HOW TO MAKE YOUR GAME?

Approximately half of all the questions asked to me sound like this. Or " I want to make my game, where to start?" ". But this is perhaps the most wrong question of all that may be in game dev. Forgive me all those who dream of their pro ect for what I will write further. Although no, they will not forgive, but maybe someone will think and save themselves (and, probably, many others) from wasting time. and the right question is:

Do I need to make my game?

If you asked this question - congratulations, then all is not lost. If you asked the first question, “ where do you start to make the game? "Or" how to make your game? “I have bad news for you: you have already failed. Why? Because the one who can really make his game does not ask such questions. The one who asks such questions will not make the game. More precisely, there is a probability ... about one-thousandth, somewhere, I suppose. If, after reading this, you did not curse me and did not add my blog to the black list, then all is not lost.

No, this is not pixel art or Minecraft: it is made from Lego!

Now about the right question: do you have to make your game? It may be necessary if the soul asks. But you must understand: creating your own game involves working with a team. There are two options: you have your money, you are ready to invest and form a team. Whether she will cope with the task set by you or not is another question. It is usually very difficult for non-core investors to distinguish professionals from amateurs - not because they are morons, but because of the lack of experience in interacting with game developers. Which by themselves are a very special class of developers, with their own unique advances to which you need to be prepared. But if you are lucky with a sensible producer or lead game designer, then there are chances, of course. But it will still be difficult.

If you are one of those who consider themselves to be a game designer and all you need is “a team, and then we'll figure it out”, then here you will find a big disappointment. Gamedizs who have (positive) experience in the game development industry usually have no problems with forming a team or raising money for their project. And, as I wrote above, such questions are not asked. There are those who ask a similar question due to lack of experience. And this is the most terrible and sad.

Clinical case

You consider yourself a game designer, because you have played 100+ games, have gone even further and even received a certificate from the Ocean Computer Club, which hangs on your wall in child's office room. And now, wise with your rich gaming experience, you are going to make the game of your dreams. Probably even MMORAPRG TBFPS with RCE. About the cows (c) we will not joke, already beaten and too sad. In the best case - a small arcade or kazualka, which is “simple” and which “can be done in a month”.

In order to make even a small game, you will need:

• Programmer, 1 pc .;
• Artist, 1 pc .;
• Musician-sound, 0.2 pcs .;
• You yourself, 1 pc.

If you want to make 3D, the artist magically becomes a modeler, animator, concept artist (and most likely, there is no real concept artist in the team). You search through forums, ask friends and friends, promise royalties, options, shares, stocks and other Klondike. Suppose you manage to find desperate heroes who will follow you without knowing anything about you (this happens, I speak from my own experience). And lo and behold - after six months of searching you have found your three musketeers! One for all and all for one, drove!

And you drive. Drive in every sense of the word. Because you have forgotten one small detail: a design document that you forgot about / scored during the search for team members. Or maybe you have as many as ten pages, which you proudly call dizdokom and which your comrades (for the present comrades) pecked.

Then you work like this: without having a dizdoc, not being able to make up the TZ, having vague theories about what should end up, you improvise. In fact, the whole team is improvising. You are sometimes surprised that something is wrong or not at all, but since there is no documentation, everything is decided in discussions that develop into arguments with the team. One day, after a particularly heated argument, you probably lose a programmer. Which left, having left to you a code without documentation to it, without comments in the code itself. Or maybe no one leaves, but over time you realize that your “kazualka for a month” has been going on for a year and a half and, perhaps, probably enough, thank you.

Of course, I do not say that this happens always and everywhere. But I would rate such a probability of development of events of interest as ninety.

Anyway, I want to make a game!

Again the question is wrong. Here you have to ask a question like this: “ How do I learn to make games? ". Here, this is a great, wonderful question! If you asked him - congratulations, it means that you are thinking in the right direction and have all the chances for a conditionally happy future in game development. Now I will answer.

You will not learn how to make games in universities. None of them, either in Russia or abroad (where we probably will not be able to get out soon anyway). Neither online nor on some magic courses, academies and other shops that can only give superficial knowledge. If you have not been to the university yet and choose where to go (and believe that this will help you somehow), then I personally chose the direction and screenwriting, which I don’t regret at all. By the way, the further, the more I am glad that I spent several years on this (seemingly meaningless then) matter.

Further study in practice. This means getting a job at a game development company (not a startup - see above, which happens with startups). Choose a company on the grounds of "so many games released," "so many of them quality," and the like. Stay at any rate and be ready rake shit shovel do routine Boring tasks that will be shifted to you by the newly made slave owners, who are happy with your presence. This is normal. In general, it will be useful to work as a script writer, level designer, and screenwriter, and balancer (all, of course, juniors). Do not go not to the junior, if you have no experience in game devs: you will spoil your karma and you will fail people. Choose yourself an intelligent curator who will be hard to exploit you, the harder - the better, because more XP.

Work on your uncle for five or six years or more. Get in touch, find out the kitchen development, learn how to create documentation and formulate TK, work with bug trackers and task setting systems. Read a lot of books on game design, accumulate a fair amount of your own materials, learn how to evaluate the complexity of the implementation of your ideas. And if after all this you want to do your own project, it may not be necessary to assemble your team, and you, having proved your competence in the current company, will begin your own project there.