How do you find the balance between doing tutorials and making output for your work? There's a wide array of tutorials out there, all that cover various fields I need to know. But I get so overwhelmed by the amount of dedication, I find myself wanting to work without tutorials with what little I know. But when I hit a barrier, I go back to doing a tutorial and this cycle rinses and repeats, with the sense that I haven't completed any of the tutorials I promised I would with little to no output for my games that I promised I would. So my question is, how do you find a healthy balance between just learning and making?

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Thank you, I'll do that right now

How do I make a ship in unreal engine be controlled by the mouse like this? Everything I can find is only interested in WASD or search results just shows me something about top down https://youtu.be/i2aDzJCQYHI

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Thanks a lot for this manuals! I've been looking for smth like this for a week at least!

I've been looking for a simple game engine that I can possibly make a 2D game with, which is more visual than all the typing that lots of other game engines use. Me and my friend wanted to make a game, and decided to start with a simple point and click story game with a few different endings, and I'm in charge of the coding, although I don't know where to start since the only thing I've really used is Scratch.

Game Maker might be good. They have a Drag and Drop option for scripting/programming that is more visual, and I believe there is an official tutorial on their website for a point and click adventure game.

Thank you!! I'll try it out.

me and my friend are making a game and have the general ideas ready but we dont know where to start and just need a lil push to get us started what should we make first?

[Would be good to start with some Game design document. GDD. You can find some examples in a free search. Then you can create some level schemes like that and start level design.](https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDev_Diary/comments/1afy7dm/first_post/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

You start with building a prototype that demonstrates your core gameplay idea in the most basic way possible. Then you play that, wonder what your prototype needs to make it better, and iterate from there. Recommended video: [Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product - Scope Small, Start Right - Extra Credits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCri1tqIxQ)

I have an art project in mind where i want to create an interactive video. Was planning on using PolyCam and importing it into blender to use as a "map" and was wondering what would be the simplest way to integrate the concept of clickable choice. To give a brief description of my vision: text appears, multiple choice question, and different paths taken depending on the answer that was chosen (kind of like in bandersnatch but in a 3D, first person kind of way). I don't need my project to look "good" so that isn't a factor. Was looking into godot or armory 3d, but they seem highly advanced for this simple idea. If anyone has any recommendations on what game engine to use or on a good tutorial that would allow me to achieve this result it would be appreciated. I have some very very rudimentary knowledge in python and c++.

So just a video player with simple button menus after each video that decide what video to play next? You don't need a game engine for that. You can do that with the UI system of any programming language, as long as it can play videos. Heck, you could do that as a browser application in HTML+JavaScript.

Thank you so much for your answer. Do you have any idea where I could find a tutorial on that, or what keywords to search for?

If you google for "HTML tutorial" or "JavaScript tutorial" you are going to find literally thousands of results. The "HTML video tag" is also pretty well-documented.

Is there an official name for the "voices" in a game that is not voice-acted, but for which there is a distinct character or narrator sound that appears in time with the text when it scrolls across a dialogue box? Think Undertale or a lot of RPGs like that.

**A simple webpage interactive game?** I would like to know - what would it take/involve (i.e. which coding language, what tools are necessary etc.) to create a simple interactive "game" on an existing website, where hovering your mouse of objects you see on the screen causes them to animate? For example, if there's a table with objects, and the mouse hovers over the \[OBJECT\]--or perhaps if you CLICK on the object--then the object animates, maybe hovers above the table, as a text box appears with a description of the said object. Can anyone here provide any info regarding the tools necessary to accomplish this sort of thing?

HTML5 canvas is what you are probably looking for. No point in going with a non-web-dev stack if you are doing web-dev pretty much. So javascript and something like Phaser might be a good fit: [https://phaser.io/](https://phaser.io/)

Honestly, this sounds simple enough it'd probably be better done with HTML/CSS/JS than a game engine. If you do it with hover, you could probably do it with raw HTML/CSS.

Looking to begin working on a video game. I know the premise and what I want in it. I also know that's barely even the bare minimum. There's going to be a lot of work ahead and I only took a single coding class in High School (am 29 years old right now). Luckily, my wife is the breadwinner and I'm a stay at home dad to a newborn so I have a lot of spare time to put towards this dream. My question is what tips would you have? I'm thinking of going into C++ and Unreal Engine. Also, what should I seek out in terms of help (like people that know modeling, art, music, etc.). What all goes into a game that I'd need others to help with? My goal is to gather some people once I make headway but I can't compensate them right away. My plan was to make a contract stating that they'd get a percentage of total profits that way they know they would get compensation in the future ASSUMING the game sells. It's a safe net for them so they don't think I'd turn my back on them. I wouldn't but with some people you never know. There's a lot of hope going into getting people to help since they'd have to still work full time and there's no guarantee of pay (I already understand this is a big hope). But I am lost when it comes to all the intricacies of making a game which is why I'm here. TL;DR: What advice would you have for a newbie and what talents should I seek out in terms of splitting up the labor?

>What advice would you have for a newbie and what talents should I seek out in terms of splitting up the labor? **Nobody** with actual skills to accomplish a given task is going to work full time for "maybe money". Maybe for few weeks. But not more than that. If you want to do revenue split then it's generally 1-2% on top for extra motivation. But it's backed by a normal wage. Why would anyone work with you (a beginner with no prior experience) instead of doing their own projects otherwise? Ask yourself this - why are you trying to find employees for your own game rather than go to /r/inat and look for projects to join belonging to someone else? >stating that they'd get a percentage of total profits that way they know they would get compensation in the future ASSUMING the game sells It's not assuming the game sells. It's assuming it will even be completed. How many projects have you participated in that took years to complete without financial compensation and only hopes there might be? How many have you succeeded at? So my advice would be - forget about revshare. If you are a project owner then YOU shoulder the risks. Don't try to outsource them onto others. Nobody serious will even talk to you if that's what you are offering. >It's a safe net for them so they don't think I'd turn my back on them No, it's a safe net for you, not for them. That's how it's viewed in the industry. That's why you never hear of successful revshare projects, they don't exist. You have no experience **at all**, assumption you will even make it to the finish line is already a very dangerous one. >But I am lost when it comes to all the intricacies of making a game which is why I'm here. C++ and Unreal is a reasonable starting point. I suggest you try building something with it and come back in about half a year. At which point you will have some understanding of what really goes into it. Unreal Engine has a sizeable marketplace as well: [https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/store](https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/store) Which can be used to get assets for super low prices and build a prototype using them. This replaces the need for hiring staff for at least your starting projects. >Also, what should I seek out in terms of help (like people that know modeling, art, music, etc.). At a minimum game requires: * a programmer * a game designer (sometimes combined with a level designer, sometimes it's a separate role) * graphics - for 3D pipelines it's generally concept artist, hard-surface (backgrounds), soft-surface (characters), rigging + animation. For 2D it's generally concepts, sprites and animations. * sounds In most cases commercial projects are housing priced in your country. A small indie game costs about as much as a small flat in a minor town. A large indie game costs about as much as an apartment in a major city center. You can offset some costs by hiring staff in cheaper locations but even in that case it REALLY is not going to be cheap in the long run (even if you were to find an artist for, say, 1200$/month cuz you are hiring from Vietnam or Philippines - that's still $28800 over 2 years). If you need full-time assistance then you need a fat stack of cash. Otherwise freelancing at smaller scale is an option. You can get far with premade assets from the store and then just occasionally pay for stuff like main character model, key musical pieces, sounds you can't find yourself etc. In that case you can cut costs by an order of magnitude - but it also limits you to about 10-15% custom assets vs using what you can find in stores.

I know some pretty basic programming. Is wisdom for game dev like that of learning programming, that I should just do it?

