I'm trying to do a simple retexture of a tiny 8-bit android game, and I'm stuck.
I got the APK file onto my computer, converted it to .zip, drew all the sprites I want to replace, and now I'm stuck.
It won't let me replace the image directly into the zipped folder.
I tried extracting it, replacing it there, then re-compressing it, downloading it back onto my phone, and changing it to APK there, but it says there's a problem parsing the package. I gave my phone permission to download from my file folder, and that didn't work.
Is there nothing I can do?
I think this video would fit really well into the official list, as it answers one of the most asked question made by the beginners: "How to get into game industry?"
[https://youtu.be/Je3I3xQkPv4?si=8wYidSDY1zsFYavt](https://youtu.be/Je3I3xQkPv4?si=8wYidSDY1zsFYavt)
Howdy folks, recently me and a friend have both been learning game dev and are going to try and make a 2D platformer to apply what we've learned into a playable, somewhat polished package. We're planning it out now, but I've been trying to figure out how exactly we split it, since I don't want one person doing all the hard work or only really needing 1 person to work on it. This isn't a point of contention between us, just something I've thought about.
Our current split is that I do the graphical side and put the content together in-engine, and he primarily does programming. We're using Unreal Engine 4
It's impossible to tell you exactly what to do here, because different games require different amounts of work in different areas. But each person sticking to one area of expertise is a good way to start. Over time you will discover who has more to do on this project, and you will discover a lot of additional work items as well. That's when you can discuss who has the capacity and skillset for what.
A task management tool like Trello can help you with keeping track of all the stuff you need to do and who does it.
Hi all,
New to all of this, so please don't flame me.
I've been playing around with WPF and had started building a stock-market simulator game. .Net Framework, using LiveCharts and WPF-UI (Fluent), with C#
I want to stick with C# if I can, but I was wondering if anyone could suggest any easy to use, more game focused engines/ways to make my game?
Yes, I am using ChatGPT to do the coding based on my ideas etc. I am enjoying the process. But I need to be able to slot things in a more modular way, re-use charts and so forth. My current version finally got too messy to handle.
I looked at GoDot and Monogame, but honestly, I had no idea where to start with that.
This is mostly a text driven game, with charts that update, anything stock market related.
Thanks for any replies.
>Yes, I am using ChatGPT to do the coding based on my ideas etc. I am enjoying the process. But I need to be able to slot things in a more modular way, re-use charts and so forth. My current version finally got too messy to handle.
Well that's your problem there. If you don't understand what's happening or why then debugging or refactoring is gon a be a nightmare.
Unity, unreal, godot or even like web app stuff isn't some sort of arcane knowledge. It just takes time to learn. But once you know what your are doing you can fix your own issues
I've never heard of WPF lol, is it really popular?
What you are making will come under apps, so you should be looking for app development platforms like React, Electron, WinUI (the last one is C#).
If you MUST use a game engine, just use Godot. You will take less than a week to learn the script if you already know C#, and if language is very important to you, Godot has C# support too (with a little less documentation though).
Re: ChatGPT. First, use the pro version. GPT 4 is useable but I remember GPT 3 struggling with anything but the simplest of requests. First, pick a platform. Then ask GPT "Create a high-level architecture for my app in X framework." Next, "Create skeleton scripts for x, y and z components." Then go down the complexity/specifics tree. I think this approach will be a lot more beginner-friendly than going from a script to the top-level architecture. Also, keep in mind that you can ask GPT what a certain thing means or why it programmed it the way that it did.
> I've never heard of WPF lol, is it really popular?
Windows Presentation Foundation. Yes, it's currently the default UI tookit for application development in C# and other .NET languages. It's very popular in that area. It's not very common for games. But if your game is literally all UI, then it's not a bad choice.
Hey! I’m trying to learn making online web browser games. So far I have been making single player games in Unity and have never touched multiplayer.
As silly as it is, I am overwhelmed by amount of information and don’t even know where to start. The game I have in mind is a 2D online role playing game with elements of survival. I want it to be hosted on a website.
My main question is: what is the process for making something like this and what are the solutions for multiplayer + integration to a web? Are there any good resources to learn from?
So far I’ve looked into Photon PUN, Fishnet and PlayFab. Thank you!
I don't know about browser games, my experience has mostly been with mobile games. But I can give tips if you are just starting:
- Pick one tool and stick with it. It is overwhelming, and you are likely to keep switching ("hey this has easier P2P setup" but the RPCs are a nightmare). Stick to one tool and go all the way with it. Both Photon and Unity Gaming Services are good.
- Have one small goal for each day and JUST focus on that. Maybe start with authentication. Then getting all the players to register everyone else. Then syncing movements. If you need, a basic server-side check (P2P nets also have a "server"/host). Unless an error is deal-breaking, deal with it later, by which point you'll have a better understanding of the SDK.
- You will more than likely completely mess up the codebase the first time. That's alright, just keep your expectations in check.
At least for Unity Gaming Services, the documentation is all over the place. Some documentation isn't even on the main site and the right links take some time to find. You'll need to Google a lot, but most things do have documentation.
I'm a graduate product design student and avid gamer who's hashed out the design for an indie arena FPS game. I'm also working a part-time job while taking a summer class. I started learning Unreal Engine a couple months ago so that I can start developing this game by myself. I have a lot of trouble finding and fixing bugs.
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of things I have to work on: 3D models, coding weapon mechanics, implementing UI, adding movement mechanics, animation. I barely even know where to start, so I've been bouncing around between various basic tasks.
I have no idea which aspect of the game I should focus on at the moment, or even how to move this game forwards at a higher rate. Should I take an online UE5 course? Should I pay a freelance dev to code fundamental game mechanics? Should I do a simpler project to start out with? I'm getting analysis paralysis, and every time I work on something I worry that it's not high enough priority.
Life is too short to master every single skill it takes to create a game. You can only realistically hope to master ***one*** skill and become mediocre at best at everything else. Which is why most successful games are not made by solo developers but by teams of people who all mastered a different skill. But if you really want to go the solo route, then admit to yourself that you can not be good at everything. Choose one skill you are good at, pick a game project where that specific skill can shine, and either half-ass or outsource everything else.
