Making games

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,085
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

My younger brother has just turned 14 and wants to make some games for the PC. He has an XP desktop at home and although not great it is easily capable of making simple games.

Question is how?

I am sure I have a copy of the DIV Games Studio software around, although I never used it myself it was supposed to be quite good.

Any know of any other programs out there like this? I know there was a adventure game one but I can't find it online.

Also, any advice on how to get into it for real or game development websites would be gratefully received :D

Thanks

PS. Wasn't sure whether to post here or in programming so please if needed.
 
I doubt he's going to be capable of doing any real programming at that age so this section is probably the best bet.

I don't have any real recommendations for individual applications for game development but I had a blast fiddling with maps in Unreal Editor. There are tutorials plastered all over the net and it's very satisfying to use.
 
At that age he's probably best of starting out with just creating levels/missions for games, perhaps trying his hand at scripting, etc. As Zefan says, the Unreal Editor is great fun to play around with, and Armed Assault also has a great mission editor with good support for scripting.

If he wants to do something more challenging, then modding could be interesting for him, as Kreeeee said.
 
Having gone through exactly what you have in mind for him I'd say get him started off using map editors, 3D design programs, photoshop, slowly move into programming side, as said above simple scripting for maps is good to get used to the syntax of most programming.

I started out modelling in Blender3D when I was 16, it's still my preferred modelling package 6 years later. I'd recommend getting 3DS Max and Photoshop as well though as they are what the professional companies use.

After getting into 3D and 2D I got started on the source engine I think a year and a half before HL2 came out. Obviously we didn't have much to go on at that stage, only the original hammer editor but it was still a blast. Mod never worked out but it was well worth it for the experience.

Luckily I got picked up from that to work under contract for a professional game studio though we're only starting out and currently are only web based tele work, we're getting to the point where we have a working prototype to show publishers though so that should hopefully lead the way into the industry for me.

Best bet is always to join modding communitys. Valve of course have the best interaction with their communitys. It's easy enough to get a valve employee assigned to your project, basically he'll be your inside contact to valve and help you out with any questions you might have. At one stage we were considering the source engine for our game and they were by far the most helpful out of any of the game engine companies we'd talked to.

If he's interested in mapping then it's an absolute necessity for him to be able to model atleast his own small props and such. Bigger stuff can be left for the full time modellers but you don't want to have to go to them every time you need a light pole or bush.

If he's interested in programming however then there are great sites dedicated to just this, get him into the "games for windows" scene. Lots of helpful people over there but like people here said he's only 14 so maybe not ready for C++ and directX programming quite yet.
 
AHarvey said:
Hi all,

My younger brother has just turned 14 and wants to make some games for the PC. He has an XP desktop at home and although not great it is easily capable of making simple games.

Question is how?

I am sure I have a copy of the DIV Games Studio software around, although I never used it myself it was supposed to be quite good.

Any know of any other programs out there like this? I know there was a adventure game one but I can't find it online.

Also, any advice on how to get into it for real or game development websites would be gratefully received :D

Thanks

PS. Wasn't sure whether to post here or in programming so please if needed.
Click to expand...

DIV games studio doesn't work in XP, there a very similar thing called Fenix which is pretty much the same language with a few changes and extras. The documentation isnt great though because its originally spanish. However the DIV manual will tell him everything he needs to know to make the first game (the example works in fenix too). I used DIV when i was about his ages, was really fun.

If you want any more info on fenix let me know.

Geuben
 
Has he done any programming before ?

You could buy him the xna vol 1 video training for around £25 from 3dbuzz.com and see how he gets on with it.

Or he could learn flash and try and make simple flash games.
 
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