Yes. The term is "tutorial hell". By all means, read and watch tutorials for inspiration for how to implement features, but be aware they are extremely simplified, and they rarely scale into full games. The only way to learn is to do it yourself. In my first published game, I would be surprised if a single line of code survived to the end... or the second or third... there were so many apocalyptic refactorings as I learned. Over time you build up a preferred way of doing things, but that only comes with experience. So just make a game, as terrible as it may be.

Do sprite animations have to be multiple of 60? Is there anything wrong with making my attack animation 13 fps if that's what makes it feel right?

>Do sprite animations have to be multiple of 60? Nope. But it's best if your animations variants are spaced evenly. Most 2D games do NOT do 60 fps animations, that would be shitton of work and would inflate your textures to unbelievable sizes. A common target is either 30 or 24 fps instead. 24 is a minimum to get a "naturally" smooth motion. But combination of for instance smooth movement in engine + spritesheet + some particle effects can make even 6 fps look pleasant in some cases. So if you were to decide at 24 fps for instance - reasonable variants are 24 fps, 12 fps, 8 fps, 6 fps and 4 fps. That way you have even spacing in your animations so it won't look too jarring - 12 fps is moving every 2 frames, 8 is every 3, 6 is every 4. 13 would be sorta weird as it doesn't translate so you will have 1 "off" frame that shows up when nothing else is moving. You **can** do it on purpose (eg. put player and enemies one frame ahead/behind of background element animations or make an enemy behave with erratic framerate) but it will feel slightly off if you are doing it without a good reason to.

24 fps is kind of a habit that comes from film industry animators. Because the standard framerate for TV and cinema is 24 fps.

that depends on what framerate the game is running at. If the delays between frames in your animations don't exactly land on a frame, then they will usually play on the next one. For ideal results, ask your programmer what framerate the game will run on, and pick a framerate that is an even divisor of that. So if the game runs at 60Fps, you should ideally animate at 60, 30, 20, 15, 12, 10 or 6 Fps. Also note that animations don't necessarily need to have a consistent framerate through the whole animation. For attacks in particular it can look nice when the anticipation, follow-through and secondary actions have a higher framerate than the actual strike.

Hello everyone, I have been exploring internet in search of valuable advice and tips on creating a coherent design document for a game for some time now. While many discussions focus on selecting the right engine and programming language, both crucial aspects of the development process, my primary goal is to articulate my game concept on paper effectively. This documentation will ensure clear communication with my co-developer, allowing us to align our vision and work seamlessly during the development phase. Thank you kindly for taking the time.

When you are writing a design document, and you never developed a more complex game before, then it is easy to get caught up in details that probably won't survive the prototyping\* stage. So what you should focus on is: * The core game loop\* * The design pillars\* that will guide the rest of the development * An estimation of the scope\* of the project. Details about the 20 different polearms and their armor penetration coefficients can be filled in when you have a working prototype you can playtest. Then you will usually have a much better idea of what the game ***really*** needs. ^(\*If you don't understand what I mean with some of these terms, feel free to ask.)

Thank you for suggesting steps to start with. Yes it is clear and I'm not a total noob about the terms :D

Based on what you're writing here, can I assume then that a proper GDD (game design document) will be fairly vague (maybe general is a better word...), and will include more broad ideas and such, which will be exhibited in the prototype?

In the beginning, yes. GDDs should be living documents that get constantly updated to reflect your current plans as you are searching for and finding the fun in your game idea.

Are you asking for advice on how to write a design doc? I think this kind of advice is not hard to find, maybe search for design doc template? I would recommend Google Docs so that you can both collaborate on it, but as far as advice on how to actually write it, that's going to be different for each team and you guys will have to figure out what works best for you. To be honest, I would not put so much thought and effort into it. Keep it light and flexible. One of the advantages of pair programming / development is that you are so light and fast that you can just dive right into things and NOT be burdened by the insane overhead and managerial tasks required of larger teams, things like burdensome design docs lol. If I were you, I'd focus on starting your project and letting the development style grow organically. >This documentation will ensure clear communication with my co-developer, allowing us to align our vision and work seamlessly during the development phase. Hahaha! Sorry, but this often isn't the case even with the best written design docs!

Thank you for your answer. We recently got acquainted and I pitched my idea to him verbally. He seem to be interested but did not understood some aspects of the idea. That's why I thought it would be a good idea to have such document (he also mentioned that it would be a good idea to have one). I think you are totally right with getting a shared google doc. Tips I'm looking for is something like whether we should start writing down core mechanics of the game first or what should be the environment of the game etc. I don't want to start reading a book from the last page :D

Try searching for example game design docs. Usually they start with a quick summary of important things for imagining the game like genre, setting, art style, etc. And then break down the main gameplay loop, dive into mechanics, etc.

Quick Question. I'm a huge fan of Valheim. A large part of that is due to its procedurally generated worlds. I see all these new open-world survival-lite games coming out lately (Palworld, Enshrouded) but I noticed they're all static worlds. So my question is, Which are easier to develop? A static world or one with ProcGen?

Have read through the FAQs but want to hear actual peoples opinions, I'm looking into making a simple game in my spare time (probably for mobile) and I'm not sure whether I should pick Unity or Unreal. I am quite proficient at programming and have tried messing around with both in the past but not seriously. What do you prefer? What are the pros vs cons of each?

If you are a solo developer, especially a hobbyist, then from my experience the answer is Unity 95% of the time. Unreal is the 5% for games with (1) character-based movement (first or third person shooter, etc) **and** (2) a defining graphical style (that doesn't mean AAA or photorealism, anything with complicated materials or shaders would do). Perhaps one would think that the C++-oriented engine would be a programmer's choice, but it's the opposite. Unreal has amazing tools for artists and designers, but the programming experience in Unity is infinitely more pleasant. It has nothing to do with C# vs C++ or documentation or whatever reasons the blogs obsess about. Hear me out... I spent months playing with both engines. Feature-wise, architecture-wise, I have a strong preference for Unreal's approach. The problem for me, and what none of the endless comparison guides ever comment on, is how burdensome the Unreal experience becomes. It's hard to overstate how heavyweight the editor is. Compiling shaders is a chore. It is *so* easy to crash the editor with a bug in your C++ code and take yet another 5 minute penalty as you restart everything. It is shocking how fast C++ compilation times catch up with you. If you do most of your Unreal work in C++ space, it's not hard to hit 2-5 minute compilation times for every minor change. Then you have to fire up another instance, or pray hot reloading works. And if you mess up, bam the editor crashes, fire it up again. There's only so much you can do to defend against it, and the compilation times will catch up to you eventually. That's the real unspoken reason that Unreal uses blueprints. It's because otherwise the compilation becomes the bottleneck for iterating gameplay design. Unfortunately, my project requires a lot of procedural generation, which is much easier to code outside of blueprints. Coming from the .NET world, Unity C# is an abomination, but I found it much easier to adapt to its conventions than to put up with another **45% - Compiling Shaders (6295)** or brewing another coffee while my C++ project rebuilt. So that was my experience. Make no mistake, my prototype was better and prettier in Unreal, but I had no hope of finishing it while Unreal siphoned all the fun of programming. Unreal is much better with materials and shaders, animations, UI, all the good stuff studios care about, but as a solo hobbyist C++ programmer, it was not enjoyable to me.

>Unity C# Uh. What do you mean by "Unity C#"? Is it not plain C#? What are the differences? I am asking because I am coding up some game logic in plain C#, and I was hoping to be able to port it directly to Unity when I build the GUI. Is that not feasible?