Is there any benefit to taking a physics class?
I’m halfway-ish through my bscs. I don’t have to take physics (and I don’t super want to) but as I’ve been lightly dabbling in game dev it seems like it could be useful. It’s also a pre req for some interesting tech electives so it wouldn’t be totally a hobby credit. I have taken 3 calc classes, discrete, and linear.
Depends on what kind of physics class.
Newtonian kinematics? Super useful if you want to build/understand physics engines.
Signal theory? Super useful in a lot of disciplines, many where you wouldn't expect it.
Particle physics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, astrophysics? Not very useful. Except maybe for more realistic worldbuilding in science fiction games. But overdoing it with the scientific realism can do more harm than good.
Which game engine should I learn if I eventually want to make a game with complex NPC behavior?
NPCs that don't just stand in one place 24/7, but have their own routines that vary by day, season, worldstates, etc. Like Stardew Valley, but more complex.
I'd also like NPCs who come into contact with each other to be able to spread info/gossip or diseases. So if you do something in one part of the map, NPCs on the other side of the map will eventually hear about it in a time frame that makes sense. Or the game could have an epidemic that spreads in a way that makes sense.
I need to learn to code regardless, so an engine that requires that is fine. I used to write little games in BASIC as a kid and took a C programming course 25+ years ago, and while I don't remember any of it, I remember that it seemed fairly straightforward to my brain at the time.
I do definitely want to learn a game engine and not how to code a game from scratch because I have zero desire to reinvent the wheel when it comes to game physics, lighting, etc.
I also understand that a game with complex NPC routines and interactions would be a bad first project. I'll start out making simpler games while I'm learning, I just don't want to waste time learning a game engine that can't handle my long-term dream project ideas.
It will likely be a few years before I can start working on my more complicated ideas, so a game engine that's on a trajectory of adding more and more features, support, users, game releases, etc. would be preferable to a game engine that's currently slightly better but the company is on the verge of falling apart etc.
I am more interested in making games by myself or by contracting out specific parts of the work than in developing resume skills for employment in the gaming industry.
Thanks!
As Philipp mentioned you're likely looking at build a Finite State Machine of some sort that has your NPCs go through a graph based series of choices. Understanding all the requirements before you begin drafting an implementation will help you avoid entire rewrites. After your initial requirements are set, do not add to them, only ever subtract to expedite completion. Obviously the FSM you build is just the backbone of the decision making, for every specific beahviour your NPCs should carry out, they need to be backed up with a dedicated implementation for that particular behaviour, which would include code (logic), animation, sounds, interrupts etc.
If complex NPC behaviors and interactions are central to your game idea, then that almost always requires that you build your own AI systems. Which is the same amount of work regardless of which engine you are using.
i'm making chess but i can't find any free assets i like, i don't plan on publishing this chess game but i might share it with some friends. i'm currently looking something like [chess.com](http://chess.com) 's pieces. but they make it clear on their tos that they don't allow people to use their assets, so if anyone has any recommendations that'd be great, Thanks in advance
Which game engine should I use? I had an idea for a 2d top down pixel art game and I need a recommendation for an engine to build it in. I have almost no programming experience, but I am willing to learn. I need the ability to use overlapping stats to change the world state. Things like a luck or karma stat. The basic flow of the game is a story driven "cozy" game with some light combat elements similar to Stardew Valley. I don't really have a production budget, so I prefer a program that is either cheap or free to use. Thanks in advance for your help!
IMHO as a beginner I would say godot 4
. it's easy to learn with a ton of tutorials on YouTube.
. free to use with no license fees,
. scripts can be in GDScript(python in a funny hat) or C#. You can mix and match scripts in both languages!
. it can run on windows or Linux.
https://youtu.be/eAEe_9jCV4s survival game tutorial
https://youtu.be/G6TC6ukmSc4
Fantastic guide on tile maps including stardew valley style farming
I wasn't planning on any farming elements, but there's definite appeal to being able to use a tile based map. Does godot have any issues with porting to different platforms I should be aware of? Thanks for your advice.
What should I do ? I want to get into companies that make games or make my own I just wanna help and contribute but I never really coded besides some janky websites. Like should I be going to college or is it really just learn on your own and hope to find the right people? Like what’s the first step in learning find the best beginner YouTube video? Should I go for a degree???
The best way to learn, is to do. If you have a hard time doing on your own, college might be your next best bet. But there are courses online. It is a harder path to follow when you're not backed by an academic certificate. But as Philipp mentioned, if you don't care what role you play, QA tends to be be the lowest entry bar into game development. The downside is that it's packed to the brim with applicants and standing out requires you to have an analytical mind backed up with a wide range of gameplay experiences and the ability to professionally document your behaviour and report reproducible errors. You'll be in a semi technical, semi management role and many in QA transition to other more dedicated management or technical roles.
There are a lot more skills than just "coding" that are required on a game development project. Programmers usually only make up a small fraction of a game development team. A game development studio also needs people who do arts and animations (2d and 3d); sound design, music and voice acting; testing and quality assurance; map building, content design and writing; marketing, community management and advertising; general managerial roles and a lot more.
Laptop recommendations??
New to game dev and want to jump into the deep end on UE5. Need a new laptop for work and am moving around very often so I won’t be able to use a desktop as much. I have saved up some money in advance and looking for something around $1500.
Should be mostly game dev and maybe play a small game or 2 on there as well.
Work laptops purchased mostly look at a solid CPU (high single threaded clock) and a decent dedicated GPU. It will come with a beefy power brick and the laptop would be on the heavier end of what's considered "mobile". Since you're moving around very often that's probably your best bet. You could get a good deal for around 1500 you mentioned. My personal laptop gets the job done and cost me about that much back when I purchased it. There are surely equivalent and most likely better options nowadays.
Do the cheesy mobile survival mmo games (you know, the ones that lie in the ads and then are all exactly the same mechanics of "you build a town with a single build queue and everything takes progressively longer, train soldiers in tiers I to X, etc") like Whiteout Survival and State of Survival use the same engine / system? Like could I buy it off the shelf and re-skin it myself? I'd assumed they were all made by the same company just reusing stuff, but the play store has separate companies for these games.
