Just how hard is it to fully make a game?

Lifelong

Lifelong

Lifelong

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2 Mar 2015
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159
Just curious.

me and my brother have long had an idea for a game with a particularly novel gameplay style.

Its always seemed impossible to bring it to fruition (multiplayer based) due to the high level of skill needed.

However, we've had a tinker around with the Unreal development kit and it seems exceptionally powerful. Added to which you can buy certain assets.


If two people worked part time (maybe 4 hours a day after work), supplementing some of the work to being paid, do you think it is possible to create a credible game?

And more to which, is it possible to create a game of a good enough quality to get people interested in buying it?
 
Its not easy, but given aptitude, drive and quite allot of time, anything is possible. Flappy Bird, believe it or not, made a tonne of money for its creator. Quite a few people start with modding first, so perhaps you could try a couple of mods before you dive into a full game. The experience will be invaluable.
 
The only way you can find out is by trying to work on it for a month or so.

Making games is incredibly difficult without any experience or knowledge though so you are bound to hit a lot of hurdles! There are plenty of guides to help you out along the way but don't expect to have a decent looking game after 6 months+

Like Regi said it is better/easier to start small. Maybe try make a few prototype in Unreal and just mess around with the tools before committing to a project.
 
Maybe but it would be difficult, a more realistic option could be a mobile game.

I don't know much about novel gameplay though, so who knows it might be within reach for you.
 
Multiplayer games are incredibly hard to make without any game development experience.

The easiest way to do it is to mod an existing game that already has multiplayer support, but you'd need a game with an engine that's suitable for the genre of game you're developing. You wouldn't do a FPS mod of a racing game for example - well you could, but it'd be much harder than using a FPS game as a base.
 
I figured it'd be pretty difficult! Maybe its worth trying to focus on

1) Getting the core mechanic to work. Without being able to get that working, there'd be no point continuing!

2) Getting one level created to a moderately polished level. Focus on getting it looking good and balanced.

Skill wise, we're fairly limited. He's fairly good with graphics so that will help out art wise. I've got a fairly logical mind and a fairly clear vision, and have been around computers long enough. I've got a high level of excel VBA, and have done some SQL in the past, so I reckon I could pick up a medium level of scripting easy enough.



I guess monetisation isn't the most important thing in the world, but I'd wonder how you'd get the exposure needed to get people interested in the game. Just word of mouth? Through forums?
 
dacads said:
Maybe but it would be difficult, a more realistic option could be a mobile game.

I don't know much about novel gameplay though, so who knows it might be within reach for you.
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I'd like to do a mobile development game, but thats for the future I think!

Ravenger said:
Multiplayer games are incredibly hard to make without any game development experience.

The easiest way to do it is to mod an existing game that already has multiplayer support, but you'd need a game with an engine that's suitable for the genre of game you're developing. You wouldn't do a FPS mod of a racing game for example - well you could, but it'd be much harder than using a FPS game as a base.
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Does the unreal engine not have multiplayer already? Seeing as they are developing unreal tournament 4.

This multiplayer is limited to sub 7 people, so balance would be an issue, but surely the technical sid wouldn't be "too" difficult?
 
Vague question is vague!

How hard is it to make a video game version of tic-tac-toe? You could probably do it in a week with no prior knowledge of programming.

How hard is it to make a sprawling open world RPG like The Witcher 3? Depends on how many people are you planning to hire for the next 5 years ;)

I'm guessing since you're mentioning the Unreal devkit you're aiming for something relatively complex, and a toolkit is a good place to star, however the ease of making it do what you want it to do will depend on how well suited the toolkit is to the "novel gameplay" you have in mind.

TL;DR version - it depends :p
 
Haggisman said:
Vague question is vague!

How hard is it to make a video game version of tic-tac-toe? You could probably do it in a week with no prior knowledge of programming.

How hard is it to make a sprawling open world RPG like The Witcher 3? Depends on how many people are you planning to hire for the next 5 years ;)

I'm guessing since you're mentioning the Unreal devkit you're aiming for something relatively complex, and a toolkit is a good place to star, however the ease of making it do what you want it to do will depend on how well suited the toolkit is to the "novel gameplay" you have in mind.

TL;DR version - it depends :p
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Relatively small closed environments, probably 7-8 levels. Need a moderate but not excessive amount of detail. 5-6 types of "weapons"

Graphics would have to be reasonable, not for the style of game, but merely because thats what people would want!

I guess I need to do more research to see what needs to be done and what can be done.
 
What type of gameplay specifically? What 'novel' aspect are you referring to. I get you may not want to give away your idea, but I doubt any serious game developers are on here scouring for ideas.

What does 'relatively small, closed environments' mean specifically? Use comparisons.

Generally, if you're actually thinking of making a go at a serious product release that isn't some bargain bin-type crap, I'd say you're probably looking at a difficulty of 'extreme' to 'impossible' without more people, more time, more money and more expertise/experience(this is a big one).

I'd probably work on toying around with little pet projects and learning the ropes before investing any time, effort and money into making a proper game.
 
Seanspeed said:
What type of gameplay specifically? What 'novel' aspect are you referring to. I get you may not want to give away your idea, but I doubt any serious game developers are on here scouring for ideas.

What does 'relatively small, closed environments' mean specifically? Use comparisons.

