Just how hard is it to fully make a game?

[malachi]

All you need is time....finding the time is the difficult part.

Im going back to basics and starting with mobile development. Done C++, VB and Basic when I was younger but I'm getting the itch to start developing games for Android.

 

[joeyjojo]

How hard is it to make a video game version of tic-tac-toe?

tic-tac-toe?

tic-tac-toe?

You mean "noughts and crosses".

 

[stopper]

You mean "noughts and crosses".

I agree.
******* yanks

 

[Radec]

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...

But that 12-13 year old kid could still have had a better understanding than it than people much older.

 

[Haggisman]

You mean "noughts and crosses".

I do actually, my mind went completely blank as to what we call it over here

God knows how, as it's a game which literally consists of noughts and crosses... I blame the fact that I've been trying to create the world's most complex lambda expression all morning and my brain has shut down!

I'll now go out on the sidewalk and flagellate myself with a length of aluminum I've found in the trash...

 

[Rroff]

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...

When I was at college (bit older) showed someone the basics of how to mod quake 2 and they made a pretty popular mod with having 0 previous programming or level design experience (didn't need to do any modelling/animation work for their mod though).

All too familiar with the story of mod teams falling apart the successful ones are by far the exception to the rule with most failing due to disagreements, lack of direction or organisation as much as anything because you get someone with big ideas but no idea how to put it all together who kicks things off and then a bunch of people with skills in specific areas but limited overlap so don't know how to work with the other people and the person organising it has no experience of any of the specific areas so doesn't comprehend how to tie it all together.

These days with unreal engine and blueprints its relatively easy to build a game without much programming experience depending on what you are trying to do and there is still like PlayCanvas if you have something fairly basic in mind.

There is a massive difference between coding a game from scratch and utilising an existing game SDK - many of which have extensive documentation and userbases these days but still gonna have some fun if you need to do any serious modelling/animation :S though there are people who will pump out models on demand for fairly low costs.

 

[FoxEye]

Here's something I've been wondering for a while.

I've only ever made small 2D "games" starting from scratch each time (the fact that I've not finished one of them we will ignore for the time being )

Is it easier/quicker to make a moderately complex 3D game with a powerful engine like Unreal, than it is to made a moderately complex 2D game starting from scratch?

I mean, I'm under the impression that you can drop some assets into Unreal engine and literally be able to wander through a 3D landscape in only a few hours, with almost no coding having been done?

 

[roccles]

I've got another brother who would be another head, but he is not specialised in anything in particular.

Nothing to add other than good luck but for some odd reason this line made me laugh out loud in the office!

 

[Sleepery]

More coffee bro!

 

[Rroff]

Here's something I've been wondering for a while.

I've only ever made small 2D "games" starting from scratch each time (the fact that I've not finished one of them we will ignore for the time being )

Is it easier/quicker to make a moderately complex 3D game with a powerful engine like Unreal, than it is to made a moderately complex 2D game starting from scratch?

I mean, I'm under the impression that you can drop some assets into Unreal engine and literally be able to wander through a 3D landscape in only a few hours, with almost no coding having been done?

A moderately complex 2D game coded from scratch could easily be a lot more work than using something like unreal engine with pre-made assets and blueprints, etc. though if you are making something a bit more complex than your stock 3D game types that can easily scale up in complexity fast.

 

[Seanspeed]

A moderately complex 2D game coded from scratch could easily be a lot more work than using something like unreal engine with pre-made assets and blueprints, etc. though if you are making something a bit more complex than your stock 3D game types that can easily scale up in complexity fast.

Yea, that's a very difficult question to answer.

It also depends on the level of competency and experience of the developer. Something requiring more work doesn't necessarily equate to 'more difficult', either.

Lastly 'moderately complex' is a super vague term. The tiniest little mechanics or variables can be absolute game changers in terms of complexity involved. Which is largely why games tend to transform dramatically from the idea stage to a doable reality.

Game development is probably 100x more complicated and involved than your average person probably realizes. The vast majority of complaints I see directed at developers are usually based on total ignorance of the process and complications involved. It's unfortunate, but there's no real way of getting that point across, I dont think.