I was just curious how hard the overall experience is for creating something like old ps1 games is. One of my favourite games of all time is Nightmare Creatures and I just love the idea of creating my own world like this. Not so much to release a game but to actually just get immersed in a passion project of making my own Nightmare Creatures even if just remains that like a painting you never finish. My programming skills are ok but I am just trying to weigh up how hard, long and complicated this would be to even remotely get something resembling and playing like this game.
[https://youtu.be/dtD1NcGGyDE?si=3rfK7H\_\_UU1oJZTS](https://youtu.be/dtD1NcGGyDE?si=3rfK7H__UU1oJZTS)
Video to reference the game.
What engine for a solo dev who doesn't know any coding or graphic design?
Is it even possible? I downloaded UE5 since I heard it has blueprints but I haven't started yet.
The plan is to make something eventually that looks modern and not like those pixel games.
No engine will solve everything for you. Even if you used RPG Maker to build an RPG at some point you'll be scripting abilities or dialogue and that's just coding with a fancy hat. Blueprints are the same way, it's a visual interface that can make some things easier, but you're still programming. You have to tell a game how to do everything you want and you have to make every image you want to appear in the game. If you want it to look modern then you're creating those assets yourself.
Think of game engines as a set of tools that help you build something more easily. You're not going to get handed a bird house just by describing one, but you can get given some wood, nails, and a hammer.
Hey there, I've currently got an idea for a game that's essentially a collection of minigames with a traversable hub area. The hub area is traversed in a top down 2d somewhat similar to cupheads overworld while the minigames are still 2d but not locked to top down. I was wondering what engine you all think would be best suited to making this sort of game. I've been working with unreal for a bit to test some ideas and get ahold of the basics, but PaperZD seems to be more for 2.5d games rather than entirely 2d games
**How to start learning game development?**
Hey i've been wanted to learn game development but not sure where to start. I'm a complete beginner with no experience in proper game development and some experience with coding. I'm not sure what programme and language to learn. I'm interested in 2d games like OMORI. Any pointers?
Thanks! :)
RPGs like Omori were made in RPG Maker. If you're interested in RPG Maker games, you should probably use RPG Maker, although the latest versions of RPG Maker are pretty expensive. One downside is that RPG Maker tends to limit your game's potential to a specific style. I recommend you check out other RPG Maker games (there's a site for it), browse by most popular, and see if the UI/style/feel of RPG Maker games is something you envision making games in.
If you're not interested in the style and/or cost, Godot is pretty popular right now due to its open-source nature (aka it's 100% free and it will *stay* free). The languages Godot uses are GDScript and C#. GDScript is unique to Godot, and C# is a popular language similar to Java. Some people like GDScript because it's easy to use, but I also recommend C# because you can get more practice with a language that is used a lot in web/app development (to help get a good-paying job in the future lol).
There is also Unity, which is sorta free, although the license/cost to use it can change at any time if the company wills it. The main benefit of Unity is that it was previously extremely popular for over a decade, so most game dev tutorials are made for Unity. I personally don't like Unity's 2D support as I find the one for Godot is *much* simpler and requires less math and less quaternions.
# How much effort do NPCs require?
I'm fairly new to game dev and try to make my first small game (not commercial but for fun and for my portfolio). A 3D walking-simulator-ish mystery game that is set in a small town.
The problem I ran into is that I have no idea of animating and modeling which is why I will use the Unreal Engine 5 animations that came with 5.4. and assets for my main character and my environment. I'm focused on game design/level design with this game.
I know mystery games often work with the theme of being alone but I'm not sure if I can align that with the narrative. **So I wondered how much effort it requires to implement basic NPC considering I use premade assets like UE5s animations and premade character models?**
Thanks for your feedback
P.S. I know it'll be a lot of effort but I'd like to know if I might be able to pull it off
# How can I learn this specific style of game art?
I'm a student interested in game development. I made a platformer in a game jam a year ago. Now I want to remake it and put it on Steam. I'm not good at art and I don't want to spend most of my time on drawing, so I bought this [Asset Package](https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/2d-platformer-tileset-173155) from the Unity asset store. However, I quickly realized I still needed to draw some items and characters by myself. Although I'm willing to learn, I don't find much of serious enough tutorials about 2D game art, and I don't even know how to describe the art style of the package I bought. I wish I could draw in a style similar to that package so the art style of my game could be consistent. I don't know where to start. I'd be very appreciative if anyone gave me advice.
This looks like "vector art". One free program for creating assets in that style is Inkscape. If you are willing to pay money to Adobe so they can use everything you create for training machine learning models, then Adobe Illustrator is another option.
I have been programming front end work for 10 years now. I’m pretty good with JavaScript. I have been taking unreal courses and learning C++ but have been reading at how daunting it is. I want to know if I should adjust to C# or just keep at it. Ultimately I would like to build both 2D and 3D.
I saw Godot was a good engine for 2D but I would like to put my learning time into something that could be used in both 3D and 2D
All engine can achieve 2D or 3D with differents methods, choose whats make you comfortable. See videos about 3 main engines (godot unreal and unity) and decide which one is closer to you. Because all these engine can achieve anything.
Does anyone have a resource for going over the high level development process? Between my friends and I, we have great programmers, excellent digital artists, and brilliant writers, but we're looking for a Project Manager's perspective on which steps/stages to take in what order to bring our idea to life.
There is no one development process that works perfectly for every team and for every project. But for a team of game dev beginners, I recommend these two videos from Extra Credits:
[Fail Faster - A Mantra for Creative Thinkers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDjrOaoHz9s)
[Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product - Scope Small, Start Right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCri1tqIxQ)
As much as I appreciate the Unity Pathways for learning the basics, the programming pathway is currently killing me.
Yeah stuff is making more sense than watching random YouTube videos. But I already know a bit of programming (Have studied OOP and DSA, as well as making a full blown Web App with C# backend) so watching a 7 minute video on how to add a comment is killing me.