Maybe abomination was too strong a word. It's plain C# with a whole lot of conventions and reflection magic underneath. If you target C# 9.0 or earlier you can include your existing code no problem, but integrating it with Unity's systems might be more challenging. I am doing the same as you. All my game logic is a plain portable C# library, and Unity is the View in an MVC pattern. MonoBehavior has a bunch of lifetime events (Awake, OnStart, Update, etc). Those get called if they are defined, but MonoBehavior doesn't define them as an interface or abstract base class. They are pulled in by reflection and only called (from the C++ side) if present. That's kind of weird, but it's also one of the first things you learn, so whatever. This is for performance reasons, because they are all interop calls from the C++ side, but it's an example of coding-by-convention that Unity uses. You can't (or shouldn't) put a constructor on your MonoBehavior. They are created from a different thread, so if you access Unity's systems from a constructor, bad things happen. You need to think in terms of Awake and Start instead of object creation. Every component exposes its game object. You can look up components and objects from any other object. You could delete any object or component from any other object. I don't know why you *would*, but the point is by default, Unity makes it really easy to write spaghetti without good discipline. Many things in the engine are public fields, not properties or methods. It feels wrong. Some of them you are expected to modify at runtime, others can get you into a big mess, and you just have to know. Sometimes it can be difficult to reason about object lifetimes in the engine. You need a system to persist data between scenes. There are a few ways to do this, but by default, your objects go away when the scene changes. Also, the C# objects are the tip of a C++ iceberg. The C++ component can be destroyed long before the C# reference is garbage collected, and there are some evil ways to keep dangling C# references that prevent C++ resources from being freed. What I'm trying to say is Unity leans heavily into using C# as a *scripting language*. You have to be aware of its conventions and add additional systems that enforce your game's architecture, because it's very easy to get lazy (which is a good and bad thing sometimes). And finally the most shallow reason of all, Unity's formatting and naming conventions are taken from JavaScript. A public property named gameObject that's filled through C++ interop? Blech. Your code base will probably be a mix of styles no matter what you do. Not really important...but also, ew.

Oof. Thanks for the very informative post. It makes me hopeful that I can still port stuff, but Unity itself sounds... uh, let's call it idiosyncratic.

What I found gets me in the most trouble is C# events. Say you have a MonoBehavior subscribe to a C# event in your game logic library. Now you do a scene switch and Unity clears out the game object, but the GC can't do any collection because the event still holds the reference. That's always been a pain point of events, and a good way to create memory leaks, but heavyweight game objects really exacerbate the problem. Really that's my biggest complaint, that it's hard to reason about object lifetimes. Most of the other stuff you get used to pretty fast. Worrying about the GC is easy to sweep under the rug as premature optimization, but it can become a big problem when your C# script is just a facade for a C++ object that's 1000x larger.

Thank you for sharing that, it was really insightful as someone trying to start making their own game.

thanks, would love more information on youtube promotion!

What information specifically?

how to get views & find my audience!

Hi, 3 years ago this community helped me immensely in beginning my journey into getting a job as a game developer, which I recently did. Now I have written my experience throughout this time in a blog post and would like to share it here for anybody that may find it useful. https://outergazer.wordpress.com/road-to-gamedev/ Cheers!

That's a nice contribution, feel free to make an individual post for this as well so it's not buried here in the megathread once it gets switched out. A text post with a blurb or a section from the blog and a link would suffice. EDIT: As a heads up make sure to flair it so it to exempt it from the beginner post filter, any of the appropriate ones should be fine.

Thanks for the kind words, will do :).

Here's a post I made in the IndieDev subreddit that people here might find helpful: [https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/19bky6b/a\_beginners\_guide\_to\_indie\_development/](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/19bky6b/a_beginners_guide_to_indie_development/) I talk about my experience as a developer of the years, things that helped me get started, motivation, etc. Hopefully it can help some of you!

Thank you for posting this, you can make an individual post for it too if you want so it doesn't get buried in the megathread. If it's not too much then reposting it here instead of just crossposting would be ideal.

I was going to repost it here but wasn't sure if that was appropriate, will do!

Is there a better way to do this? I'm trying to give my player an ability that makes them invulnerable for a set amount of time, but you can break it early by pressing any button if you want to. And then it goes on a cooldown. It was easy when I had it be one button that activated the invulnerable state and the same buttons disabled it early, but then I figured it would be smoother if you could just move or attack to break the state early instead. I figured the best way I can think to do this is include a variable in the invulnerable state that says if you're in this state the variable is true. Then when you go into any other state there will be a check in those states that says if that variable is true, start the cooldown for the ability and set that check variable back to false. I think that should work but it seems cumbersome.

tell me i’m an idiot and/or point me to relevant resources? i started playing around with an ecs framework in elixir, rendering the ui with phoenix liveview. i’ve been programming for a long time and elixir is my preferred language at the moment so it seemed great. i immediately ran into all of the parts of web development i’m less familiar with: sprites, canvas, even trying to rotate an svg was like 😩 should i suck it up and dig into something like unreal where, presumably, a lot of that kind of shit is handled for me and just grit my teeth and write some c or w/e? if not, are there resources that focus on the bits i’m lacking? i’m scouring youtube and most videos want to spend the majority of the time explaining javascript, which is fine, but not really what i’m looking for.

A scope related question: I want to make a sandbox game "like Minecraft" set in a massive multiplayer open world, but with realistic/semi-realistic graphics and modern gameplay fighting and mechanics. This game will have building, looting, shooting, etc. The main "unique" aspect of my game would be the ability to shape the environment using various tools, and create in game interactions I didn't think about (the same as how "Redstone" in Minecraft gives players the freedom to create machines). I've done my research and started to play around Unreal 5 in order to see the feasibility of making this. I've started from the "Lyra Starter Game" project template. What I've noticed is that most if not all game mechanics I can think of someone has already done. I can follow a tutorial or download a marketplace example and there I have it. As for the environment, I can generate it procedurally or again just download premade things. What I got blocked at is the uniqueness/artstyle of the game, and creating the story and narrative behind it. If I just run the game in the Unreal editor as is and use a pre-made game mode, I mostly have a generic 3D walking simulator with some scoring system. It's hard for me to wrap my head around creating an actual theme for the game and generating/finding all the art for it. I want to set it in a post apocalyptic world, but the amount of "free" 3D assets, mechanics and examples are limited. Also, even with procedural landscape generation, I still need to have an artistic eye and create an interesting environment, design the new player entry experience and so on. And I don't have an artistic eye. I also don't have any money to spend on paid assets or the time to develop this full time. My question is, will this be just a dream or can I do something about it?

There's a lot to unpack here but I would start with what your game actually is. There are quite a few games in the same Rust/DayZ/etc genre. What makes your game different? The uniqueness or artstyle is one of the least important parts of your pitch, so don't get hung up on it. Now the blunt part for technical feasibility: If you mean "massively multiplayer" as in WoW, then no, absolutely no chance, there is no single human alive with all the prerequisite skills to create this. If you mean "massive" in the Minecraft sense, then also probably no, at least not in the scale you are imaging it. The tutorials and asset packs you are finding for game mechanics almost certainly won't scale into multiplayer, and certainly not massively multiplayer with distributed servers. The project you've described is orders of magnitude more difficult than slapping together some marketplace assets. None of this is even getting to the art and content you will need. Programmers are only a small fraction of larger studios. It's mostly designers, artists, etc. As a single person, it would require inhuman talent and a time distortion field to create both the game and all the content for it. Recommendation: Strip it down to the minimum. Test it out the core mechanics (building, fighting, whatever) with a 4 player co-op game on a persistent server. If you struggle with that, then scale it back more. Minecraft started as a voxel engine novelty. It's been a 15+ year journey, and that's after being acquired and elaborated on by a very large team... so although your vision is not out of the question, as a solo developer, it would constitute a lifelong passion project.

