Making Your First Game: Practical Rules - Setting (and Keeping) Goals - Extra Credits 

That'd be the Game Design Document part. It's a necessary thing in a company where not everyone fully understands the general image of the project they're working on, but it's often seen as a waste of time when working alone on a project. However, even when you're working alone, the GDD is still a very useful thing to have around. In any project, "Where to start?" is always a problem, but in a Game project, you also need to know with what kind of thing everything will need to interact with. If you don't plan your things correctly, you may face a problem when you come across complicated features that you did not anticipate at first.

That's not just important for organizing a team, it's absolutely vital for any game you intend to finish. Working without a direction will just leave you constantly asking yourself, "...Now what?" I guess that's alright if you're just goofing around and experimenting with design concepts with no intention of putting the game on the market, but not if you're trying to make a real game or get experience with the development process. IMO, the only difference between a design doc for a side project and one for a team effort is that you can easily modify the design doc on a whim if you're working alone.

Analysis in any project is one of the biggest part of it all. You will spend more time on paper than code. And it is supposed to be that way so you are able to keep track and follow the guide lines you set to yourself.

I'm a programmer by trade and my most valuable development tools are my white desk and the dry board marker I have to write things on it. Dumping information from your brain into text and diagrams is increeeeaaaaaadably powerful.

DaikoruArtwin as a programmer, that cannot be farther away from the truth. Writing lines of code is not that hard, although tedious at times ... coming up with a system that is feasible, modular to changes, and just works is hard. Even with college assignments I need to sit down and think of all the cases I need to include and all of the things I need to implement before starting to work on anything. It helps discard ideas that sound good, but are actually pretty bad once you start to implement them. It does not only make your thought process clearer to understand (because yes, it may be your solo project but even then you can lose track of what you were trying to do), but it also saves time by eliminating some of the guesswork and discarding bad ideas.

Wow

give that man a medal

A round of applause please

Remember guys, don't reinvent the wheel!

He deserves a reward

+曾于修（Tzeng Yuxio） this should b @ the very top

+Josie Thompson Agreed!

+Josie Thompson "had to repair"? Is what I get from Bing. Is it way off? And sorry if I'm spoiling the mystery.

+曾于修（Tzeng Yuxio） Internet needs more people like you ;)

bumpin for upvotes

+Sprited xD

+Sprited He meant it by set small goals that won't take longer than a month, even though the game will take more than a month

In my school i have programming and we have to make a game for the end of the year. Only 2/Groups delivered in time out of 12

+fede edelstein jeez that sounds hard.

TheWaffle 31 yeah, this year I'll try to deliver in time and a good game

A platformer? Use the PyGame library for Python. Go watch tutorials on it, it's super easy to get into.

woah, its Znac

I think gd script of Godot

LibGDX Java if you want to not use an engine and get to learn coding (a bit harder though since you'll be looking at code and there's no set tools for you)

@@webots125 GDQuest ones

Please let me know if you complete it! I love playing games made in RPG Maker! Plus, like this video said, get people to play your game.

Yeah Me To!!

Is it about trains?

Good luck to you all! I'd love to play your finished product :D

Josie Alyvia it's awesome. will you launch it? (can I join in too?)

This. They've touched upon what to do with the feedback you get, but I think the point could use some hammering home too.

This is definitely a two way street issue though. Devs need to learn to accept criticism, but also need to recognize what "criticism" they are recieving isn't worth paying attention to. In our current internet anonymity culture there are far too many people that don't understand the core concept that criticism is about helping, not hurting; or that criticism should be fair and not based on your own ideals or interests. Just going on to user reviews in Metacritic is a prime example of these problems. Take any fairly popular, well recieved game by journalists, say Assassin's Creed 4: There will be at least 5% of the user reviews that rate the game a 1 or 0. A score of 1 or 0 should be reserved for games that flat out don't function at all, such as infamous blunders like Superman 64. Just because a game is not a genre you like, or you don't enjoy some aspect doesn't mean it's worth not points. That score should be objective, not subjective.