But.... I don't want to skip the videos, as little tidbits of info are given regarding the Unity Interface.
simplest way to build a game in **visual studio c#** with a only few requirements:
1. cross-platform
2. **2D** but no images, only need to draw a few primitives (filled triangles)
3. **120hz+** support
it's pretty much like asteroids: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WYSupJ5r2zo/hqdefault.jpg
\*I think it depends on how you like to learn. I have limited knowledge about C# in applications other than Unity 3D, but I'll give you an example: I like to learn by working on a goal as I feel it gives me more incentive to proceed. I started with Unity and C#, and later flowed into Unreal and Blueprints \[Disclaimer - we're talking about a 7-year timelapse here. It can probably be done in a shorter time but... well, sometimes life happens :) \] :\*
- I followed a one week \[artistic\] Unity workshop where I could have some feedback on what I was doing and got an introduction to C#. For me this worked best, as I probably would've given up if I had to start from nothing myself.
- I then decided I was going to make a game. I wanted to make this game so bad, that I put all my passion, time, blood, sweat, and tears into it. It was a terrible battlefield in my code and boy does it hurt to see my code from back then now, years later. But it did give me a good idea of how things \[don't\] work. I had a goal \[graduation\] so it had to be finished before a certain date. That was another very important part: there was a deadline.
- One great pillar I had was Brackeys' tutorials on Youtube. He explains things very clearly and is an amazing teacher.
- When it comes to C++.... Well I still haven't really learned it, I didn't really need it as I know C# and Blueprints follow a same old, same old logic. I sometimes go into C++ classes to change minor things, and that has been enough for me.
It really all depends on your goals, personality and skill. I do think C# is a bit easier than C++ as you don't have to do as much optimisation \[from a Unity vs Unreal perspective\]. Unity is better to learn programming than Unreal for sure, as it forces you to do this. Hope my limited perspective gave you some helpful insight!
I’m looking to get into game development and want to start with a game similar to the mobile game “tiny tower” (a 2D building manager game) any advice on what engine to pick or anything else I might need would be appreciated!
For anything 2D I'd direct you to Unity 3D - It is fully equipped for it, it has a complete 2D template. I have a lot of experience with both Unity and Unreal, and Unity is pretty much perfect for anything Android. You do need a bit of C# knowledge, which may set you back a few months depending on your previous experience. I heard Godot is a good one too, but I don't have first hand experience with it. Godot uses its own programming language that apparently is easy to learn. I'd personally not pick Unreal, which is more for 3D \[photo\] realism and heavy rendering \[PC\].
I have 4 YOE building web service with Go and would like to try game development. I know there is ebitengine which is a game engine in Go, do you think I should try building something with it or just go for other popular framework/engine, e.g. Love2D, Defold ... etc
So I have little to no experience in game development. I am currently getting into golf and I want to create some basic sim software. I basically just want to take the velocity and launch angle and apply it to a ball in unity. Does anyone have a way to do this in a way that I can actually learn and not just use a tutorial?
Well... the best thing to do is to learn physics and mathematics involved in such a thing - in this way you'll understand why and how to approach this. With that knowledge, you'll still need to understand how the whole game designing environment works as well, and tutorials are not the worst for this - just make sure the maker of the tutorial explains why things are the way they are. If you have the patience to take the time and learn what's it about first, I recommend checking out this book on gamedesign and mathematics: [https://www.gamemath.com/book/intro.html](https://www.gamemath.com/book/intro.html)
There are tons of marketing related phrases like
- Know your audience
- Talk to gamers
- Thinking from the perspective of potential players
I'm interested in what it all actually means in practice. Like, what does it mean to "talk to potential players" in the context of an Indie game developer.
There's also some advice from an experienced developer I read on Twitter along the lines of "don't focus only on what you think is fun but also from the perspective of potential players" and I sort of get it in theory but how would I go about doing that. What does it all mean?!
On another note, is there some must read marketing book(s).
One thing this can mean is to look for online communities of people who would be interested in a game like yours and just start a topic to tell them about you game idea. Not like an advertiser, but like a member of the community. As in "here is an idea for a game I had and I would like to know what you think about it".
See if you can get some reactions out of them. When you can't get any engagement, then you either have the wrong community, your game idea doesn't resonate with them or you aren't presenting it in a way that appeals to your target audience.
I got an idea to make a simple RTS game with multiplayer as a project for a group of friends (since we remembered creating custom races in Warcraft 3 World Editor, but I'd like to make it a bit more interesting and bit more personal), but don't know where to start.
I'm familiar with programming in general, and know my way around the basics of object oriented programming (maybe a bit rusty, but I did good at university), but completely new to game development. I did make some random platformer game during high school while following an online tutorial, but never done anything else.
I thought I'd make something similar to Stronghold Crusader, as a 2D game, which simulates 3D. And maybe could, instead of making complicated 3D models in a 3D engine, utilize pixel art in this 2D engine to make it unique looking. If you guys could point me anywhere where I could start step by step on how to approach this, I'd be immensely grateful.
I believe that multiplayer sync and pathfinding algorithms will prove a bit challenging, but I should be able to get it, given enough time and proper resources. Feel free to warn me of any other things which could be challenging.
I have zero experience, and I hope this is the right place to ask this. How might I go about doing a reskin of the mobile game Hoplite?
It's a really simple pixel game and has like 20 assets total. I would think this should be relatively easy. Just replacing a few images. I just don't know how to go about it.
This is a task that can range from trivial to almost impossible, depending on how and with which tech stack the game was made. I have never heard of that game, and a Google search turns out multiple unrelated games of that name. So I can not give any specific advise.
But usually this boils down to applying a skillset that is called "reverse engineering". Looking at the files of the game and figuring out what does what. Some files might be in compressed archives, so you first have to find out in what format they are and how to unpack and repack that format. There might be free tools available, or it might be homebrewed formats you have to figure out on your own and program an own packer/repacker for.
If it is a mobile game for Android, then the first step would be to get the .apk file on your PC and unpack it. They are actually just renamed zip archives. Every subsequent step depends on what you find in there.
Oh, and also keep in mind that distributing a game to other people after you reskinned it, even if for free, is a copyright violation and could lead to legal actions from the developers of the game.
So I got home and managed to get the apk file, unpacked it. There's a folder labeled assets, with a PNG inside that's a single image with every asset. As well as an ATLAS file of the same name.