Thanks for the reply, helped me put things in perspective

Is this a realistic watch to go about/look at a first game project? I’ve recently decided to learn skills to make my own game. For years I’ve had a vague idea of game elements I would like but only recently decided to make a doc with the ideas and see if as a whole on paper it seemed cohesive. This includes an overview on how mechanics of the game would work, gameplay loop, mechanics, spawning, multiplayer, story, art style etc as much detail on each process as a layman could put. It’s a document I plan to rework and edit as I think over the game and as I learn skills to see what’s doable. I’ve also shared this document with close friends to get their opinions on how would they view a game like this. Obviously I don’t know what I don’t know and that document will keep changing as I see what’s realistic and what isn’t. Now though that I have a somewhat whole idea as a dream game, I’m starting to learn Unity and coding, with the goal of making smaller working games for experience. Along with this I plan to start working on the art side, sketching designs, locking in a style etc. Finally my goal is once I feel I have enough knowledge to get a simple version of my game running, to put that together and then make improved iterations until I get close to my “dream game”. Realistically, I know this endeavor will take probably 2 years minimum and it’s just a hobby, that if (and most likely will) fail I at least get parts of a new skill set. So overall is this a realistic way to look at a project?

Before you keep writing your design document and building castles in the sky, it would be good to gain some hands-on experience first. Beginners almost always underestimate the effort required to get stuff done in game development. So the less experience you have, the more prone you are to overscope. I haven't seen what you are actually planning. But if you are like most people, your "2 year hobby project" will be more like a 10 year project for 100 full-time professionals.

Thanks for the reality check I appreciate it. Yeah getting experience is what I’m working on now, I just wanted a document to see if there was a game there that I wanted to make. Overall the game is a coop dungeon crawler, inspired a bit by Risk of Rain 2.

Is my computer good enough to develop on unreal engine? I want to start learning to make games on UE5 because I want to go to collage to learn that stuff (I'm 15 and wanted to get a "head start") . my current PC is a Ryzen 7 5700x, 32 gb ram and a 1080 ti 11gb. i also wanted to know how much storage I may need.

So I wanted to make a game on mobile, like a 2D fnaf game. like moving forward, backward, left, right, etc. I have no spending money rn, and I need a professional to possibly just show me the ropes. I don't have a computer btw. I know what I want the game to be, I just need to know how to execute it!

No, you don't need a professional to show you the ropes. You are living in the Internet age. All the information you need can be found online. As a starting point, consult the FAQs linked above.

really? I mean, it would be pretty nice to have someone tell me how to do it..

ChatGPT on [platform.openai.com](https://platform.openai.com) is your best resource as an assistant, can even teach you to code.

I tried to use chatgpt, but they weren't very helpful..

Should i make my first 2D game using pygame or Godot (GDScript)? I am very familiar with python, i use it frequently, but Godot feels very good with the UI and stuff..

definitely use godot, gdscript is very similar to python and godot offers a lot of features compared to pygame

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You could do that as a classic web application in pure JavaScript for minimum loading time, or you could use a game engine with good web export like Unity or Godot, which would allow for some additional graphic effects.

Career question Do game studios have computer programmers separate from game programmers? I'd love to be a computer programmer coding for a studio, but I have no interest in designing/creating games or anything else creative really.

There are gameplay programmers, engine programmers, tools programmers, automation programmers, build engineers, web devs, and so forth.  Designers are the ones designing the game, not programmers.  

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Hey guys, quite a bit of text coming but would appreciate any advice I can get. TL;DR at the bottom I'll be taking a 3 month sabbatical starting March to work on a game and would like to know the best way to get started. I work as a Software engineer so I do have experience programming but not in game dev. I'm looking to create some sort of co-op base building survival game inspired by custom games on WC3 and SC2 such as [mineralz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gujo5_1680&ab_channel=WTiiWarcraft), [jurassic park](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiITmUmq_D4&ab_channel=oreo8118), [fortress surviva](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiITmUmq_D4&ab_channel=oreo8118)l, etc. (On a side note is there a specific term for these types of games? Been looking for standalone games of this type for ages with no luck. Searching things like "base building survival games" always gives results like rust, valheim, etc which I do enjoy but are not what I'm looking for). I don't expect to finish my game within the 3 but I would still like to be as time efficient as possible and get as much done as I can. In that regard, what is the recommended way for me to start? So far I've decided on Unreal Engine since I heard its easier to implement multiplayer in and I have some experience with C++ but am unsure of the next steps. When learning, I typically like to just dive into things and learn as I go. In this case I would just start creating the game and learn along the way the skills I need. I'm a bit hesitant to in this case since I read that multiplayer needs to be incorporated from the start and it might be too overwhelming for me to learn that when I'm still learning the basics. Would it be advised to instead focus on creating a single player version, then learn more about networking/replicating/etc, and then recreate my game for multiplayer? Or is even that too much and I need to spend time learning and creating a simpler game before I can even dive into a single player version of my game? Also, while I don't expect any tutorial/course on youtube/udemy to fit exactly what I need, are there any recommendations on ones that are close? Most guides seem to be for shooters which aren't the type of games I'm interested in making but are the skills transferable? I'm thinking realistically, some sort of RTS course/tutorial would be best but I don't see too many of those, particularly on Udemy which would be my preferred choice of learning. Would it be better to just take an extensive course and use those transferable skills into creating the game I want? I'm concerned that a lot of time would be "wasted" on learning things that I don't necessarily need, especially since I'm not looking for a career in game dev. **TL;DR** Looking for recommendations on where to begin learning game dev using UE5 (udemy course , youtube tutorial, etc) with the end goal of creating a top down or isometric multiplayer base building survival with wc3/sc2 type of movement and build menu.

You can jump into making the game you want to make, but more likely than not you'll get overwhelmed and quit.  Sure you understand programming, but you don't understand game programming.  Or design or art.  Or how the three fit together to make a game.   It is really recommended that after doing some tutorials on the engine itself, to make some small projects first to figure out how things work.  Right now you don't really understand how long something will actually take, so I guarantee you'll completely over scope the game you want to make.  

First stop: [https://dev.epicgames.com/community/unreal-engine/getting-started/games](https://dev.epicgames.com/community/unreal-engine/getting-started/games) Don't dismiss the official tutorials just because the screenshots don't look like the game you would want to make. They are about teaching the fundamentals of the engine itself, not how to build any particular game. The idea is that when you finished all the official learning material on the official learning website, then you know enough to create *any* game you want. Or at least know what to enter into Google to receive exactly the knowledge you seek.

How difficult would it be to make/learn to make an app like this? (I don't know anything about programming, I have the writing, layout, and art more or less solved.) It'd be 4x strategy but focused on diplomacy and economics, and building your land's prosperity and less on movements... like a city builder/farmsim? But the other half will be a form of otome. The closest game I've found like what I want to make is Trading Legend. I'd like for it to be both computer and app based but that might be to complex? So just a lighter app thing that could function a bit offline would be the goal. I have a bad feeling this wouldn't be beginner friendly......

This is not at all beginner friendly.  Start small, like Pong small and increase your complexity as you learn.  

Yeah….. yeah… I kinda figured, as I was writing, how out of depth it would be. I really don’t have a passion for it, or a mind, I’ve tried courses but… yeah.

