How to ACTUALLY get into Gamedev

as someone who has been doing game development for eight years i get comments emails messages and discord pings multiple times per week asking me how to get started with game development or how i specifically got started with game development the standard answer for myself and many other game developers is to just say keep making games or look up a tutorial while these are valid responses they don't seem to be the answer people are looking for lately i have been trying to put an hour or two into learning about music composition every now and then similar to game development if you ask someone how to get into music composition most people will tell you to make music and learn music theory with how little time i'm able to put into music composition i want to ensure that i'm learning as effectively as possible so when i'm broadly learning music theory or making songs i tend to worry about whether or not there's a better way to approach the learning of music composition with that in mind i'll try to answer the question how do you actually get into game development with a few more specifics if you're getting into game development that probably means you'll be writing a lot of code there's some software called tab 9 that i've been using when i'm coding to help me code faster for almost 5 months now and the guys behind tab 9 have been generous enough to sponsor this video cab 9 is something that i actually use all the time and you can see me using it in some of my streams it's a code auto completion tool that's based on openi's gpt 2 model which can provide incredibly accurate code completions for most of the modern popular programming languages and even just normal text sometimes tab 9 can be used offline without internet and trains a local model off of your project's code to adapt to the way you code to give you even longer and more accurate code completions over time it's just a plugin that's available for many popular ides so it's super easy to set up as well i know that many of you guys watching are students and i am as well so tap nine is giving free access to tab nine pro to any student with a student email so there's almost no reason to not use tab 9 if you're a student for the rest of you you can get 20 off of tab 9 pro by using the link in the description once again thanks to tab 9 for sponsoring this video one of the most important things to keep in mind is that many people have different goals when they get into game development some people want to just do a specific part like coding or game design while others may want to work fully solo like me also some people want to end up working for a double-a or triple-a game involvement company while others may just want to be an independent developer or hobbyist i'll attempt to account for these cases as i go over their basic route i'll say this up front if you are just interested in doing like the asset work for game development like 3d modeling artwork or music or something you're probably in the wrong spot unless you're interested in also learning the other stuff as a way to mess around by yourself if you're looking to be a game designer you should probably know how to make games on your own even if they're simple and for people coding or people wanting to do everything you're in the right spot ultimately your first step will be to pick your means of development whether this be a game engine framework or whether you'll be working from an even lower level like opengl if you've already chosen your means of development you can skip ahead using the timestamps in the description and if you don't know what a game engine is i highly recommend that you look that up now and come back to this video i've actually made games both with and without engines and i made a video that covers this choice recently but here's the short version if you intend to work for a company doing game dev work or you intend to make a modern looking 3d game you should probably start with a game engine you don't have to start with the game engine for these things but you might as well if you'll need to know how to use them later in general the default should probably be to use an engine unless you have a good reason not to use one if you're young nude coding and planning on getting into a software engineering type job outside of game development like i did it's usually better to work from a slightly lower level to get a more general experience with languages you'll be using in a normal computer science career also some people choose to work without engines because it works better with their thought process or because they get more control don't be afraid to swap if things aren't working out well for the way you think next up you want to pick the specific engine framework or library you'd like to use if you're using an engine there are lots of options and lots of in-depth comparisons to look through but to get you started i'll start out by suggesting unity unreal and godot i highly recommend looking up some comparisons to see what fits your needs why i've tried all three at some point i don't have enough experience with any of them to do a full comparison with the engines out of the way it's time to talk about frameworks and libraries if you've already learned a programming language it doesn't really hurt to go with whatever language you've learned if you know what language you want to use you can pretty much just search making games with x language to find a tutorial series the tutorial will probably show you how to use an applicable framework or library to make games if you're learning game development as a fun way to learn how to code i'd recommend using python and pi game which is what i personally use pygame is actually fairly widely used in high schools and universities for this purpose funny enough i've had multiple teachers asking to share my work in their classes pygen's performance isn't as much of an issue as people seem to think it is and i actually made another video on the subject if you want to check that out now finally there are those of you remaining who want to get into game development with a framework or library but you haven't learned a language yet and you aren't doing it just to learn to code in this case i'd recommend starting by picking the language and searching for tutorials based on that like i mentioned a moment ago i'd recommend picking c sharp java or c plus but not c if those give you a hard time you could try using a framework or library with python or lua so you've picked your means of game development the next step is to learn how to actually use your means of development if you haven't already picked a tutorial series course or book to follow you'll need to pick one now there are a bunch of ways to learn things in the software world but i highly recommend video tutorials for newer people since good video tutorials show you everything by nature of being a video written tutorials sometimes skip over some details that they assume most people will figure out which can lead to a lot of confusion if you aren't able to film the blanks that said written tutorials are normally faster to read through and follow as you get the hang of things you'll likely find written tutorials or raw documentation are better but for now the video tutorials are likely to be the right choice don't worry too much about the tutorial series you follow if it's not working for you try another one when learning from tutorials it's important to have a certain mindset there's this situation commonly referred to as tutorial hell that many possibly the majority of new people get stuck in which often results in them quitting game development