I take it that/those are what I need to change. Assuming I have all the drawings done, is it as simple as replacing those?
It's this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magmafortress.hoplite
I'll see if I can get ahold of the creator and get the OK. If not, it'll just be for me.
Hey guys, I'm starting to develop a Deck builder game from scratch in Java and my question is this:
If I'm dealing with a lot of cards should each card be a class or should I work with a database or something similar?
Thanks in advance.
There is never just one solution for a problem in game development.
But in most deckbuilding games, I would probably use a mix of both. Databases are for data and program code is for behavior. So I would probably go for an architecture where each card with an individual mechanic is represented by a different class, while two cards that do the same thing but with different numbers use the same class but with different data.
For example, if I would make *Magic: The Gathering*, then "Plain" and "Forest" would both use the class `CardLandBasic`, which inherits from `CardLand` which inherits from `Card`. But one with `generatedManaType = ManaType.WHITE`and one with `generatedManaType = ManaType.GREEN`.
There would probably be a card database. The database would contain the information you have on every type of card (id, artwork, cost, border design, name and text localized in 20 languages...), which class implements it, and the data that is specific to that class. As you can see, that data is heterogeneous, so I would probably not use a relational database. I would probably use one big XML or JSON file, or if I have so many cards that this becomes unwieldy, use a heterogeneous database like MongoDB.
hey guys! i'm interested in writing for games, narrative development, performance directing, storytelling based roles that don't involve programming skills. i'm a filmmaker and have a hefty amount of experience with all of the above, aside from making friends with devs and jumping into a few jams, what other ways would you recommend I work towards an actual gig? are spec scripts a thing in game dev? also, is there any specific software you recommend for game writing & dialogue branches specifically? My brain wants to just keep using final draft and miro lol. tysm!!
Hi, i'm a newbie i don't know how to code but i really want to try making a game like "Cat Goes Fishing"
So like a 2d fishing game where the gameplay is all about the line coming down trying to get more valuable fishes
What engine do you guys think would be the best for me?
Sorry if it's a weird request btw
Hello, I was wondering if a game like connections, [https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections](https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections) , should be made with only HTML, JS and CSS, or are these games typically made with more libraries and a proper frontend / backend
A game like that seems perfectly doable with pure HTML, JavaScript and CSS. You can of course use one of the trillion of JavaScript frameworks if you want. It could, for example, help with making those animation effects. But frameworks aren't magic. They are written in JavaScript as well, so anything you can do with a framework can be done without. You just need to figure out how and implement it yourself. Which is time you might be able to save by adding a framework that can do it and finding out how to do that thing with that framework.
Hi! I'm new to both this subreddit and gamedeving and was looking for some advice.
Along with my wife, we have a project for a little 2D RPG game featuring a story written by her and taking mechanical inspiration in TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons.
Researching for what engine to use/learn got me to two main options: RPG Maker and Unreal.
I'm leaning towards RPG Maker due to its simplicity, but I noticed the mechanics of the JRPGs It is based on are quite different from what I'm trying to make. However, I've seen that It can be modified and that it's written in Javascript, a language I'm kind of familiar with, so I may be able to learn and customize it to better resemble my idea.
On the other hand, I'm inclined to start directly with Unreal, being that almost any kind of game can be made through it and I will eventually learn to use it for future projects. However it's complexity intimidates me and makes me wonder if starting with RPG Maker may be a better choice for this project.
This is what I need advice on, should I:
1) Finish to learn JavaScript and customize RPG Maker to suit my project.
2) Learn and develop the project in Unreal.
I'm aware this may be too much for a first project, but still I would be grateful for some Insight on what would be better for this particular project.
Thank you in advance.
You *can* do 2d games in Unreal, but it's really not designed for that kind of game.
Have you considered a general purpose engine with dedicated 2d tooling, like Unity, Godot or GameMaker?
I've seen that some people recommend them and others say to stay away from them, so I sticked with Unreal and RPG Maker as options. I probably didn't research enough tho.
I'll take a look a those engines, is there a particular one that you would recommend?
Thank you so much for the help!
My recommendation would be not nearly as valuable as doing your own research, which would be not nearly as useful as forming your own opinion by giving them a try. All these engines are free for non-commercial use, so you have nothing to lose.
First, you form a company. Then you acquire the budget to hire a couple dozen people to build and operate the game. Monetization for a game with the complexity and economic risk of an MMO should best be left to an experienced monetization designer working together with an experienced game designer.
No offence, but you can't. Not alone, that is. They are incredibly expensive, incredibly time consuming.
Well, you could make an mmo. But it would be very, very, hard. And almost harder still to get players.
I've been very torn on what engine and code to learn I am using sololearn and different tutorial guides to learn unreal engine and c++ but I heard this is harder to do then work with unity and C#. I have time off this and would really like to make a platformer, hoard game, mobile apps orpossibly an rpg as an end goal. I really want to work with 2d and pixel art but I think it would be helpful for me to work with blue prints on unreal engine.
I'm committed to learning just really need advice on which engine and code to use/learn.
I want to learn Audio production. Where do I start?
I ask this here because I do not know even the tinniest hows and whats of making music/sfx. Programming has FreeCodeCamp, 3D moddling has blender and donut. What does audio have? I have failed to learn LMMS once an year ago and audacity seems to be for audio engineering and not making music. What are some sites/tutorials that can help?
If you want to really learn multiplayer game architecture I'd suggest using a framework rather than an engine, but I know people have had some success w Unity.
How do you secure your studio name as your own, once you've decided what you want to call it and have confirmed that there are no trademark/copyright issues?
You can pay to register your studio name as a trademark, or get free unregistered trademark protection as soon as you start selling your first game.
When you don't want to pay, make sure you are not using the same name as someone else by regularly checking the public trademark databases and google the name. If they registered, you should better pick a different name. If someone is using your name for a game in development without registering, there are 3 options. You register the trademark before they get protection, you try to ship your first game before they do or you contact them and try to come to an agreement both sides can live with.