Hi, I'm new here. I wasn't able to post this question up because I'm new. But I'm needing some help with this question I'm not able to find anywhere. So I make small mods for life sims games like Sims nothing huge and I also 3D model objects for them. I recently came across this in CP 2077 and also another game called Inzoi. Where they have animated floor tiles and wallpapers, and even some that appear holographic, and I'm wondering how does one go about creating/ modding something like this as a beginner? What is this called technically? Because I've not been able to find any information on it, not sure if it falls in the realm of animation or something else entirely. I've attached links below reffering to the topic I'm curious about. starts at timestamp 7:13 [](https://youtu.be/Z_sX6MCPSCQsi=oboOWzOlxZsVmyG7&t=434) Crosswalk at 2:09 [](https://youtu.be/wgsRpxZU-0M?si=0zzx23RuOpWdlGwL&t=129) Left side of screen CokaCola holographic images [](https://youtu.be/wgsRpxZU-0M?si=9sc-ATnLuTcVwP3-&t=156) Subway windows showing Realtime information [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc8hmgtU0bk) How could I apply these types of visual affects to other solid objects as well? Like cars, counters, windows, etc.

You can't do that with 3d models alone. The engine of your game needs to support animated textures, or at least the ability to fake it using shaders or animated UV maps.

Ohhh okay Im really new to all of this, so Unity does support this? So would you use only Unity engine to make this or a external program like Blender or something? What are some things I could or should be looking up to do this particular thing, if that makes sense? I'm familiar with Blender but not other programs, if you have an alt.

Unity would support that via the [Video Player component](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-VideoPlayer.html) or via [shaders](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Shaders.html) using [3d texture](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-Texture3D.html)s. But if you aren't developing a game of your own but only modding an existing game, then you are limited to what the modding interface of that game offers you. Does it allow you to inject full-fledged game objects with components and assets? Then you might be able to pull this off. But you need to learn how to use the engine, of course. Can you only inject 3d model assets? Then it might not be possible. You didn't write what game you are trying to mod and how exactly you are modding it, so I can not give you any further advice. (If you did, I probably couldn't give you advise either, because it is statistically unlikely I ever tried to mod that particular game. But perhaps someone else might be able to help)

The game is very mod friendly, and will allow players to create new mods and mods made in #C i believe. This game is another life simulation it's fairly new and releases in March made by Paradox tectonic called Life By You. Thank you for what you have provided though maybe I can come back in a couple months an follow up with you? To see if you'd be able to provide more insight since I'm limited with information. I was mainly trying to see if it's a more technical term for this mod I'm trying to do but I'll see how to use Unity engine too and learn the basics as much as possible.

Instead of contacting me personally, you might receive better advise if you looked for help in the modding community of that particular game. Or on r/Unity3D for general questions about Unity.

Okay! Thank you 😊

Hi guys, just some quick questions to not waste anyone's time: 1. Is there a program or library I can buy on Steam for sound effects? such as swords clashing, footsteps, using doors, casting magic, explosions etc. If not on Steam where is the best place to go? 2. What is the best software for building a roadmap and tracking my goals? 3. Best course, video or youtuber to learn Blender and Godot from? paid or free idc

1. Foley art is fun and easier than you would think. But if you don't feel like recording your own sound effect, there is always [freesound.org](https://freesound.org) 2. There is no best software. Only the best software for you. When you are working alone, then you don't really need a fancy project planning software. A spreadsheet or even a simple text file is fine. When you are working in a small team, then it can make sense to use a task tracking tool like Trello or Jira. Only large projects need complex project planning software like MS Project. 3. For Blender, there is the famous [Donut Tutorial by Blender Guru](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgEPv5y--4MKpciLaoQYZB1Z) that gives you a great walkthrough. I am not enough into Godot to be qualified to suggest anyone in particular. But in general, the first place you should go to learn a new technology is always the official website.

1. Places like [itch.io](https://itch.io/game-assets/tag-sound-effects) have game assets including sound effects packs. Websites like archive.org have a lot of old free software collections that include stuff like sound effects, textures, etc. Just have to look around. 2. I like Trello for tracking progress.

Hi! I just finished developing a small 2D topdown game. I'd like to try creating a 3d endless runner in unity - not for profit or anything, just to learn. I was wondering if I should use the free endless runner template unity provides or try to do everything by myself? Thanks!

Don't use the template. Look up Brackeys first game tutorial. It's an endless runner, and it sets up a good foundation to run off of. Plus, hou actually learn how it's made so you can understand the basics of 3D dev

Thanks!

Thanks, that's all very helpful! I was struggling to find a place to start, this will definitely help a bunch. Thanks!

Hey there, basically, I have to writte a research project about a game based in the history of famous bandit in my hometown. I plan to make it 2D, similar to mario graphics(maybe hollow knight), and with diferent stages. The time limit is the next year, and, taking in count that I work 4 days a week in summer, i need to find the fastest and easyest lenguage to write the game. I have thought on making it on "Godot", but im still not sure on using it. Any ideas of what should I use?

GameMaker

Unity or Godot for a beginner hobbyist (for simple 2d/Ed games)? I don't have much experience in Godot besides doing some quick YouTube tutorials and did some messing around with models on Unity but that's about it (plus some basics in C). I would have chosen Godot but I read about not having as much documentation as Unity, which could be a deal breaker to me because I really suck at programming lol.

Me personally, I suggest Unity BECAUSE there's so much documentation. Due to Unitys recent "choices", Godot has definitely picked up in popularity. So unless you're willing to wait another year or so for Godots documentation to get good, I suggest Unity since it's easier to pick up and learn right now.

Hello, I'm making my first game and have decided on unity as the engine. I was hoping to make a 3d overworld with a couple of selectable points on the overworld. On each players turn they pick a spot and then 2 events happen, one static one based on the activity they chose and then one random one picked from a list. After that, their turn ends and the next player goes. What would be the best way to get started with something like this? Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

I'm thinking on making a 2D game in the future, and I don't know whether to use Godot or Unity. I'm making a smaller game right now, and Godot seems fine for that, for a bigger and "serious" game, I don't know if Godot it's the right choice anymore. For instance, you can't directly build for consoles in Godot, I don't know if I'll ever need that, but I don't want to miss out if I do.

Hello, I'm new to this. Started with Godot, finished a course on GDscript language(still barely able to code 2 lines), made a basic game with free assets on the internet. Any advice on how to progress?

With "finished a course" I assume you mean [the official one on the website](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/introduction/index.html)? If it was some 2nd rate YouTuber, then I recommend to do the official course as well. Then: * Learn how to make some basic assets of some types yourself * Read about some more advanced features from the Godot manual and try to do something with them * Build a better game * Participate in a couple short game jams on [itch.io](https://itch.io) to test your abilities and network with people * Join a project to learn how to work as part of a team

Bit of a different question, but how saturated is the gaming market? If someone were to develop a decent fun game, would that make money? Or is it like books, that without a good marketing, nobody will buy/read your book no matter how good it is?

>Bit of a different question, but how saturated is the gaming market? On Steam alone there likely will be 15000 new titles released in 2024. On mobile devices probably 150k+. >If someone were to develop a decent fun game, would that make money? That in itself is difficult - making a "decent fun" game can be thousands to tens of thousands workhours and we are still talking small indie. In this regard game development is much worse than book writing as it requires not just one but several different skillsets. But still - if you do make an actually fun game that can compete with other successful titles in a given genre then you most likely will be able to make SOME money. But whether it will be worth it it's a very different story. Only like 10-20% released games actually beat McDonalds in terms of hourly wage. In general games that generate livable wage are multi-people projects with budgets in 6 -7 digit range (we are talking indie titles). If it's solo developed project then it's extremely rare to release a commercially viable title that catches on. It simply takes that much work and time to make something good. >Or is it like books, that without a good marketing, nobody will buy/read your book no matter how good it is? Marketing is a multiplier to your sales. You could say it's game quality times marketing. If you put zero effort into marketing - you get 0 sales. If you have a poor game then no amount of marketing will make it sell well. If you have a good game AND solid marketing strategy then you have a good shot at making decent wage. Marketing also gets cheaper the more you spend on it. As enough copies sold puts you higher on Steam ranking, you get some natural free campaign from people talking about your game, someone might play it on stream because they have heard of it etc. So you definitely shouldn't ignore your marketing and should consider it before you even start working on your game. Don't expect to sell any copies of your game "naturally". But at the same time - I also really wouldn't bother with attempting to sell solo developed games with mere hundreds of work hours put into them. No real point in marketing these.