as a whole tutorial hell is when you are only able to do things you've learned from tutorials and you're unable to take the more basic principles that you've learned to creatively implement your own solutions for your own problems as someone who makes a ton of tutorials i've seen questions from hundreds of people who are in this type of situation when you're using tutorials you need to be looking at the basic concepts and thinking of different ways they can be used aside from whatever the tutorial is supposedly for as an example if you see a tutorial showing you how to make collectible coins you need to try to break it down into concepts like collisions objects and inventories so that you can implement that functionality for other things like using collisions for combat stomping a goomba is like collecting a coin except you have to be moving down when you collide it gets removed on impact and gives you points instead of coins i actually made a video on the idea of breaking down problems which may be worth the look don't think that just finishing your tutorial series is your main goal because chances are if you just follow the tutorial series and don't mess around with whatever you're working with and experiment for yourself to make new things you're not going to be learning much because at that point you're usually copying things when you play around with the things you've learned to try to make new things you tend to want it a lot better and remember it better tutorial hell is usually the default state of new developers and it's something you learn your way out of you can tell when you're out based on the types of things you search when you're stuck if you're able to search for those lower level concepts and easily apply them to your problem you're out for those of you who have escaped tutorial health congrats you've gotten past the hardest part of the learning curve for game development to be clear there's nothing wrong with searching for your specific high level problem like wall jumping as an example early on and in most cases it's actually a good idea but your goal should be to get to a point where you do not need to do that anymore okay so you're either out of tutorial hell or you're at least aware that you're in it what should you make i frequently get asked for some good beginner projects but the best beginner project varies wildly if you're brand new i'd recommend sticking with whatever main tutorial you're following until you've finished it after that try to think of something you mostly know how to do let's say you understand basic rendering and collisions while also understanding how to make collectibles making a snake clone may be a good idea since you know many of the basics but you probably don't immediately have an idea for managing the snake's body there are tons of resources to help you if you get stuck as well it doesn't have to be a classic game like snake or pong either if you have a simple idea that you think you can mostly do go ahead and do that the point is to just push yourself a little bit every time if you're out of ideas you can do something as simple as modifying your project from whatever tutorial you just followed and just add some random game mechanics or other sort of stuff as a short summary you should always be looking to make things that challenge you a bit if you aren't you're probably not learning that much once you've fully escaped tutorial hell and you've made a few games things become a lot easier but you're probably not ready to sell the games you make yet for many people selling games or making a game that becomes moderately popular is the next goal in the meantime if you're out of tutorial hell i highly recommend participating in game jams in game jams you make a game within a specific period of time normally game jams have a specific theme for the games to be built around which helps you get an idea coming up with a game based on the theme spell casting or the theme falling is normally a lot easier than coming up with a game idea from nothing game jams also force you to make a small game and finish it they quickly give you experience with the broader game development process and it helps you deal with procrastination or loss of interest in a project due to the time frame most game jams have a feedback and ratings phase as well so people will give you written feedback on your work which is very hard to come by as a new developer there are tons of game jams to participate in with different rules and time frames personally i like to participate in 48 hour solo game jams where you have to make all the asses from scratch but there are options for weak or month long game jams as well with different asset use rules just keep in mind game jams aren't as scary as people seem to think they are just make a game it doesn't matter how simple within the titan frame and try to do better each time you participate in one even after you've gotten the hang of the game development process i still recommend participating in game jams it's probably the most rapid learning experience you can get in game development i've been coding for nearly eight years now and i've participated in over 20 game jams when i wanted to learn the basics of godot last year i chose to use godot in a game jam and force myself to learn it for that jam i have a time lapse of my desktop as i was using godot for that game jam and learning it so you can see me learning if you're interested in that game jams are a great source of ideas and community as well both of the games i've sold were as a result of participation in game jams in some way or another if you're looking for a game jam to participate in both the alkajam and the ludum dare are very good it's io has become a platform for hosting game jams as well so you can easily find hundreds of different game jams later once you're at this point where you're fairly comfortable making games you should be fairly comfortable with learning and you should be able to tell what needs to be done next to continue to improve there are just a couple more things i'd like to cover first a lot of people don't know where to start when releasing their games i highly recommend making an account on h2io which is a platform for game distribution unlike steam they will take as little as a zero percent cut if you decide to sell a game and they don't charge you 100 for uploading a game it's free it's basically the go-to service for any developers to distribute their games that said the user base isn't as large as steam so if you make a larger game that you're willing to pay the 100 fee for it can be a good option personally i release all of my games on insta-i o and i release my paid games on both hio and steam the final thing i'd like to mention is the asset aspect of game development if you're a solo indie developer you're probably going to need to learn to draw and compose music since acid packs are normally pretty restrictive these are sort of their own thing and can be approached separately from the problem of learning game development you can make a game with no music and squares for artwork i'm obviously not experienced enough with music to get you started on that but i did make a video on this topic for pixel art anyways i hope this video gave you a sufficient explanation on how to get started with game development and get to a point where you can potentially sell your games have a good day

Channel: DaFluffyPotato

Views: 319,032

Keywords: DaFluffyPotato, gamedev, game development, programming, itch.io, itch, steam, unity, unreal, godot, python, pygame, c++, java, c#, lua, guide

Id: cJ2yxZxVUvw

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021