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Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!
In this week's blog, I'm going to go through some resources available online that I think are a great help for those getting started in Game Dev or even for those who would like to brush up on skills. Ok, let's get started! Programming This can be one of the most daunting aspects of game development for newcomers but learning to code while not easy, it's still not as hard as you may imagine it to be. There are some pretty great resources available online for those who want to try their hand at it. 1. Learn Java- If you have no experience with programming and you want to learn then Java is a good language to start with for making small games. The Java Tutorial for Complete Beginners course over on Udemy is a pretty great course for learning how Java works and it's a free course to make things better! Once you understand the basics of Java and feel comfortable writing small programs using it, then I'd suggest moving onto some C# or C++ beginner tutorials. You can find another good free course on C++ here. These courses cover the basics of learning the languages and are not directly focused on games development but I feel it's important to understand the basics before attempting to apply it to a game. Once you become comfortable with a programming language, I'd suggest moving onto some tutorials specifically aimed at making basic games. Game Engine When it comes down to what game engine to use that depends on the needs of your game. Some will handle certain aspects of development better than another. When deciding what one to use that comes down to you understanding the needs off your game and researching into each engine. I'll list some of the most widely used engines below. While there are many other game engines, these are the three most popular and have the best documentation and support. Game Design When it comes to game design, there are a lot of books written on the subject but one that stands out is A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster. I personally also believe the best way to learn about game design is from the experiences of others in the industry. A great resource for this is GDC Vault. While not all talks are free to watch, you can find a huge back catalogue of talks from the previous years. These talks not only cover game design but a art, programming, animation and much more so it's a resource you should check out. Art Tools When it comes to making the art and visuals for your game, be it 2D or 3D, you have a large list of options to choose from. For 2D games, I like to use Photoshop and Zbrush for a lot of 3D work but these tools are not always available to everyone. So, let's look at some free options. If you want to make a 2D game with vector art or use tools similar to that of Photoshop, then Gimp is a good option. For making 3D models both high poly and low poly, I find Blender to actually be a great free tool that I use rather a lot in my own work. It has some great tutorials on Youtube and the documentation on the website is very detailed and up to date. Audio Editing When it comes to doing some basic editing on audio files then Audacity is a great free tool that has all the basic tools you need for tweaking sound files for your games. I hope this blog post helps you get started on making your first game and as always if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below or get in touch. Until next time! |
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