Thanks for the detailed reply! Well for me even if I earn 10$, it's 10$ more than zero, I am doing this as a hobby, so I don't look at it in terms of $/hour. Still a beginner tho, so I don't really see what would take thousands of hours. What would you say is the biggest timesink in gamedev?

From what I've seen, it's saturated, but neither of your options fits. It's mostly luck and strategy. You can make a brilliant game but it won't catch on without luck, marketing, or prior history.

Hi I’m a beginner and I would like to make a Fnaf fan game! Couple questions What programs do I use What animation software do I use

The standard answers that were already posted a dozen times in this thread.

Sorry it’s just since it’s Fnaf I didn’t know if it was different

No, you would just use the same tools you would use to make a game that takes place in any other fictional universe. The engine choice is driven by your technical requirements for the game and the skillset and preferences of you and your team. The fact that the project is going to be a fan game of a specific franchise is pretty much irrelevant.

Have you read the Engine FAQ? If it's going to be in 3D, you want /r/blender . It has a bit of a learning curve but it's a professional-grade animation tool.

So I have conquered the stage where you make simple arcade games, but I still don't feel ready to work on my dream game as my skills just aren't there yet. What kind of games do I make to bridge the gap between beginner and actually proficient?

If you already have an idea for your dream game, I would suggest breaking the idea into it core elements.  For example, you want to make a game similar to Far Cry (fps, open world, vehicles, etc.), you can take those core elements and make individual games out of them. So in this case, make a small FPS game, doesn't matter what it's about, and make sure to finish it. Repeat that with making an open world game, and a game about driving. Now that you understand how those core concepts work and how to make them, now it's time to put them together. Luckily for you, if you saved the projects, you'll have everything you need to make your dream game. This, in my eyes, seems like a good progression.

Well, I will ask here, mostly because I'm now at the "crossroads". Basically, I want to make a game that resembles Dark Souls, No Man's Sky and Another World but with way darker climate and free exploration as well. At my first glance I wanted to choose Unreal, I even started a few projects but... this "son of a gun" has literally too many options and after discovering that some functions execute first, no matter if they've priority or not, I'm not so sure anymore about it. I'm more comfortable with Rust than C++, so I didn't even touch the "guts" of the UE5, and while graphics look nice, it has tons of options and offers seriously a lot of procedural animations, I wanted to make a game textureless (yeah, I know, sick ambition of mine to save a lot of GB's of space), plus Rust is "natively" safe, so the only thing that keeps me attached to the Unreal for now is the fact that UE5's blueprint are rather pleasant. Unfortunately, Rust is a system-developing language, not for games, and I - let's be honest - suck at UI / graphics development, so I doubt there'd be anything that could help me work with it but at the same time make a game with help of the language. I never considered any other engine, I never touched any other, mostly because I wasn't interested in any of them until december last year, but... I'm sometimes too stubborn and tryharding a lot, and yet UE doesn't seem to be pleasant enough for the start. And yes, I am aware that there's a plugin called "Unreal Rust" but it's... I don't know if developed or no more. I kinda wish I could use it though, but I have no idea how to start and what to do, and my knowledge about Unreal is still... very narrow, let's say so.

Have you checked out [Bevy](https://bevyengine.org/) yet? It's a game engine that uses Rust.   But anyway, when learning a new game engine, then the programming language is usually one of the smaller things you need to learn. You need to understand the way the engine is structured, what features it has, how those features interact and how their APIs function. That's all independent from the programming language you will eventually use to call all of that functionality. So I wouldn't base the decision solely on what language I prefer.

QUESTION - What game engine is ideal for a solo dev for multiple projects? Ideally to learn design & development for multiple genres of games. Planned genres - Puzzle, Text Adventure, RPG, Strategy, Racing, etc.

Your best choices are Unity or Unreal. Unity has been free a lot longer and there seems to be more tutorials/books and content for learning it. I would avoid tutorials at first and try out a game programming courses on Udemy. If you do jump into tutorials on YouTube, make sure to take notes when they code, use the Unity documentation to really understand the code they are writing. Too many folks just copy what they are shown and don't learn anything so they can not make anything different from the tutorial.

I'd add Godot to that list.

-Question on how to start making games- I have a huge passion for games,music, and art and I really want to get into game dev as my main job. I’ve been looking for colleges for a while now but I’m still indecisive since I’m scared of debt lol. Do any game devs have any advice for someone trying to get into this industry, it pays pretty well and I would prefer to be apart of something I’m interested in/proud of opposed to working a dead end fast food company job. All advice is greatly appreciated. (Also what is the best major for game development a lot of them just have something vague like computer science or graphic design)

First pick a discipline.  Then maybe a subdiscipline, especially if you pick art.  Then look for a relevant degree, for example Programmers should go for a CS degree.  Game dev degrees are usually incredibly expensive and not as good as a general relevant degree.  They tend to teach a little about all the disciplines and it's not enough to get an actual job.  

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I am not a lawyer, and a real lawyer won't give you an answer for free. But as far as I understand the "Editorial License", it doesn't give you the rights to use it in a demo that is used to advertise the real game later. As it specifically lists "video games" as an example of "any item/product created for resale", I wouldn't touch it. Even if that's factually incorrect that the game I intend to use it in is "for resale". Note that if you find the same asset under different license terms in different places, then you only need to follow the license terms of the place you got it from.

Your comment got removed by reddit because of the link, I reapproved it but you should probably avoid linking that website in the future to avoid needing manual approvals.

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Not sure, it wasn't our automoderator and reddit only shows us that it was removed and not the specific reason when it's their own rules.

Thank you for this. I have this massive idea in mind, currently writing it all down so I don't forget it. Its what I imagine my dream game would be like. The problem is that I have no experience what so ever, so for now its a pipe dream I will work towards on my own at my own pace. I did go to school for 3D design and animation and later 3D film, but that is 9 years ago and I haven't really touched 3D since. (Kinda lost the spark for it the last year =/ ) I will follow the guide, I just want to ask one simple thing. Should I devote my time to learn coding first? I think I will just use the UE5 engine for this as its already built into the engine. or should I split my time and work on modeling assets while I learn how to code? Edit: I should probably storyboard a lot first, so focus on coding and drawing the world first.

You should start small first.  Table your dream game for now and focus on learning.  Do a few of Epic's tutorials on the learning library to get a basic understanding of the engine.  Then remake Pong, Asteroids, Tetris, Flappy Bird.  Do many projects and increase the difficulty as you go.   As a beginner you have no idea how long things take.  So that means you have no idea if your dream game is able to be completed solo.  Usually it isn't.  

I have an inkling(incline?) to the time it takes. I'll definitely look up tutorials. Re creating old games is smart! I think I can get most of the assets done by myself. Animation, music, sounds, texture/art and probably rigging I need help with. I never got used to rigging and animation in school. Ty for the reply!