Never thought about that, but I agree this is a very important lesson to learn. I've not had a bad incident yet, but I have replied to a comment on a project of mine in a bad way that I really shouldn't have. >.>

You could include Fez in that example. I heard that he was used in a documentary during crunch time for one of his projects and left the industry because of how much criticism he got for having a bad attitude.

* Never take criticism personally. * You can't please everybody. * Communication is important, and communication is a two way street. * Some people are just jerks demanding attention. Pay them no heed.

Same mate, same

I am currently learning the hard way....I should have planned it all out earlier.

***** I could have had this info when i started my project but oh well. I wont quit

i was learning the hard way had a huge text adventure that really for a first game was too big and complicated especially as 3 weeks ago had to abandon it because of my GCSE exams but i literally 5 mins ago took an idea from my other game and am actually going to adapt it in to a smaller game that will also be text based so when i start my big game i can use bits from the prototype and use them to make my job easier i'm just glad i have an excellent resource that being EC and there great community

+x24sonic u rlly read that all? i read 5 words got bored xD

Hows the game going XD

Is it finished? xD

are you rich yet?

You guys all realize that he was being sarcastic right?

@@1STAPPEARANCEHULKED r/woooosh

Miles_Metal... 8-Bit Metal, Video Game and Film Covers These videos do inspire me as well, but my plans are so unintentionally huge and my self esteem always low, I never get to doing anything.

Have you finished your game ?

That is pretty much bound to happen to beginners. I suggest looking up the principles of object oriented programming if you haven't already. With that (and you current code) in mind, try to come up with a new structure for your code. Start with rebuilding the core (without any extra features) and add all the extras back in one by one. If your new structure is good, it should be a fairly smooth process although you're bound to find many bugs.

You should definitely re-write it from scratch and, like Niosus said, try to make sure your base is clean in preparation for all of the features you have in the current version, and from there start adding them back in.

The first game i made, the only mechanics I had was dialogue... I really hate doing dialogue now... But, I learned quite a bit from that. The prototypes I make always focus on one singular mechanic, and so now I know how to do all sorts of things in games.

what program do you use

Shane Dooley Well now I use Unity but to make my first game I used game maker because it is very easy to use and its free unless you want the proffesional edition

Awesome thanks buddy I will check it out. Scratch is also free iv not really used it yet but people have made awesome stuff on there the coeding is already done for you on scratch etc

Shane Dooley Scratch isn't really capable of doing large 2d or 3d games mainly it is used for teacher examples of programing and it's potential in schools. Game maker does use programing but it teaches you how to do it. And a really good and easy tool to use is unity. They have full game making tutorials etc. I would recommend unity for making a game. But beware if you want to make a 3d game you can't do it in game maker. Unity is my recomendation but to start I think GameMaker is better.

***** It's not a steam game and really is kinda basic but here it is none the less www.mediafire.com/?now9lpfiosb2cp9

I havent see the light of day in 48 hours

@@thenacho6354 You've seen light? Tell me. What does light look like?

(art by Scott DeWitt)

You sound high on this.

I know! It's an amazing art style that I love!

i need one episode each hour!

MrPaksh Any you'll use the episode releases to make you realize you've spent too long on one task? :P

***** Honestly if I were to finally start, (which I will after the next video) I want my first game to be a relaxing short game. If I were to be part of a company or be the head of a company even then I would prefer simple games like Asteroid, Space Invaders and etc., I have a thing for relaxing games. It's the way I cure my headaches. So yeah Guard until you have a good team I wouldn't think of super in-depth games. There are many Extra Credit episodes which I can't name but I do know what those episodes have taught me. And I think theme is an important part if anything once the final video releases we can try to help each other out.