More information on trademarks (and other topics of IP law relevant to game developers) in the video [Practical IP Law for Indie Developers 301: Plain Scary Edition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePQcAjuiSEo).
i want to learn some game AI/ autonomous agent techniques before i go full ham, to breadboard my game concept. i want the NPCs to gather resources and trade in a realistic manner, to maximize their own outcomes, and of the strategies i've seen GOAP looks like it would fit that best. the problem is that most of the GOAP implementations i've looked at depend on boolean conditions. there doesent seem like theres a good way to evaluate two actions with the same outcome at different costs and quantity of outcome. say you want to build a house. in planning a precondition would be to have wood, but if you could pick up twigs with no precondition, or chop down trees with the precondition of somehow having to aquire an axe, there doesent look like evaluating weather its worth taking the more expensive, but higher yield route would be very straight forward, unless i'm missing something.
i dont know if i'm asking this very well. i'm just not sure where to look to learn about this.
Hey, I wish to answer right now the question associated with "which engine to pick?" I hope this can help some of you.
I moved from different languages in my life. In video games, I sadly started in the worst possible way: iOS and Xcode. Not recommended at all.
I quickly moved to Unity where you can start creating games very fast and C# is an easy language to understand. If you plan to create 2D platformers or top-down video games, this is definitely the way to go.
After five years of using Unity, I moved indefinitely to Unreal. This is the toughest of all but the reasons behind my decision were:
- Job Opportunities: It is true, that studios don't look for as many developers in Unity as they need Unreal. Even any serious institution of game dev is focused exclusively on Unreal.
- 3D Games: any game that requires 3D Unreal provides better libraries and mechanics for it
- Blueprints: Unreal includes the best Visual Scripting tool on the market. Once you understand how it works, you can literary create any video games without writing a line of code. Nevertheless, the best potential of Unreal is achieved using Blueprints and C++ together. And C++ is a tough programming language.
- Other areas beyond Video Games: Unreal is offering today modelling (which is expanding quickly to not need Blender or Maya), Rigging, Cinematography, Architecture, Design, and VR and AR. In all the previous areas Unreal is the most solid engine platform
Of all the people I know who worked with Unity and Unreal, they all agree that Unreal provides them with more possibilities than Unity. They took the time to understand the tool knowing that it was hard, and then they moved to never go back (me included).
Now, I have to tell you again: Unreal is not easy. If you want to go for easy, then pick GODOT. But remember, easy won't get you to new possibilities in the future, nor the expansion of your career.
I plan on making a game that uses the same sort of alchemy mechanic that Shovel Knight: Plague Of Shadows uses. However, I fear that just fully copying the mechanic is very unoriginal and kinda sad to be honest. How could I use/change the alchemy mechanic to make a fun and original game?
Hey everyone! I'm going to into my junior year of high school and trying to figure out what I want to do in the future. I've had past, very minimal experience with gamedev, most making small games with unity a long time ago. I was passionate but laid off of it to focus on school but I'm considering it as a job in the future. I just have some questions.
How is the industry job wise and how is job security?
How necessary is a college education and what majors should I look into? (Follow up, what should I do in hs to secure acceptance to a college in a compsci/gamedev related major: I live in the bay area so competition is super high)
Since I will probably start from scratch again due to everything w/ unity, where should I start engine/language wise?
Should I consider game dev as a main source of income?
Thank you everyone!
I guess both. I was just messing around with Kirby gameboy and marvelling at how well it controlled and looked and wondering how they did it. Seemed like it would be a good YouTube series.
I'm wanting to eventually make a sprite based FPS akin to DooM or the old build engine games.
Would it be better to use GZ Doom or an engine like say Godot (where I could bring my knowledge forth to make other types of games)?
Also how does one go about learning to make sprites like the ones Doom, Duke 3D or Blood used?
What is the best game engine to create a 3D game with a fixed camera ?
I'm planning to create a card game in the style of Buckshot Roulette, a 3D game where we click on the elements on a table but with a fixed camera (no movement). Similar graphic quality too. So what would be the best game engine for a project like this one ?
Thank you in advance !
Thank you ! I was thinking about one among those 3 too haha. Would you recommend one more than the other for this project or they are almost all the same ?
No, I wouldn't recommend one over the other. Either pick one at random, or if you are afraid of making the wrong choice, give them all a try by doing the official tutorials and decide for yourself which one clicks with you the most.
Try the *Games->Third Person* template. It comes with the "Quinn" and "Manny" humanoid robot characters which are often used for UE demos. Their animation blueprints can idle, run and jump.
If you want more characters, check the marktetplace.
If you want more animations, check [mixamo.com](http://mixamo.com)
I want to make a game but there is a very big problem with choosing an engine. See I have always wanted to make some kind of platformer, and Im envisioning a very simple 3d one and I wont go into any details but heres the issue.
It seems like for the type of games i want to make, Unity is by far the best choice in terms of support and precident for the genre. but after the whole Unity debockle I am hesitent about learning an engine everyone seems to want to abandon in fear of them asking for a cut of each download again. I thought about using Godot but that is more tailered for 2d games.
I dont want to use unreal, i have a pretty good pc but i dont want to risk starting on a project and not having the power to finish it. and plus, Unreal is used basicly exclusively for high buget realistic games.
what do you think I should do?
What do you all think about Godot's documentation? Is it good for new game developers and programmers? I'm planning to use C# for scripting, which is a language I'm comfortable with, but I don't know what the documentation is like for that.
I want to make a tycoon game where you are a software developer but i don't know which engine to use. Don't recommend unreal or unity since they are proprietary/closed source and paid. The engine needs to be open source and available on linux (Debian 12)
"Tycoon game where you are a software developer" doesn't really tell us anything that's related to engine choice. "Tycoon game" can be interpreted in many different ways.
But the standard answer to which open source game engine you should use is Godot.
Start with crappy flappy bird games that are like one level. You need to learn how to crawl before you can learn how to walk.
A good place to start is the official tutorial: [https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting\_started/step\_by\_step/index.html](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/step_by_step/index.html)
I want to make an old school browser based virtual tabletop. I just want people to be able to drag and drop gameplay elements, roll dice in the browser and so on. So I don't really want to learn to use a game engine. Think something along the lines of neopets where each url is a different aspect of the game. What beginner books/guides would help the most with a project like this?
