I am in the sixth grade and have come up with an idea for a game. Of course the problem is I don't have the experience to do this and would like to get some advice on how i might pursue my ideas. If I can get positive feedback on the game idea then I would hope to find a developer who could help me to commercialize the idea.
If you have any advice i would really appreciate it
Nicolas
Jump to PostMaking games is difficult. I would put off making your current idea for a game until later and here is why.
Ideas are cheap in the game industry. If you think about, say, the novel industry a good unique idea is valuable. The reason is that most good book ideas …
Making games is difficult. I would put off making your current idea for a game until later and here is why.
Ideas are cheap in the game industry. If you think about, say, the novel industry a good unique idea is valuable. The reason is that most good book ideas have already been used, so having a unique idea is very valuable, then all it takes is time, effort and a good editor and anybody with a real unique idea can become a bestseller. However the video game industry has the opposite situation. Everybody has plenty of unique ideas that would create wonderful games, but not enough people have the skills necessary to create a game and fewer still the will to actually make the games a reality.
My advice is to save your idea away until you are comfortable making games, and then pull it out to make a game out of it. Your first game should be simple, a game with easy mechanics, definately in 2D, and simple graphics and sounds. The reason is that until you have made a game you can't really appreciate just how much work it takes to make all the resources come together. Every single game I have made took me at least 2x as long as I had planned, either because of a programming bug, or a difficult mechanic, or just about anything!
As for getting started with making games I would suggest you start with a game engine, such as GameMaker, that does not require much programming skill to use. Once you have made a few simple games with GameMaker and whetted your appetite for making software I would go out and learn a more sophisticated programming language (I chose C++ but Python, C#, Java, etc. are all good choices). When you first learn a programming language you will be writting applications that run in consoles, but after awhile you will be ready to start graphics programming, and then you can start making some more advanced games.
Aside from programming, you also need some knowledge of the arts to make good games. I would suggest that if you are interested in game development you should check out Extra Credits.
Meanwhile, while you make games using either GameMaker or a more sophisticated language feel free to post to these fora for help with any issues that may come up.
Good luck making games.
Thank so much on the information i really appreciate that you took the time to respond.i would like to learn more about programming games so if there is a website i should look at please let me know.
For learning GameMaker there are these tutorials: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials (Note: I haven't actually checked them out, so I am not sure if they are any good)
For learning C++ console applications there are these tutorials:
http://www.learncpp.com/
For learning SDL (2D graphics) in C++ there are these tutorials:
http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/
As for learning OpenGL (3D graphics) that is a much larger endeaver. One which admittedly I have yet to complete. I have not found any good up-to-date tutorials. I taught myself using NeHe productions, but have been told that the resulting code is extremely out of date. If you find a good up-to-date OpenGL tutorial, please, let me know!
Once you have made a few C++ games I would suggest looking into learning other languages and other engines. Some things to look into would be such tools as the Unity (C#) and Unreal (C++/URS) game engines.
thank you so much
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