them and also, these games involve a lot of environmental hazards which you have to be careful of, besides monsters. Such hazards include dancing flames, spikes on the walls, or even botomless pits. Mostly known at gaming's earlier days, when combined with action, platformers can blast our day even today!
Examples: Super Mario Bros , Sonic the hedgehog, Metroid Fusion
ADVENTURE
For those seeking to squeeze their brains in order to solve a riddle or for those wanabee detectives, such games most of the time involve controlling an investigator of some sort, or even trasure hunters, individuals who would go to the end of every adventure and just risk it all for the sake of bounty. These games come with tough (or not) riddles and/or story plots that require you to do specific stuff (which is not defined) in order to proceed, and generally require you to think a lot, and consider everything you have in your possession and use it with a specific character or the environment if you feel like continuing with the story.
Such brain games are loved by many gamers and the adventure genre is still one of the best out there..!
Examples: Sam & Max , Monkey Island, The Longest Journey, Myst
BEATEMUP
All time classic beat up your friend in the same room with a second controller. Your objective mainly in these games is...what else? BEAT UP your friend or the computer using a series of combos that gather up massive amounts of damage and knock out your opponent. One of the best genres if you are the mindless, button-mashing freak that likes facerolling on the gamepad. So, either test your combo-gathering skills versus the AI by using your fists or some crazy double edged bastard swords or against your other button-mashing friend..!
Examples: Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur
PUZZLE
This genre is favored by the casual player, usually following the old design pattern, which is a linear sequence of progress featuring endless levels , which are either following the same pattern but with higher difficulty, or is adding new features to the game every X levels or so. Games designed to be puzzled usually require features that are adding addicting value to the game, thus keeping players playing it.
Examples: Tetris, Bejeweled, Dr.Mario
STRATEGY
This genre is getting more and more famous by the years, with more and more titles emerging at the local games store. This genre features a 3rd person camera above the playing field where you usually control your troops and your objective is to destroy the other players (the other civilizations involved in the game). You pick a race/civilization, then gather up resources using your village people and with these resources, build a lot of buildings that either increase productivity or upgrade your defenses / attack / troops. You can also recruit troops and then when you've gathered enough, you can go attack other players if you feel lucky.
Such games can be further categorized into RTS games or even Turn-based games.
Examples: Warcraft , Age of Empires, Civilization, Command & Conquer
RPG
For the most hardcore gamers ever, besides strategies and shooters, RPGs are often of the most addicting genres and tend to transform people from human players to zombies. Such games involve monitoring lots of stuff at the same time, such as your health, your magic, your attacks, will they be timed or not? You have to keep monitoring your stats, how they change according to armor, the number of items you have in your backpack, the skills you are going to use to enemies based on the enemy type or your specific damage type, use flasks or potions to restore your health, mana and energy. RPGs can be categorized into CRPGs (Action RPGs) and JRPGs (Japaneese Style , Turn based RPGs).
Examples: Dungeons & Dragons, Final Fantasy(JRPG), Kingdom Hearts (CRPG), Diablo
SHOOTER
Another genre for those hardcore gamers who like to play online and test their skills against other players (or bots..!) You usually play in 1st person view, holding a gun, and your goal is to aim that crosshair at the middle of the screen towards the heads of your enemies (when you can) and well, shoot the crap out of them, in order to gather kills and actually win some Team Deathmatch / Deathmatch / Capture The Flag games. These games are incredibly addicting, and also require quick reflexes, monitoring skills and well. SKILLS in general.
Examples: Unreal Tournament, Call of Duty, Resistance, Medal of Honour
PARTY GAMES
Last but not least, we have party games genre, which features many players playing at the same time, usually games that can be played at the same time by 4 players (usually it rounds at 4) featuring either a lot of minigames, or hot-seat games. Such games could be either Karaoke games, meaning games that can be played in parties in general, by many players at once, bringing a lot of fun to anyone attending!!
Examples: Mario Party, Little Big Planet, Worms, Super Smash Bros
Besides the already mentioned Serious Games which is an upcoming and hotter by day genre, there are other genres as well, which are much more common and used to.
A genre, for Music could be "Metal" , "Rock" , "Pop" , "Dance" , "Ballad" , "Classic" , "Country" etc.
A genre for Movies, could be "Action" , "Comedy" , "Romance" , "Sci-fi" , "Horror", "Cartoon" etc.