Generally, if you're actually thinking of making a go at a serious product release that isn't some bargain bin-type crap, I'd say you're probably looking at a difficulty of 'extreme' to 'impossible' without more people, more time, more money and more expertise/experience(this is a big one).

I'd probably work on toying around with little pet projects and learning the ropes before investing any time, effort and money into making a proper game.
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It'll be an FPS game, built on other mechanics, but with a couple new things. I've had a look at existing ideas around this, and its sort of being done before (ish) so it looks possible to do.

Money wise I'm limited to putting in around 500 a month (could go to 1000, but I'm not going to "miss" 500).

Reading around it, you're right in that I'm lacking experience first and foremost. I've got another brother who would be another head, but he is not specialised in anything in particular.


Would this be sensible?

1) Research fundementals to make sure there are not glaring errors.
2) plan out rough ideas for gameplay mechanics, level design etc.
3) mock them up in the engine (or SDK for source which I dabbled with a few years ago) to get an idea of how it would feel.
4) If it holds up, try and script the actual gameplay mechanics
5) If it passes this scrutiny, then actually start to make/buy assets to flesh it out.
 
As for size comparisons, erm, perhaps the size of a small office? For a gameplay comparion, perhaps the biohazard level in killing floor? (I only really play CSGO now). Maybe the size of arms race shoots?
 
Lifelong said:
It'll be an FPS game, built on other mechanics, but with a couple new things. I've had a look at existing ideas around this, and its sort of being done before (ish) so it looks possible to do.

Money wise I'm limited to putting in around 500 a month (could go to 1000, but I'm not going to "miss" 500).

Reading around it, you're right in that I'm lacking experience first and foremost. I've got another brother who would be another head, but he is not specialised in anything in particular.


Would this be sensible?

1) Research fundementals to make sure there are not glaring errors.
2) plan out rough ideas for gameplay mechanics, level design etc.
3) mock them up in the engine (or SDK for source which I dabbled with a few years ago) to get an idea of how it would feel.
4) If it holds up, try and script the actual gameplay mechanics
5) If it passes this scrutiny, then actually start to make/buy assets to flesh it out.
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No. Start with this:

https://www.udemy.com/indiegamer/

https://www.udemy.com/master-blueprints-in-unreal-engine-4-endless-runner/

Dont just jump into a costly(time, effort and $$$) endeavor and assume you'll figure out all the less obvious bits as you go along.

Doing some rough prototye gameplay using Source SDK isn't a bad idea, but dont think that will provide you with the necessary foundation to then tackle a full product-based project.

There's a bunch of other UE4 courses on there aimed at aspiring, beginner level game developers.
 
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Lifelong said:
its sort of being done before (ish)
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Before you invest a lot of time and money into this - what is going to make people want to play your game over one of the already existing examples?

If you want to make it for your own pleasure, then crack on :) Just don't see it as an investment that you're going to make money from! :p
 
in my experience the last 10% takes 90% of the time. You think "oh I'm nearly finished, just a few more things left to do" and then that list of a few things just keeps growing and growing as you do them.

As others have said you really have to start with small projects otherwise you'll probably make some fundamental mistakes and be so far invested in to your huge project you will have to spend a long time fixing them or release something you're not happy with. It's best to get those kinds of mistakes out of the way with something you don't really care about.

In my case I wrote a 2d mobile game using libgdx (I think unreal is far less code heavy). It was a matching game similar to match 3 but entirely unique at the same time.
I never actually published it in this country because it wasn't very good.

My goal was really just to create a 'fully featured' mobile game with cloud save, facebook integration, high scores, in app purchases etc. I also did almost all of the artwork. I purchased some stock sounds etc. and also a couple of vector images for a couple of places.
I worked on this for approx 4 months for maybe 3 or 4 hours a day when averaged out, possibly more, It was really a lot of work and highly tedious in places but once I was started I couldn't stop!

The code for the actual gameplay itself was probably the easiest part of the project and took maybe 20-25% of the time, but adding in the menus, the web backend, high scores, facebook integration took an enormous amount of extra time. I'm a software developer professionally as well so that helped significantly in terms of coding.

By the time I was finished I stuck it on the play store in Australia and NZ to see how it would do but I wasn't that bothered about it any more. Only very few people had tried it before publishing. If I wanted a successful game I really needed many more people to try it while it was being developed to give feedback, and once it was done I just didn't want to fix all the things that people didn't like about it. So it didn't go anywhere.

I don't really know where I'm going with this story. I'll probably edit this post 50 times...

To answer your question, yes I think it's possible for two people working 4 hours a day after work to create a decent game. It has been done. But that in itself leaves a lot of questions - like.. 4 hours a day - for how many months / years? what skills do these people have already.. etc. etc.
 
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If you dont know anything about programming or modelling or animation then it is impossible. If you do then it's still extremely difficult.

If your starting out, dont know any of the above then you dont want something powerful you want something accessible like Gamemaker or RPG maker or even Unity.
 
just to add, I knew someone who created a multiplayer half life 2 mod called sourceforts when he was maybe 13 and it was really quite successful (not in a commercial sense because profiting from such a thing wasn't possible at that time, but there were a lot of players), although in terms of assets it differed very little from the stock game. iirc it also all fell apart at some point when there was some kind of disagreement but I don't know much about that.

Anyway my point is that if a 13 year old can create something successful in a short space of time then who knows what you can do. By designing a game around what you're capable of it can make it easier.

edit: just checked wikipedia and he was 12...
 
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