Tried making my own game after 30 years of playing and it's way harder than I thought lol

[jiansongwong]

Been playing since NES days. Hundreds of games over the years, thought I kinda knew how they worked.
Recently started building a small dungeon crawler just for fun and man I was humbled real quick. Even a simple game takes forever. I spent like two days just on wall collision and it still glitches out sometimes lol.
Really makes me appreciate what those old developers did back then. No Unity, no tutorials, no nothing. Just C and a dream. Respect.
Anyone else here tried making something and got smacked by reality?

 

[lestagio]

I was always fascinated with game design and computers in general when I was younger. I've made a few of my own (bad) games myself, but it sure becomes one hell of a lot of work when you consider even basic things like having a concept at all, controls, graphics, collision, music, etc. I eventually sort of hit a point where I just decided it was too much work. I'm still a programmer so I'm in that field, but game design is hard.

I like to DM for DND and that alone gets very complex when you're coming up with story and designing places... making a video game is a million times harder when you have to define so much more stuff and create graphics and an experience that actually WORKS. DND is practically just "advanced pretend".

I'm a game nerd and I somewhat critique games as I play them and just recognize what is great, what isn't so great... But I realize that nearly all parts of a game are DIFFICULT to make. It's why I have absurd amounts of respect for ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley dev) or Billy Basso (Animal Well dev) because these are singular people who managed to create a complete, cohesive experience while keeping it very polished and just having amazing mechanics. Making a video game is a ridiculously hard thing to do. I don't think most people give enough credit to all the folks who work on great games, because it's such a difficult thing.

 

[jiansongwong]

I was always fascinated with game design and computers in general when I was younger. I've made a few of my own (bad) games myself, but it sure becomes one hell of a lot of work when you consider even basic things like having a concept at all, controls, graphics, collision, music, etc. I eventually sort of hit a point where I just decided it was too much work. I'm still a programmer so I'm in that field, but game design is hard.

I like to DM for DND and that alone gets very complex when you're coming up with story and designing places... making a video game is a million times harder when you have to define so much more stuff and create graphics and an experience that actually WORKS. DND is practically just "advanced pretend".

I'm a game nerd and I somewhat critique games as I play them and just recognize what is great, what isn't so great... But I realize that nearly all parts of a game are DIFFICULT to make. It's why I have absurd amounts of respect for ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley dev) or Billy Basso (Animal Well dev) because these are singular people who managed to create a complete, cohesive experience while keeping it very polished and just having amazing mechanics. Making a video game is a ridiculously hard thing to do. I don't think most people give enough credit to all the folks who work on great games, because it's such a difficult thing.

Yeah making a full game is brutal lol. The little dungeon crawler I mentioned (it's called Crypt, up on CRTPlay) took way longer than I expected and it's literally just a few rooms. Already working on a sequel though — Dungeon Pusher, mixing maze and sokoban mechanics. Probably gonna take another forever lol

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

It is surprisingly challenging, even through streamlined game engines like the aptly-named Game Maker (which has become really powerful since).

I had tried making stuff like a very simple "bullet hell" thingie with sprites ripped right off classic games and just getting anything to run smoothly at all was crazy difficult.

It gave me a new perspective and even more appreciation for anyone doing this.

 

[jeebortjoobert]

It is surprisingly challenging, even through streamlined game engines like the aptly-named Game Maker (which has become really powerful since).

I had tried making stuff like a very simple "bullet hell" thingie with sprites ripped right off classic games and just getting anything to run smoothly at all was crazy difficult.

It gave me a new perspective and even more appreciation for anyone doing this.

Totally! it really put the long development times for AAA into perspective, its crazy how complex it can get

 

[tht009]

Yeah, making a game is mentally exhausting. Even something simple can be extremely complex to actually program and make function. My best suggestion is not to get too OCD about your code. It just has to work. Unless you open-source it, nobody is going to actually look at your code and judge it, so it doesn't have to be perfect. As long as it functions as intended you have to learn to accept that as "good enough," or you'll never get out of the planning stages.