And just like Music and Movie industry, the game industry has its' own genres as well..! Let's peek on some of them!
PLATFORMERS
We are talking retro-style 2D side scroller here where you control your character and usually the term "Platformer" comes from the fact that you have to jump on (or off) of platforms, utilize floating platform movement in order to proceed, or even jump on other enemies' heads to destroy them and also, these games involve a lot of environmental hazards which you have to be careful of, besides monsters. Such hazards include dancing flames, spikes on the walls, or even botomless pits. Mostly known at gaming's earlier days, when combined with action, platformers can blast our day even today!
Examples: Super Mario Bros , Sonic the hedgehog, Metroid Fusion
ADVENTURE
For those seeking to squeeze their brains in order to solve a riddle or for those wanabee detectives, such games most of the time involve controlling an investigator of some sort, or even trasure hunters, individuals who would go to the end of every adventure and just risk it all for the sake of bounty. These games come with tough (or not) riddles and/or story plots that require you to do specific stuff (which is not defined) in order to proceed, and generally require you to think a lot, and consider everything you have in your possession and use it with a specific character or the environment if you feel like continuing with the story.
Such brain games are loved by many gamers and the adventure genre is still one of the best out there..!
Examples: Sam & Max , Monkey Island, The Longest Journey, Myst
BEATEMUP
All time classic beat up your friend in the same room with a second controller. Your objective mainly in these games is...what else? BEAT UP your friend or the computer using a series of combos that gather up massive amounts of damage and knock out your opponent. One of the best genres if you are the mindless, button-mashing freak that likes facerolling on the gamepad. So, either test your combo-gathering skills versus the AI by using your fists or some crazy double edged bastard swords or against your other button-mashing friend..!
Examples: Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur
PUZZLE
This genre is favored by the casual player, usually following the old design pattern, which is a linear sequence of progress featuring endless levels , which are either following the same pattern but with higher difficulty, or is adding new features to the game every X levels or so. Games designed to be puzzled usually require features that are adding addicting value to the game, thus keeping players playing it.
Examples: Tetris, Bejeweled, Dr.Mario
STRATEGY
This genre is getting more and more famous by the years, with more and more titles emerging at the local games store. This genre features a 3rd person camera above the playing field where you usually control your troops and your objective is to destroy the other players (the other civilizations involved in the game). You pick a race/civilization, then gather up resources using your village people and with these resources, build a lot of buildings that either increase productivity or upgrade your defenses / attack / troops. You can also recruit troops and then when you've gathered enough, you can go attack other players if you feel lucky.
Such games can be further categorized into RTS games or even Turn-based games.
Examples: Warcraft , Age of Empires, Civilization, Command & Conquer
RPG
For the most hardcore gamers ever, besides strategies and shooters, RPGs are often of the most addicting genres and tend to transform people from human players to zombies. Such games involve monitoring lots of stuff at the same time, such as your health, your magic, your attacks, will they be timed or not? You have to keep monitoring your stats, how they change according to armor, the number of items you have in your backpack, the skills you are going to use to enemies based on the enemy type or your specific damage type, use flasks or potions to restore your health, mana and energy. RPGs can be categorized into CRPGs (Action RPGs) and JRPGs (Japaneese Style , Turn based RPGs).
Examples: Dungeons & Dragons, Final Fantasy(JRPG), Kingdom Hearts (CRPG), Diablo
SHOOTER
Another genre for those hardcore gamers who like to play online and test their skills against other players (or bots..!) You usually play in 1st person view, holding a gun, and your goal is to aim that crosshair at the middle of the screen towards the heads of your enemies (when you can) and well, shoot the crap out of them, in order to gather kills and actually win some Team Deathmatch / Deathmatch / Capture The Flag games. These games are incredibly addicting, and also require quick reflexes, monitoring skills and well. SKILLS in general.
Examples: Unreal Tournament, Call of Duty, Resistance, Medal of Honour
PARTY GAMES
Last but not least, we have party games genre, which features many players playing at the same time, usually games that can be played at the same time by 4 players (usually it rounds at 4) featuring either a lot of minigames, or hot-seat games. Such games could be either Karaoke games, meaning games that can be played in parties in general, by many players at once, bringing a lot of fun to anyone attending!!
Examples: Mario Party, Little Big Planet, Worms, Super Smash Bros
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