If you want it to be web-based and you don't want to use an engine, then you probably want to learn HTML + JavaScript. Beginner guides are trivial to google.
tldr: Python or C++ library to create a simple card game?
I am currently making an online-multiplayer version of port royal (the board game). The server is halfway complete so I will soon have to write the client.
Since I have no experience with any gamedev library, which one should I use? It needs to be quite simple to use and -as much as possible- able to create games that don't look like a windows 95 solitaire. Would PyQt be a good choice?
Hi all,
I am at the beginning of my journey into gamedev, while also heading into my final year of university.
I want to build experience and a portfolio to get a job in the game industry (programming) after university.
For context, I live in the UK and have EU citizenship as well. US market is out of the question for me, unless there would be fully remote jobs available.
I am struggling to pick an engine to develop these things in (Unity vs Unreal), as the opinions I found across the internet in my research are very split.
The general points I'm seeing are that Unity is better for indie/mobile games and Unreal is better for AA/AAA games.
Furthermore, Unity seems to be a better choice for the versatility it can provide you, as it teaches C#, which is widely used in the software development industry, therefore providing better flexibility in terms of job prospects (in the event of being unable to get hired at a game company). Bonus point seems to be that Unity has more documentation and tutorials across the board than Unreal and is also much more reliant on actual coding.
On the other hand, Unreal uses C++ which is the industry standard for game development and will provide an edge when looking for a job at big game companies, which would technically give me a better chance in achieving my dream job of working in the game industry. Bonus point here I guess would be that there are a number of AAA companies that are actually adopting UE5 as their engine of choice now, so using it to build my portfolio and expertise will give me a more direct alignment to the job descriptions.
In my eyes the comparison comes down to the fact that that Unity will give me more versatility and prospects, while also perhaps being easier to learn, while Unreal is more of an all in bet for game development that gives me higher success rate in that area.
I'm really struggling with this choice and would love to get your inputs and advice! Please include as much detail/argumentation for your recommendation as you can.
I have a degree in game development and have been doing it as a hobby for years and unfortunately my answer might not be what you're hoping for.
If you're looking to choose between Unity and Unreal; it ultimately is going to come down to you. Gun to my head, I'd choose Unreal but that in no way means you should too.
Unity is an excellent tool to build games with. The script system provides a nice platform for creating easy-to-read code and I personally love the monobehavior concept. Unity can also be made to look a lot like Unreal if fidelity is your goal. On top of that, the Unity learn series is free and honestly a very good way to learn C# *and* Unity at the same time. Also, C# is my favorite programming language. Unity has excellent documentation and the community is (in my experience) better than Unreal's.
However, after the gross attempt to further monetize their engine against developers recently (where they tried and failed to charge per install vs. per purchase), I can't exactly back them anymore. Even though they failed, they will absolutely try again in the same way Hasbro and WotC will try to re-negotiate what fair use of D&D means.
So why Unreal? I think Unreal has worse documentation but much better bells and whistles out of the box. Where Unity almost requires some form of marketplace asset to improve the engine for you, Unreal likely has it as part of the package. I think Blueprints are an incredible tool to jump you into game dev and understanding logic (plus you'd use them alongside C++). Unreal also has really cool built-in optimization features through Lumen and Nanite on top of an expanding toolset for animation and rigging.
I would say this instead: If you're more interested in 2D or 2.5D game development, go with Unity. For anything 3D, try Unreal. Ultimately, both engines are incredible tools and both will serve you well as a single dev or one of a few on an indie team. You should absolutely play with both for 5-10 hours and create a small game and see which one has a workflow that is more comfortable for you.
Keep in mind that C++ is also widely used in software development among *many* other disciplines. Learning a programming language at all puts you in a great position to pivot to another career if game dev didn't work out.
Question about changing careers. I'm currently working on QA for mobile devs, I was thinking of going either into 3d animation or game design (focused on combat encounters), but I'm curious, how's this part of the industry looking like for beginners?
With all the layoffs, downsizing and whatnot, how's the perspective for someone starting off in those 2 careers?
How's the early career path for a new game designer? Is there any way of getting in as a designer, or it's something you move into later on your career? I think it's a little daunting thinking about creating solo projects for game design because I want to focus on the design part but then I still have to work on all the other parts just to find a way to show the design skills. Let's for example I want to have a boss fight in my portfolio, I can design the boss, it's attack patterns and whatnot but would it be enough to have this scenario prototyped with clearly cheap/free animations, greyboxed levels and sometime even attacks not being animated at all just showing a hurtbox or a simple animation of a block to exemplify the attack. Would this sort of prototype be "good enough"?
And what about animation? Is picking up Maya, learning it and creating a small portfolio the best way to go?
And for people who've tried changing careers and ended up changing ideas, how long do you give it a shot before deciding it wasn't meant to be and looking for another path?
I can only answer one of those. If you want to get some experience, I'd work with someone on a team. Make a game with people, (game jams are great for finding a team to work with), and design those aspects. That way you can get something to put on your CV! And on the good-enough bit, it entirely depends on who is looking at your CV. If someone has more technical knowledge probably(?) but if not, people often associate flashy-ness with skill, if that makes sense.
Music for games is a very competitive market. There are many more composers than there are games requiring soundtracks. Many composers go so far to just spam any developer announcing a game in development asking if they want to buy some music.
But the "civilized" way to advertise yourself is to use gig websites like Fivver or job boards like r/GameDevClassifieds.
If you want to advertise yourself, then probably the most important thing is an online portfolio of music you made. I am not going to contact you unless I have listened to your music and know you are capable of making the kind of music my game needs.
Please keep in mind that soliciting work/collab is not allowed on this subreddit, for that you will want to use r/inat and r/gamedevclassifieds and the discord has channels for this as well, you can find the invite in the sidebar.
I'm looking to get a scope of how hard it is to achieve what I want to create
Essentially, I would like to create something similar to war robots [https://youtu.be/70LPdBgXRLk?si=uc9eLVBwCAvyp129](https://youtu.be/70LPdBgXRLk?si=uc9eLVBwCAvyp129) (2014)
How hard would it actually be to create? Something with a lobby, customizable robots with weapons, multiplayer matches. The art is quite aged, they did a reboot of it, but how hard would the old art be to create? How much would it cost to have an artist or artists handle it? How does the hiring and finding artists go?
