So you’ve developed an interest in gaming and just found out that the video game industry makes twice the amount of music and entertainment industry combined.
Do you think that Endgame was an all-time money-maker? Wait until you found out what GTA 5 made. Tons of other motivational facts can make your interest to get into game development.
Because starting out as a game developer is still ‘future proof’, as the industry is constantly looking for new skill-based developers. But how can one start game development? What language should I start from? What are the basic components? In this post, we have shared how you can get started as a game developer.
1. The Essentials of Game Development
Here are the things that you should consider before jumping into the world of game development.
Game Idea
Start by sketching what you have in mind. Ask yourself different questions like why do you want this game in the first place? Is it already available in the market? Is my idea unique? What would be the outcome of my idea? Fill your mind with questions and try to answer them.
Game Programming Language and Platform
Once you’ve developed a comprehensive idea, choose a platform, and start designing. Start learning from a basic programming language such as C++ or c#, HTML 5, and JavaScript. Unreal Engine is a famous game development engine that uses both C++ and C#. The platform offers a lot of drag and drop features, additional file elements, and tons of great attributes.
Game Development Tools
Game development isn’t just like a walk in the park; it requires some special tools. Starting from the basics, a laptop is compulsory. If you don’t have a laptop, you can check the best laptops for game development. The next step is to install a game development tool on your computer like Unity or Unreal Engine.
Game Design
Game art and design are very important for your future reference. There are tons of great drawing tools that will help you to create an attractive design. Use any of your favorite editors and make multi-layer scenes of your game.
2. The Components of Game Development
When it comes to game designing, you have to cover a lot of basic to advance level of customization. This includes different components, each divided into different modules. Normally, each module is divided into different sets of people, since you’re a one-man army – You might have to do this all on your own. We’ve narrowed down a list of basic components that you need below:
Story
Although you can cover this in the Game idea section, writing a script for your game story is still a good option. Get in front of your laptop and start writing what you have in mind. Name all the essential characters of the game, their personality traits, usage, abilities, and things like this.
Characters
Next, develop a character that best suits your story. Characters are a fundamental part of video games and should be developed with extra care. So, take some time out, sit infront of your laptop, and a personalized character.
Art
This is yet another important topic for your game design. Art is something that defines the feel of your game. This includes your game design, textures, modeling, characters, or any other additional systems you have in the game.
Lighting
Lightning is an important artifact of the game which sets the mood right and justifies your game character building. For example, if you’re building a horror game then you want dim lighting to create a scarier scene.
3. Start from the Basic
The first step of learning a new skill is to start from the basics. There are tons of YouTube tutorials and game development sessions that will help you to build your first game. Don’t worry, if you entirely follow all the code structure, it will still help you to understand the essentials.
A very common game that is easy to build is Tetris. Start from this, and try to change the object model to something different. Challenge yourself and introduce new chapters in the game.
4. Understand the motive of your game
By now, we’re considering that you’ve developed your very first game (even if it’s Tetris). So far, so good! Now the next step is to understand the motive and Game Design Pattern. Some of the important game design patterns include Prototype, Attributes, variables, containers, classes, Observer, etc. There are tons of online videos and tutorials that you can watch to understand this.
5. Learn Associated Math and 3D graphics
It is not possible to make a game without learning math and 3D graphics. So you better get that Algebra book that you have hidden in the store. 2D games aren’t popular in 2020. Today, most of the games are in the 3D atmosphere.
Learn the field of 3D graphics and understand different perspectives like First-person and third-person. Linear Algebra, vectors, matrices, are mainly the highlights of learning computer graphics.
6. Get some real-life experience
One of the best ways to learn a new skill is to jump right into the field. Search for nearby places that offer game development programs or Paid internship. Even if you live in a small town and there’s no software house nearby, you can easily find a remote internship on the internet.
7. Don’t Give Up, Stay Motivated
This is the most important step in any kind of business. There will be times when you might feel to give up and start something else. Yes, all of us have these moments in life and it’s completely normal.
First, focus on the learning process and then convert it into earning. If you’re thinking that you’ll make some extra bucks as soon as you start development, you’re wrong. Every skill requires some time and effort. So whatever you start in life, don’t give up and stay motivated. Even if you’re having small progress, you’re still better than thousands of people around the world.
You can also learn more about what is the future of mobile games.