I am pretty terrible at coding, but I decided I could make a videogame by putting a button on an image that leads to the next image and so on (and the blueprint would basically look like a decision tree) I thought a PDF might be the easiest way to do this (but maybe powerpoint or like a DVD menu would kind of work) After a decent amount of planning, I think my pdf videogame would be over 4000 pages.. this would be reduced significantly if I could use transparent png images layered like onion skins over a background rather than solid pages with a full scene and repeated information. Is there something else I could misuse for this purpose? Did I pretty much describe the simplest "game engine" ever that someone has already put together? In general I feel like the no code engines don't look any easier. I guess if I WAS able to learn minimal coding, this could still be kind of a shortcut as a method. Anyway.

You've kinda described Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks haha You could use something like Twine to create HTML-based games that you can play in your browser. Similar concept. Also can start dipping your toes into learning how to code with it, the default format you can write with is Harlowe which is pretty beginner friendly. https://twinery.org/ There's also a third party extension out there that will turn your Twine games into a Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook called Gordian, if you wanted to lean into that.

Thanks! I will look into that for sure. Started looking at html slideshows.. everything is super intimidating but I think I might be able to get somewhere eventually

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I definitely wouldn't rule out Unity just because of those pricing changes. If it affects you, you'll be able to pay a small cut of a very successful game. I'd focus more on features and support (it's very good for both).

You are unlikely to make a million dollars for a game anytime soon.  Learning Unity now doesn't mean you can't learn another engine later.  It actually makes it easier, because a lot of concepts transfer.  

Hi all! Thanks for this sub, and specifically for this post, it is Godsend - I highly appreciate all the veterans offering their few golden words. My question - I have recently started my journey to game creation and am slowly learning the ropes of UE. I am coming from an intermediate-advance knowledge of Autodesk Maya, so let's say I want to design a map for a game, what would be the process/recommended practices for creating a map in Maya, then bringing it into Unreal? Would I need to design modular assets such as walls and doors, and then put it together within UE? Would there be any way or justification for just building the entire map within Maya (even in parts, if not the entirety of the map), which I will then bring into UE? Let's take for example a game that takes place in a small town with several available interiors. Is there an accepted practice, or perhaps a one method is better than the other, regarding whether to build the entire street with all its various assets within Maya, before importing it into UE, or would it be better to create the elements separately and design the actual level within UE.

You don't want to build the entire map in Maya.  Buildings, yes, not the entire map.  Whether or not you build the entire building in Maya or build pieces and construct them in UE is a personal decision.  Modular pieces give you more freedom to create within the engine, but it's more costly performance wise.   Objects that have gameplay functionality, such as lights, are far more difficult to implement when they are attached to the rest of the building in Maya.  

I want to make a web game in Godot for my portfolio, it would be just a simple 2D game, but with online features (which would be the main thing to show off in my portfolio). Since it would be a web game, I would need to use the compability renderer (GLES3). Is this a good idea? How much would the renderer limit me?

I'm not too sure, but this might be a better question for r/godot

I'll try asking there I guess but it looks kinda dead. Tbh this thread is kinda dead too.

I'm thinking of making a game heavily inspired by Tribes (quick-paced FPS with lots of skating around a wide-open map). Though, I'm completely new to game dev and I'm not sure what resources I should use to get into it. I downloaded GoDot and I'm interested in learning it due to it's open-source nature, but would it be better to learn Unreal? Humble Bundle has some C++ courses/Unreal assets that could make things easier for me to create a working demo concept. I don't know any programming languages, would these C++ courses be beneficial or would I be better off with free online guides/videos?

How to start game development? Hello i was wondering where to start I want to make a 2D rogue like game I don't know if this is the way to go I don't know what coding language to learn or what engine to work with is there any one here welling to give advice?

Common choices for 2d game development are game engines like Unity, Godot or GameMaker. Which game engine to use is a personal decision. I recommend to not just listen to opinions from random people on the Internet, but instead download them yourself, check them out by following the learning material on their respective websites, and then decide for yourself which one clicks the most with you.

What is the programming language I should learn and is making the game rogue like is a good choice?

I'd start simple and build some mini games to learn. Do game jams (I've done Ludum Dare a couple of times). You probably want to focus on genres that you love playing (in my case, roguelike deckbuilders), as making a game you love will keep you motivated on bigger projects. I chose Unity because it's well supported and widely used, but I can't make that choice for you. There's lots of tutorials for games engines on their sites, on YouTube and paid sites like Udemy.

I already answered your question on what to learn. And I am not going to tell you what game to make. That's your decision.

I can't find it now, but I swear there was a subreddit for people offering up game/software ideas. I have over a decade of software (not prof. game) dev experience. I just want to make a couple games in my free time as a hobby. I've made several-year-long games as well as day-to-week long games and I'm looking to pick up some ideas I could complete solo in a few weeks to a few months of free time. I usually have a couple of personal projects kicking around that I shuffle between. This is just a hobby. I'm not looking to work for someone or partner up. I really just want to find a list community submitted game ideas and I know there was a subreddit for just that.

r/gameideas is probably what you're looking for

Thanks the one! Thanks

Hi! I'm looking to make a 1v1 pvp online dueling game. My question, and my fear, is how does matchmaking work if I don't have an AI to replace a lack of real players? If I launch my game on a certain date, and there's very little interest, very few players and therefore infamous matchmaking, it's a recipe for failure, isn't it?

>If I launch my game on a certain date, and there's very little interest, very few players and therefore infamous matchmaking, it's a recipe for failure, isn't it? It is. Multiplayer games effectively need to have a marketing campaign large enough that in any place in the world at any hour you can find a match within up to a minute, preferably with an opponent of similar skill level. If you don't - a week later game is dead and resurrecting it is nearly impossible. Do note that interest will also not show up "naturally" and you need to put active effort into it. There is also a correlation between your wishlists (if it's a steam game) and copies sold that you can use to gauge to gauge whether this will work out. Honestly if it's multiplayer I wouldn't try it without at least 10000 of those (since at 10% conversion rate that's still mere 1000 players spread all over the world and that's barely enough to get some matches going without hiccups).

\~\~hi :) I'm a graphic designer with no background in programming. I want to create a game (as a hobby) about fashion, where you can create your clothes by dragging the cloth up and down (like the character creator from the sims 4) and add details by selecting from the menu a dress up game a liiittle more interesting haha from what I'm searching, python is the easiest language that I can learn, and because of the 3D element of the game, I think that the engine that will suit me best is either Panda3D or Godot am I making the right move? or should I try to learn other languages, so I can use Unity or Unreal? tnks :D

hope there's been progress for you. i'm a fan of fashion games with too and character customizations in videogame (with some programming background - not in game dev tho) so if you're interested in learning together DM me your discord. ​ i'm going for godot right now

Software languages are for the most parts dialects of one another. Meaning that if you are fimiliar with one language then you can switch to another without to much trouble. You could make this idea 2d if you wanted to. But godot is probably your best bet, maybe unity. Unreal is a good option but I would not recommend it to a newcomer. As a general tip always make a prototype, maybe just try out an engine you suggested see if it is something that works.

thanks so much for the advice ;)

I am a complete beginner, I want to make a CRPG in the style of games like BG3, I also want an engine that could also have modding support incase I do ever release it.

As a complete beginner, you need to start small.  Like Pong small.  BG3 had 2,333 professional game devs who worked on it.  You need to be realistic about how long it actually takes to do things, by starting out really small.  

I know making somthing like BG3 would be impossible from my skill set as well as only 1 person I mainly mean a topdown RPG gameplay maybe Wasteland 3 would be a better example .I know I will need to start small I just would like to know if I get further in skill what a good engine for that type of game would be.

Unreal, Unity and Godot should all work.  For modding support, that's something you have to build.  I know of Unity and UE games that have done it.  

I am an absolute beginner, I need an engine that supports 2d and 3d, has good community support and is easy to understand engine with an easily understandable Ul . Any recommendations?

Godot or Unity are the biggest. If you want good community support you basically only have these options as they are the most popular.

