5 Steps To Start Making Games (in 2021)

hey guys my name is thomas brush and i make indie games for a living in this video i'm going to give you five steps to making your first indie game step one is learn your art tool this step is the first step for a reason it's because it offers the most tangible and instant results i'm gonna be blunt here most of you watching this video right now are gonna quit your first game bye baby girl having a firm grasp on an art tool like photoshop or blender ensures you can see your project coming to life and that makes it easier to stick with your project so if you're going to make a 2d game like hollow knight or celeste i highly recommend learning photoshop photoshop is the industry standard for 2d art now obviously you can use a vector art tool like adobe illustrator but the learning curve for illustrator is pretty steep and by the way if you're interested in taking a shortcut to becoming a 2d master i actually just launched my online program 2d art pro in it i show you pretty much every art trick i've used for my two commercial releases pinstripe and never song and don't worry you don't have to be super talented or really know anything about art at all i actually teach a super simple yet profound method i haven't really seen anywhere else i show you how to take a mouse and some squares and circles and turn those into a breathtaking masterpiece sure to catch people's attention get fifty percent off today the sale does end in a couple days and there's only 400 seats available if my previous online course is any indicator these seats are going to sell out pretty quick so be sure to click below if you're interested if you're not i get it there's also a free game kit for you below it's my treat to you okay if you want to make a 3d game learn blender blender is totally free now if some on youtube told you blender is too complicated to learn and blender is i i hate it it's horrible think again blender has a fresh new look and is way easier than you think the beauty of 3d art is the simple fact that you can pick from thousands of 3d models available on the unity asset store sketchfab or turbosquid and flip them just change out the texture in photoshop and it looks like it fits right into your game step two is learn c sharp why do coding languages have to sound so scary why can't c sharp be called i don't know banana let me know below a better name for c sharp and also if you could leave a like and maybe consider subscribing for weekly content focused specifically on you becoming an indie game developer that would be awesome here's the thing yes there are plenty of assets out there that try and make it easier so that you don't have to learn any code to make a game but the truth is you really should learn how to code okay so c-sharp is massive there are so many functions namespaces tricks variable types blah blah blah but let me tell you my little secret i've been using in and throughout the creation of my three commercial releases i google almost everything i brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in income year after year selling my games and i can't even remember how to write a for loop i'm being completely honest here anyone who tells you to memorize a ton of code is likely the same person who hasn't released a game these people kind of get stuck on the nitty gritty technical side of game dev and ultimately they're stuck in limbo perhaps scared to actually progress because well progression requires you to ultimately show the world your work and that's scary instead don't stress about learning every little thing about for code go to google copy and paste the code and most importantly finish your game that said i do highly recommend getting a firm grasp on a few of the following concepts and you can find these on unity's free tutorial series there's a link below you need to get a grasp on the boolean array float integer vector and string variable types you also need to get a grasp on the start awake and update functions and also the if and for conditions and finally just how to reference all your scripts within unity obviously there's plenty more here but that's where i spend most of my time when i'm writing code now if you can learn that stuff you're gonna be set up for success step three is learn unity c-sharp tells the engine what to do that engine is unity if unity isn't told what to do it's just gonna sit there and do nothing now regarding unreal you need to get your fingers ready because the comment section is gonna get spicy here we go unity is better overall for indies i say this primarily because unity's overall learning curve is a bit easier for beginners and also its porting support for platforms like switch xbox ps4 and mobile is pretty awesome it also has a ton of tools available for 2d game creation unreal isn't really the best for 2d game creation again i'm just saying on average overall and most importantly for indies unity is the best option unreal is more commonly used for aaa games so go ahead and download unity and get started like c sharp there's so much to learn and you're not going to figure it all out right away it really takes some time i would argue understanding unity is going to be more difficult than learning something like blender or photoshop it's probably going to take you twice as long this because wrapping your head around how unity talks to itself is a major paradigm shift compared to drawing or modeling which makes sense intuitively what i mean by talking is unity is kind of like a body my body has various organs that talk to one another and cells that destroy and instantiate conditions that if not met might destroy or kill the entire entity understanding how elements engage with one another means you need to kind of have a god-like perspective of unity it takes some time but once you figure it out it's super fun like learning stick shift you gotta stick with it and then it becomes second nature step four is learn audacity audacity is a free sound tool it's incredibly easy to learn and believe it or not i've been using it since i was 16 years old i'm 31 now again there's plenty of tools that you can use here i'm just giving you the tool that's easiest to learn and honestly it's perfectly adequate nothing has changed for me in the last 15 years of making video game sounds i go to freesound.org or maybe splice if you're interested in a paid subscription i'll then download some sounds slap them together in audacity and import them into my game that's about it maybe you've seen some cool documentaries that show fully sound artists recording every little sound that sounds fun and that's how it was traditionally done but that's not really how i do it now and i don't recommend indies do it that way either you have limited time you have a limited budget so go grab some sounds online download them stick them in audacity and put them in your game now if you can't find a sound then just make it exist what for example if you want the sound of a turtle exploding combine the sound of a crunching shell and a flesh explosion and then boom the turtle has officially exploded step five is to learn marketing the primary reason most indies don't make enough to live on from their games probably has nothing to do with their games instead it's probably because they don't know how to sell their indie games and i hate to break it to you but this ability to sell will take you a lifetime to learn marketing is always changing and it requires you to always be learning okay so here's perhaps what you think marketing is telling the world about your game when it launches here's my definition of marketing convincing the world they need your game before during and after it launches the tactics to convincing someone to give you their money in exchange for your little indie game is a challenge and it's always going to be changing this is because social media email marketing and the algorithms associated with them are always evolving i find that to be a little more than mildly annoying what worked last year might not work this year i believe if you were to go to our rules today and sit down with a cup of coffee you would not be able to understand that so if you're an indie and you're only following the technical side of things on youtube or social media you're not getting the full picture of what it means to be an entrepreneurial game dev you should be following people who offer marketing training here are a few people that have helped me grow my studio and bring in six figures year after year with marketing garyvee sunny lenarduzzi i don't know how to say her last name but she has a great channel and also david whaley at gamedev unlocked and he also has a online course that i took which was really helpful okay so obviously there are plenty of other things to learn but these five are the primary tools that pretty much everyone is going to need to learn to make an indie game alright guys don't forget about that 50 off discount below for my new program 2d art pro and if you guys found this video helpful please feel free to leave a like and subscribe for more indie game development content that's going to help you become an indie game developer and also what the heck let me know below which is better unity or unreal i can't wait to read your comments cheers

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 32,728

Keywords: unity vs ue4, unity vs unreal engine 4, unity or unreal engine, how to get into game development, unity vs unreal engine, unity vs ue, unity game engine, unreal, game, engine, better, ue4, school, beginner, study, program, game development beginner, unreal engine graphics

Id: 0FTlopQl0h0

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021