"I'm going to make my own videogame...I'll start right now."

[Bart]

That sounds relaxing. I love slice of life stuff.

thanks! i always envisioned like, riding around a fairly small city being able to ride a hoverboard, roller blades etc. go to stores and do repeatable side jobs, a mix of futuristic and old Japanese architecture. a *slightly* customizable living space nothing too much but give the player some amount of customization. maybe like buy dvds to play on the tv or something. essentially "early 2000s slice of life parts of action anime - the game" lol

 

[Yousef]

Legends is very fun and atmospheric yeah

 

[moonbits]

"I'm going to make my own video game...It's going to be the best...It's going to have many selectable characters,300 levels,many powers,a touching story,it's going to be 400hrs long,gigantic bosses,it's going to be a mix of metroidvania/puzzle/STG and there will also be ninjas,robots,Neko girls,floating brains,huggable aliens,mutant dogs that throw bees out of their mouth..."

It's a fact that almost all of us have dreamed of creating a video game at some point, right?

Ambition is a double edged sword. I've delved into game development for many years but I realize how incredibly difficult it can be and the margin for success is so small; I debate if it's worth it most of the time. My ideas are mostly for me, what I'd like to play and it's nothing that would really appeal.

Unity, Unreal Engine, My own engine, Godot, XNA, Raylib, Blender, Maya, etc etc. Too many disciplines needed and I get tired, my perfectionism gets in the way. Plus already working as a software developer, I can't be arsed to look at more code, debugging and code architecture in my free time.

A tarot reader told me to believe in my ideas, she said they are quite special. That made me smile but still, debating if it's worth it. I want to make a gamepad only FPS, nobody would play that because "muh k&b" so that's that.

 

[schir]

I want to make a gamepad only FPS, nobody would play that because "muh k&b" so that's that.

Really? That doesn't sound right. Goldeneye and Halo and Gears of War and Call of Duty were controller-only and they were absolute juggernauts in the 1990s and 2000s. I don't see what would be different about a controller-only FPS today.

 

[moonbits]

Really? That doesn't sound right. Goldeneye and Halo and Gears of War and Call of Duty were controller-only and they were absolute juggernauts in the 1990s and 2000s. I don't see what would be different about a controller-only FPS today.

Thank you. I'd like to think there's room to create experiences tailored to gamepad and others for M&K. While in this day of accessibility it's appreciated that games handle multiple inputs I feel like we could emphasize on their unique strengths. Gamepads have rumble, analogue movement, triggers. I like the dual wielding in Halo so I think of that mechanic a lot; how it can refined into something special.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Thank you. I'd like to think there's room to create experiences tailored to gamepad and others for M&K. While in this day of accessibility it's appreciated that games handle multiple inputs I feel like we could emphasize on their unique strengths. Gamepads have rumble, analogue movement, triggers. I like the dual wielding in Halo so I think of that mechanic a lot; how it can refined into something special.

Well if you release the game on PC it certainly would be weird. But if its console exclusive nobody would care. I am part of "muh k&b" group and find impossible to play FPS on controller, but I have plenty of friends that did grow mostly playing on consoles and are fine with it.

 

[moonbits]

Well if you release the game on PC it certainly would be weird. But if its console exclusive nobody would care. I am part of "muh k&b" group and find impossible to play FPS on controller, but I have plenty of friends that did grow mostly playing on consoles and are fine with it.

See? The only viable market for indie games are PC, but I don't make PC games.

 

[dropsmegamega]

See? The only viable market for indie games are PC, but I don't make PC games.

Not true? There is plenty of market for indies on consoles, there are indies that release first on consoles. And thanks to engines like unity and unreal its much easier to make console games than ever was before.

 

[schir]

Yeah the thing with making games (as with making much of anything) is that you have to actually sit down and do it to get a feel for what is and isn't feasible within a reasonable timeframe.

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

I want to make a visual novel some day with rpg elements.

I'd say looking at Sakura Dungeon. It uses RenPy but has a battle/exploration mechanics, and is a good example of RPG + VN.

Also using unrpy script you can decompile the game and look at the sources (though lacking comments) and see how it's written. Hell you could probably use most of the code and replace the story and art assets and make a game almost from that.

Alternatively RPGMaker is a little overused, but it wouldn't be hard to have long segments of VN at key parts, making it closer to how Phantasy Star plays.

Unity, Unreal Engine, My own engine, Godot, XNA, Raylib, Blender, Maya, etc etc. Too many disciplines needed and I get tired

I'd say pick one engine and stick with it. Preferably non 3D, and keep it simple. You don't want to build a castle/mountain with a spoon on your first try.

