Sometimes, a laudable arcade, racing, and online casino review might not match your gameplay experience. Perhaps due to not-so-good graphics and unattractive character models. You might have a better storyline you wish some creators adopted. Hence making you conceive the idea of developing a game of yours.
The good news is now is the time to bring your creativity to light as an adept game lover. With modern game tools, you need little to no computer programming knowledge to start.
So if you’re in for this challenge, read on as we guide you through the vital processes.
Start with a Plan
Planning your game involves: identifying your skills, creating a design template, choosing a game engine, and researching additional helpful tools.
Identify your skills.
To make your game stand out, you should focus on your area of strength. Video game creation combines a broad array of skill sets. Some are 3D modeling, character design, audio design, music composition, scriptwriting, programming, etc.
Create a design template.
While you only have the idea, a design document is best to conceptualize the project. Either with yourself or your team. Your file should contain the game plot, mechanics, level design, script, concept art, etc.
Choose a game engine.
Your chosen development software is the spine of your game. This processes the coding, scripting, sound, and other related inputs. There are a lot of game engines to choose from. Examples are Godot, Game Maker Studio, Unity, and Unreal Engine.
Research additional helpful tools.
It’s easy to think going for a game engine alone would suffice. However, it could be worth it to look for other resourceful tools. These might center around the programming language, audio workstations, integrated development environments, and 2D and 3D graphics modeling.
Execute Your Game Production
Having made a feasible plan and several inquiries, now are action time. It would be best if you also had a couple of stages to see your project through to completion.
Plan the project.
The importance of planning can’t be understated. This is where you make a list of required tasks and create schedules. Mind you, this differs from what you did in the previous section. Not all undertakings would be done independently of others. So you’ll need to follow sequential steps for some. Break up cumbersome tasks, set milestones, and track your progress.
Develop a prototype.
After collecting the necessary tools, the next step is to start making your game. But first, you need to begin by creating a basic prototype. It should contain mainly core mechanics and no complex features. Usually, this should take you less than a month to develop. A prototype sets the foundation for your actual game. It’s a way you get to play and test-run your game. That’s how you know aspects of the game that are interactive and otherwise.
Create your game features.
With the final picture of your production in mind, you can now garnish up your game. These include the character and enemy sprites, scripts, music, unique sound effect, level design, and animation.
Test the game.
Playtest your game and invite others to do the same for honest feedback. This is how you get to learn about possible omissions, oversights, and appropriate adjustments to make. Sometimes, you might be the worst player to test your game, so you need others of varying skill sets. Please pay attention to every detail of these people, including what they do while playing, especially their reactions.
Fix up.
Based on the feedback you’ve collected, make corrections where necessary. To do this effectively, you need to be flexible with your ideas. That’s because not everything you think is engaging for you will be for your prospects. While you might run out of schedule doing this, ensure you get it done.
Apply finishes.
As you approach the completion of your game, you might need some extra touches. Some of those might involve you optimizing your graphics and including new sounds for better performance.
Publish your game.
This is where you reap the reward of your input by earning some extra dough. If you’re learning, you might want to sell your game.
Luckily, there are various outlets for this purpose, e.g., Windows and Steam. Some game engines also help with publishing.