 

[Smokey Deza]

You just need to get creative and think of something that hasn't already been done yet, and the dedication to see it through to completion.

As a kid playing Red Alert I remember thinking it'd be cool if there was a mission where I had 20 minutes to farm and spam Tesla Coils everywhere, in preperation for a massive assault.

All these tower defense games stole my idea

 

[Rroff]

Yea, that's a very difficult question to answer.

It also depends on the level of competency and experience of the developer. Something requiring more work doesn't necessarily equate to 'more difficult', either.

Lastly 'moderately complex' is a super vague term. The tiniest little mechanics or variables can be absolute game changers in terms of complexity involved. Which is largely why games tend to transform dramatically from the idea stage to a doable reality.

Game development is probably 100x more complicated and involved than your average person probably realizes. The vast majority of complaints I see directed at developers are usually based on total ignorance of the process and complications involved. It's unfortunate, but there's no real way of getting that point across, I dont think.

I kind of feel sorry for people getting into game development today in a way - some of the most satisfying stuff I've ever done and some of the most useful in terms of what I learnt from it was when coding games where the hardware and software platforms were a massive limitation i.e. getting realtime viable bitmap graphics working on systems primarily designed for handling text (where nominally loading and displaying an image from disc would have been a laborious process over several minutes as it slowly rendered line by line on the screen).

You just need to get creative and think of something that hasn't already been done yet, and the dedication to see it through to completion.

As much as anything you need a clear goal and sit down work out a direction from start to finish - way too many times I've had a good initial idea then got really stuck into the detail and lost sight of the bigger picture and ended up abandoning it. Though you do often learn some invaluable stuff along the way doing that.

 

[FoxEye]

Game development is probably 100x more complicated and involved than your average person probably realizes. The vast majority of complaints I see directed at developers are usually based on total ignorance of the process and complications involved. It's unfortunate, but there's no real way of getting that point across, I dont think.

I know how complex it is, believe me. I spent some time last year modding a 1990s DOS game in assembler with IDA and DOSBox debugger

But I've never worked with a 3D engine like Unity, or Unreal. All my projects have been 2D, starting from scratch.

It was wondering how far you can go with Unity (et al) without being a proper programmer, per se.

As much as anything you need a clear goal and sit down work out a direction from start to finish - way too many times I've had a good initial idea then got really stuck into the detail and lost sight of the bigger picture and ended up abandoning it. Though you do often learn some invaluable stuff along the way doing that.

Hah, that describes all my projects perfectly Get stuck in details, lose interest, stop.

 

[arc@css]

What about something like this (as in difficulty to make)?

 

[DampCat]

Not very. Cobble any old clop together, slap Early Access on it, charge £14.99, make bank.

 

[Kosmiche]

make a game? extremely easy. make a good game? extremely easy.

 

[FoxEye]

What about something like this (as in difficulty to make)?

As someone else said it's not difficulty necessarily, it's time.

That could take a couple days or a couple months, depending on whether you're just starting or know what you're doing. But the rules of that game look simple, so there's no real problems to solve. Just a question of implementing those simple rules in code.

Rules such as "you can't pass through solid objects/walls" are just a question of comparing coordinates. If the game sees you're just south of a wall, then pressing up would decrement your coordinates into the coordinates where the wall exists, so you disallow it. Hence it looks like you can't pass through a solid object (in reality this game doesn't model solid objects on a physical level).

That kind of thing is really childs play But if you're just starting then I'd estimate a couple months to make that. Probably less, in truth.

It'll still be hundreds if not thousands of lines of code tho.

 

[Rroff]

That kind of thing is really childs play But if you're just starting then I'd estimate a couple months to make that. Probably less, in truth.

Depends on approach as well - hardcode a load of stuff specific to the game and you could whack it out in days, create something that is reuseable/extendable with thought out data formats for world storage, etc. quite a lot longer - i.e. a lot of games of that nature have enemies pretty much specifically coded for each instance whereas I like to build a framework with config files for each monster type, etc. so I can add a new or variation, etc. at any time and so on.

Even though its pretty old now I still live Quake 2 source as a way to get into 3D game development as it implements a lot of stuff in a good way conceptually that can be built on top of even if the style of programming, etc. belongs to a past generation.