CreeperLeafNinja I still haven't spent any time on it, but I'm going to be working on a small card game next. I told the guy I've been trying to work on a much more in-depth card game with for a while that we need to start smaller and been making him watch these, and he quickly threw together a simpler design, which I will then start coding and/or planning and/or cutting out even more to keep it small.

***** Next week's video should cover this, but: ask yourself what the absolute minimum you need to have something that you can play is - for a Top Trumps type game, I'd start out with two cards, and two properties on each, so that one card wins on property A and the other on property B. Get the game to deal one card to you and one to your opponent, tell you which card you have, let you choose which property to compare on, and then tell you whether you win or lose. Once I had that running, then I'd start adding more cards and more properties per card - which immediately adds the complications that, rather than immediately winning/losing outright, the game has to keep track of the cards played, adding them to the bottom of the relevant player's draw deck, and that, rather than always being the player's choice, sometimes the AI has to make decisions too. Once I've got that sorted out, adding more cards is easy (though possibly time consuming) and most of the development effort would go on user interface - making the game look prettier and play more smoothly. For your card game, work out the absolute minimum number of cards you need in order to use the simplest mechanic in the game, and the easiest way of telling the player what's happening - simple text output, placeholder art, morse code beeps - whatever you can throw together quickly using your development tools. The goal is to get something you can sit down and play as soon as possible - the simplest form of the game that actually does something - once you have that, then you can worry about adding content and new mechanics to make it actually fun to play... You'll probably find that you need to rewrite your initial code several times in order to scale it up successfully - this is normal, and something you'll learn to anticipate and work around with more experience - though even experienced programmers argue whether it's better to write your first prototype quickly and simply even if it means it's a pain to expand upon later, or to write it in such a way that it'll be easy to make the changes you anticipate needing to make later at the cost of taking longer to get your first version running - the ideal is probably somewhere in between, but, for your first project, definitely go for the quick-and-dirty option rather than trying to guess what you'll want to have in place for later stages. tl;dr: make the simplest thing that runs and then expand from there.

craglist and devianart and what kind of game are u makig

+Coolgoku80 *making

GameMakee marketplace, tons of artists there just waiting to be hired.

some simple games. I started a top down dungeon crawl dog. I can't hire anybody beause I have no money, and I don't plan on making any money at it. at least not yet. I'm just do it for fun/experience.

Same. I made tic-tack-toe in around a day using C++. It sounds like you got farther than I did.

Same for me, but I'm struggling to make anything that would take longer

I made tic tac toe in C# with an ai and all it's really neat :D

Within 8 hours I managed to completely code and create basic designs for a 2d platformer with functioning enemies.

Unendeavouring Bear What engine

unity is Hella difficult. to move anything takes so much work. but that's just me, and I'm not very good at coding. for starters I'd advise going 2d first, like stencyl, or maybe gamemaker. both are also free.

Gus Tahara-Edmonds Carrot Doughnut Thank you two! :D The only reason I haven't been using Unity's tutorial is because they seem to be using older versions of Unity and I don't know if I could down grade in versions or what... Lol

You should learn C# basics before learning C# for Unity, you won't grasp what is going on in other people's tutorials if you don't know the basics.

Darketek I wouldn't recommend unity for your first game. I've tried it many times and just end up giving up. But I've recently switched to love2d and I'm making more progress on that. The reason I like it is that it doesn't get in the way. you just write your code then drag it onto the love EXE and it runs.

Angus Wilson Aye thanks for the advice xD ill go and check out Love2D hopefully its easier lol

Try your best, and make notes so you can adjust for next time, e.g., "Animation took forever. I either need to expect it to take 4 times longer next time, or break it down into 4 smaller milestones." That way you'll get better at planning milestones.

Set some that seem basically reasonable, and move forward. If you fail to meet those milestones, adjust your expectations. The best way to learn this stuff is through experience.