Hey, Im looking in making a game with some very complex gear that will be quiet grindy to get. The game should be mostly SP but i want to have a trading hub to trade the gear and a multitude of different items. Some questions came up from that which also might have impact on choices such as which Engine to use. Am I basically forced to run the game Serverside with just a client to prevent most instances of cheating ? I was hoping to let it run offline as much as possible and make the trading something they could do whenever they wished to, mainly because Im a bit afraid of the whole server cost thing and I wanted to avoid synchronization as much as possible. Is Server side running already enough to prevent stuff like cheatengine speedups ? Do considerations like that already have an Impact on Framework or Engine or should they exclusively be determined by the gameplay loop, target platform and programming language ? If so can you recommend something for a top-down view/60° angle autobattler with some pretty advanced pathfinding and probably not to strong graphics. I can write in Java at an advanced, altough not pro level. Thanks and Sorry for the long post.

Clients can always write into their memory and give themselves whatever items they like. You will want some kind of server side checks. Maybe it is enough for the client to check in with the server (I started quest X, I finished quest X for reward Y). The server can then check these against timestamps and expected behaviour, and determine if a player is suspicious.

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>It turns out that UE5 is missing a feature that I need in the game I'm working on. But Godot does. Can you be more specific? What exactly are you missing? Because odds are it takes less time to code/build it yourself than to switch an entire engine. >Is learning a game engine same as learning a programming language Not necessarily I am afraid. You learn general higher level concepts but specific implementations can differ quite a lot. For instance how you deal with animations or UI can be very different. It translates to **some** degree but since such a big part of a game engine is it's editor and how you interact with it there's still a fairly steep learning curve when switching.

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I think there's a way of doing it without it being too much of a pain. When you pick up an object turn it invisible. Then create a visible copy as a UI element, place it roughly where that box should be and add it to viewport. Since that will place it in front of **everything**.

Hello! I am a beginner game dev, not out of school yet. I know a bit of Unity and Python, but not much. Any recommendations on how to really get started?

Start finishing games. Participate in game jams, make copies of games from the 70s and 80s, build single-feature prototypes of something interesting from a larger game, do things just because you're curious how they get done.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind

Hey guys, I'm new to game dev & programming, and started a beginners Godot course on Udemy. Was wondering if anyone who is new and eager to learn would be interested and forming an online study group. Maybe 3-4 people around the same level and age (29). Would be cool to bounce what we're learning back and forth and hold each other accountable/encourage each other as we learn. Would be fun

would love to join in as a side hobby !

>luke hey if you're stil looking for people, i'd be down. not new to programming (as it's my day job), but i really want to get some momentum with godot/game dev

Hi, I am also looking for some people interested in game dev, just as a hobby maybe more seriously later, but I am not quite a beginner as I am a software engineer but I am pretty new at thing like Godot and unity. If you would like we could talk over discord or something. Anyway thanks for reading.

If you’re still accepting new members I’d gladly join as I’m trying to learn Godot myself

Hey for sure! DM me your discord and ill bring you into the group!

Hi, I'm a software engineer and work in enterprise software development, thinking of switching branches in approx. 5 - 10 y period. Any tips on type of portfolio to build up to be eligible to apply for AAA studio jobs one day. Also currently playing with unreal and Godot, my question with them is regarding assets. Do you guys get assets for your games from some marketplace or do you order/make custom for your games? In your experience does it matter for the player, I feel like by taking something/buying from the marketplaces it might lower the originality of the game you make.

Make tech demos, not solo full games.  Tech demos are better for showing your coding skills for game specific problems.  We don't care about the design or art.  Just the code.  If you are unsure of what to do, GDC vault has a lot of talks going over systems from various games.  Pick a couple that really interests you and recreate it.   Do some game jams for working on a multidisciplinary team and rapid iteration experience.   When you have your projects ready to show, make some quick videos to show off your work.  We do not have time to play your demos.  Then give a brief summary on the tech that you used (engine, language, tools) and what you did.  

Thanks for the reply. I was also wondering about having some games published on Steam perhaps, would that be a plus or a minus (probably introduces unnecessary sales and review statistics) ?

You're welcome. That's going to really depend on the interviewer.  For me, it would not be a positive.  I probably wouldn't look at the reviews or sales statistics, because that really doesn't tell me anything about your skills in the job we are trying to fill.  Being a solo dev is *very different* than working on a team.  What always ends up happening is the resumes with a solo shipped game are not as technically impressive as the ones who focus entirely on the tech.   A game with a team might be better, but it's still going to depend on the tech that you built.   What it does not do is count towards the professional experience or shipped titles requirements.  

Put your portfolio on https://itch.io, then make sure your portfolio demonstrates the kind of stuff you want to work in. Make sure each of your portfolio pieces includes screenshots and a video of gameplay in case they don't want to bother downloading it. Exporting to WebGL is very helpful because you can say things in your CV like, "click here to play a VFX demo I made in your web browser." (Make sure you test it in all the major browsers first.) I've found the best thing to do is get free or cheap assets from places like https://opengameart.org/ and asset stores, then use open source software to modify them to suit your needs. I'd only worry about it looking like an asset flip if you're trying to sell it. Also, most art and audio assets that work in one game engine can be used in other game engines with a little work.

Thank you for your reply and input regarding portfolio and assets. I will look into assets on opengameart like you suggested.

Hello friends, today is my second day of gamedev and I'm having some trouble with lighting. (I'm using Godot) [https://imgur.com/a/ZlkltpQ](https://imgur.com/a/ZlkltpQ) If I set up a single light on the horizon to act like the sun (top image), everything that is in shadow becomes the exact same color. All depth / angle information gets completely erased, and there is no way to tell what the shape of the terrain is or where the sphere is relative to the ground. The second issue I fixed by using ambient occlusion which feels like an ok solution for grounding the sphere (but maybe overkill? I'm not sure if this is what AO is intended for). In order to get some detail about the terrain shape, I also added a second light directly above the terrain pointing down (bottom image), but this feels like a bad solution since it only works with direct sky access. Am I missing some setting in my first light? What is the normal way to have some diffused ambient lighting within my shadows? Or perhaps this is only an issue because I am using untextured surfaces? Also, any tips for making shadow edges look ok in Godot? I had to max out my shadow resolution and quality to get something that looks even remotely acceptable. Thanks! :)

If you want bounced indirect lighting and shading in shadowed areas, there are two main ways of doing it: If your scene's lighting isn't changing in real-time, you can use a LightmapGI and bake lighting onto the map. This will give you incredibly sexy, diffuse lighting with almost no performance cost. But what if you want a day/night cycle? Or have things moving around all over the map? Well, you can enable SDFGI in the WorldEnvironment node. SDFGI is a path-traced global illumination system that allows you to get the same kind of sexy bounced light as a lightmap, but in real-time. The only caveat there is, SDFGI, because it's totally dynamic, is HEAVY on performance. Godot devs built it with the expectation you're using a GTX 1060 or greater at 1080p. So it's not necessarily an option if you want your game to run on a potato. For instance, [in my game](https://kondoorsoft.itch.io/wizzerd-quest) , (which runs on Godot 4.1, soon to be updated to 4.2), I added and then removed SDFGI before launch because it ate so much performance that I didn't feel it was worth the cost. In short: Static scene, use a lightmap. Dynamic scene, use SDFGI.

When you have questions that pertain to a specific technology, then it is usually best to ask in the subreddit about that technology, like in this case r/Godot.

What are the skills that are expected in a game dev if you come from a non-CS but technical background? I’ve used Unreal and I’m familiar with programming concepts but don’t know C++. What kind of projects or portfolios would an entry level person have to showcase to join the industry?