Get the raw mechanics of how the game is suppose to work working, using filler/placeholder assets and make a minimum viable product. When you're satisfied, then make/add art assets, the world and story.

Pace yourself. It's easy to get overwhelmed, and don't add new features/ideas later. Have set goals and milestones, only adding story/assets to anything that fixes plotholes to your game/story that you were missing. Once you have a completed product, you can always add more if you have time and energy.

Though i'm a programmer, not sure I'm the best to give advice when i haven't done it myself.

 

[Yousef]

I'd say looking at Sakura Dungeon. It uses RenPy but has a battle/exploration mechanics, and is a good example of RPG + VN.

Also using unrpy script you can decompile the game and look at the sources (though lacking comments) and see how it's written. Hell you could probably use most of the code and replace the story and art assets and make a game almost from that.

Alternatively RPGMaker is a little overused, but it wouldn't be hard to have long segments of VN at key parts, making it closer to how Phantasy Star plays.

Much obliged!

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Even when I made my own joke games, the motivation was often not there. They were single-screen vertical shooters and stuff like that, basically an excuse to show parody logos to my friends... and even that challenged me at every turn. I can totally sympathize with anyone struggling to get started.

 

[dropsmegamega]

In my experience... since making a game is so difficult I felt the only thing that could motivate me is to make a game as good as my favorite games, which is obviously kinda impossible to do as a one man team, let alone as your first game, so that makes getting started even harder as you know your first games are going to be mediocre at best. It feels like a waste of time. I've made two small games already (not counting several rpgmaker games I made when I was younger), but have yet to make The Game which I am proud of.

 

[schir]

I think I could probably make something on the scale of King's Field if I could get my processes a little bit more in order. It's mostly just colliders and raycasts with a bit of state stored, but not a ton and I don't need to figure out how factory patterns work like I would with something like Wizardry, and it doesn't need much more than the most rudimentary understanding of 3D modeling and texturing to get the aesthetic down so it should be pretty manageable.

 

[Noon]

Actually now that I look back on this year, I’ve actually made a lot of progress on my RPG maker game. I love making game drafts just on paper or phone docs just for fun, plus I’m a giant music composer nut and using those drafts to make music is super fun. ?

But with this project it’s a war of attrition that I promised myself, I’ll always work on it some every week no matter what, and tightening up what I’m putting in it, not going overboard, has really kept working on the main stuff not a distant dream all the time, which I think is the real morale breaker.

The big obstacles I have right now are:
music mixing (it always sounds different on different headphones or speakers to me)

map visual design (like getting a tile set merged is still something that I’m not used to thinking about)

And the the little connecting and polishing, like keeping track of story progress with activities and grouping and connecting maps and there states like lighting or scene play.

But all those things actually feel really doable right now, and making your own gameplay mechanics or weird things like a conveyor belt with boxes on it… it’s just the best, even if you don’t make a whole game. ?

 

[Octopus]

Actually now that I look back on this year, I’ve actually made a lot of progress on my RPG maker game. I love making game drafts just on paper or phone docs just for fun, plus I’m a giant music composer nut and using those drafts to make music is super fun. ?

But with this project it’s a war of attrition that I promised myself, I’ll always work on it some every week no matter what, and tightening up what I’m putting in it, not going overboard, has really kept working on the main stuff not a distant dream all the time, which I think is the real morale breaker.

The big obstacles I have right now are:
music mixing (it always sounds different on different headphones or speakers to me)

map visual design (like getting a tile set merged is still something that I’m not used to thinking about)

And the the little connecting and polishing, like keeping track of story progress with activities and grouping and connecting maps and there states like lighting or scene play.

But all those things actually feel really doable right now, and making your own gameplay mechanics or weird things like a conveyor belt with boxes on it… it’s just the best, even if you don’t make a whole game. ?

Godspeed, man- sounds like it's well on its way.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I found one of the last surviving screenshots of a project I worked on (it was never released):

 

[qoei]

Two ideas in my head that I think are great. So great in fact, that I wouldn't be surprised if someone else wants to make it. Of course, ideas are cheap, so I better get quick to making a game instead of just daydreaming about it ?

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Something I never understood was why every single project manager I worked under was so hellbent on getting a website up for their projects when we didn't even have concept art to showcase... seriously! We were all hobbists giving it our all and, yet, our resources were getting spent on vBulletin licenses and paid web hosting. All that did was giving people a platform from which to yell at us whenever the project would inevitability get shelved.

Priorities, guys... priorities.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

You forgot the blackjack and hookers