I worked on a MUGEN based off me and my friends. My first time touching the engine. The first character took me three days, so I estimated I would be done in 3-4 Months with all the balancing and such. Finished the game in a month, still balancing a year later. MUGEN Is good because it allows you to do one character at a time as you learn. So if you try an engine and estimate from there, throw out your estimate. you will learn along the way.

I made a game under 10 min!

You really shouldn't use visual basic for games, it doesn't fit the task. You should rather try some tool/library made appositely for games, even if really simple, game maker or unity for instance. That doesn't mean you shouldn't program in visual basic, it's good excercise.

I would not use Visual Basic for games. If you want to create your game in an engine try GameMaker or Unity(2D) else you can try programming in C++, it's a bit harder to learn then most languages but it still is the industries standard, has virtually no limits and is as fast as you write it. And I wouldn't use gifs for graphics if I were you, you can convert them to jpg/png pretty easy.

visual basic ? are you mad

***** Visual Basic is somehow even worse. Anyway I agree on the fact that c++ is the way to go, but it is a very abstract to start. I would suggest Java or C# if you are going for high level languages, html5 or Javascript for scripting.

I agree that it in hindsight it was a bad platform to use but I thought to begin with that I'd be best using a language I already knew. I am currently also learning Javascript but I've done some research and found I'm doing it the difficult way.

+Travis Mohan just start with tutorials

+Travis Mohan Grab Unity, a popular and versatile engine, assuming your computer can run it (shouldn't be TOO high on the requirements). The front page of the Unity website has three or four tutorials on how to make a small variety of games, and they're both free and comprehensive. If you finish one or two of those, you'll surely have put together a few ways you can make your own works!

+Travis Mohan Use Construct 2 if your not ready for the hard task of learning code. It works very well and is free if you want to make something small but fun.

+Travis Mohan I would recommend you if you don't have any skill in art/graphic design - and don't want to make your own physics engine - Roblox. While it is marketed towards a younger audience, there's plenty of chances to learn the basics of game development, and potentailly earn money from it.

+Invisible Teemo Roblox is not a game making engine...

Me.

me

me

Cool. Is it online anywhere? I don't care if it's bad or not.

It's on itch.io just search for robo jump

Send them to HowToBasic's house. He'll figure out what to do with them.

Poor gasoline on it, hold it in your hand, take a match, and light the egg on fire.

Place them in a circle and begin chanting the most arcane things you can think of.

Those weren't eggs... Be careful...

Even the most talentless performers can get reasonably okay with enough help or enough time, or both. I mean look at the pop music scene; I bet you can name at least one significant success every couple years that started out VERY badly, but kept at it, go lots of help, and eventually did it. So, if it still interests you, keep trying. You will get better. Great? Probably not. But better, and that may end up feeling just as good.

I also have no artistic talent, but I only found that out after I spent a couple years in art school and learned to draw reasonably well. And although I regret spending two years in art school, I do value the experience.

Failing to succeed does not mean failing to progress, your not learning from the failures youve done, your only calling them failures and saying their embarrassing, you should go back and look at your mistakes and learn from them, and dont forget about the 10,000-Hour Rule, because you dont have to have to talent to do something good, practice it enough and you'll become good just because you wont be good in the beginning doesnt mean you should give up, if your not talented then practice till you get good.

As the saying goes, "The master has failed more times than the beginner has tried." So just keep chugging on. You're going to suck at first. You're going to suck for a long time before you start being halfway decent. But you'll get there eventually.

just work methodical, and work step by step, improving every little thing till it looks -even more awful-, -bad-, reasonable, I have a mandatory course of programming, I'm not good at it, but with my 160 lines of code I was able to change capital letters to regular ones (I now know how that one works). For a small game if it's functional you are far already (the chance that a homemad programm the size of a couple, kb's, mb's, bytes (or whatever if about 50-1000 lines of code) programm would burn out your processor s reasonably small, right? Right?)

Good luck!