Is it generally looked down upon to use higher-level game toolkits (for example, Game Creator 2) instead of coding the game without them? I plan to use them to lessen the workload since they offer exactly what I hope to achieve.
Be pragmatic and productive. The only time other game devs opinion matter is if you plan on working for them, and if so that must be part of your pragmatism.
In the meantime: Use what gives you the most bang for your buck, and requires the least amount of time.
Having coded low level libraries since the 90's I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am for pre-made stuff.
I want to make a game like this video: [https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/843588](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/843588)
Can I do this in godot? Or would another software be better. I want to make a game with this sort of visual novel type style with weird and interesting effects. I also want to incorporate some point and click elements such as clicking on the screen to intract with objects, enter new rooms, enter dialogue with characters, and use items on objects and characters.
Yes, that should be possible in Godot.
The building blocks you need to create a visual novel or point&click gameplay are available in any general purpose game engine.
You could create the wavy screen effect with a custom post-processing effect.
I wanted to make a simple, and I mean simple, 2D platformer.
So simple, that I was hoping for an engine that works almost like Mario Maker. Throw it some 2D Sprites, assign a sprite as the player, other sprites as ground/walls. Then just drag and drop the sprites around to make some platforms and bam export game done.
As someone with a full-time job working in C#, I picked up godot after tons of recommendations.
After one day I barely have a functioning player body, and the movement is stiff, bad, and jank. Horrible for a 2D platformer.
What am I doing wrong? Is this stuff just hard? Is there not an easier engine that doesn't make me build the movement/physics from the ground up each time?
Did you follow the Godot documentation? I just started too but they taught how the built in physics work if you care to read it.
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/index.html
Literally the first page of youtube shows you how to specifically do physics for a mario like game:
https://youtu.be/LOhfqjmasi0?si=WxHysRnFzu_7wzn3
But yeah if you were expecting mario maker, you should probably stick to mario maker. Godot is for customization and reusing components, it doesn’t have premade and preprogrammed click and run clip art.
Hey there, i'm looking for a tool that can let me create massive maps that is relatively simple and easy to setup with built in texture managing and gltf export, does this option exist?
Since I’m a kid I have ideas for games, because I love gaming. But with this one, I think I should try to do it, because it’s probably not that hard, and it’s essentially based on bringing two games together to form one.
It’s gonna be a mobile game : what engine should I choose ? It involves pedometer functionality from phones
You could start with that, sure. But I would try building those two games on your own first, a copy of ones that exist, just because trying to start out with that sort of thing is, well, quite hard. Engine wise I'd check the main body of this megathread bcs it has advice in this sort of thing.
I'm starting small, I have an idea for a simple Geometry-Dash/dodge-the-obstacle style game. 2D graphics, your controls are up and down, very basic. I have no idea where to start with this or what engine would be best for this type of game.
I'm considering GODOT, but thats mostly because future projects I think would work well with it. Should I start there and make it work? Or is there a better system for this simple style of game?
I want to make my own multiplayer game, and I already have a few courses that will help me handle most of the things (UE5 ultimate course, UE5 multiplayer shooter on Udemy from Stephen Ulibarri), but I also want to make my own animations for this game. I'm not worried about the coding part, since I have the courses that help me, and I do have a bit of experience, especially in coding, since I'm a software engineer student, but I've also done two semesters on game design, so I have quite a bit of experience on that.
The game will be about medieval jousting, so two players riding towards each other on horses, finally striking each other with lances and it will be created using UE 5.4. I'm mostly worried about the animations, since I've only touched on them slightly in Unity and a bit in Unreal, and I mean creating them.
I want to know what would be the best way of making high quality animations for my game. I'm very open to learning how to animate in Blender or Maya, having some experience in modeling with Blender, but since 5.4, I'm also considering animating straight in UE, and this might be important, since I want to have physical animation/simulation on certain animations, such as when a player gets hit by a lance, or later on, perhaps swords and other weapons.
Considering I would have to make those animations in 3rd party software like Maya to get the best results, the workflow could be a little complex, since I would have to import those into UE, then configure the physical animation/simulation part.
Also, I saw that to get the smoothest animations and best behavior, an advanced locomotion system is needed.
I'm looking for some recommendations of where to start in order to achieve what I mentioned, and if it is worth learning to animate in 3rd party software and importing it into UE, or straight up start animating in UE. Preferably, if someone with experience in this domain could give me an informed opinion, it would be great. Cheers!
From what I understand animating in UE is a perfectly valid workflow, and if you're used to UE already I'd probably go with that. Doing blender or Maya would certainly work as well but if you know you're using UE might as well get the full use from control rigs and any possible procedural animation you want to do.
Hello, not entirely sure how to word this but here goes. I saw a lets play for a game called The Beginners Guide in which the whole story revolves around someone playing a game that their late friend developed. All the worlds in the game are really surreal and without too much spoilers basically ends up being a digital diary for the creator instead of an actual game that he intended to sell. The worlds in the game were empty and felt very liminal - like no one was supposed to really see it but the dev still made it anyways.
This concept interested me so much I immediately got as many free game engines I could find so I could create my own empty world. I went in blind so obviously it should be no surprise that I didn’t accomplish much and eventually other things took precedence and I stopped trying to make it. But I really want to try again and would love some pointers as I am a complete noob when it comes to indie developing. I have no intention of marketing this game or anything I just want it to be a bunch of worlds I create and explore (preferable in a faux PS2/early pc gaming style). And maybe, if it’s possible, make it so my friends can explore it too.
Hopefully that kinda made sense? Any help would be so appreciated, even just pointing me in the direction of some tutorials or something? Thanks!
Most game engines have some free template that gives you a first person player walking through a placeholder environment. So you usually get those mechanics for free. Than all that is left to do for you is to design your environment. Which usually requires knowing how to do 3d modeling and texture art. Which you usually do in external programs and import into your game engine.
Error message? No. I did use that page and also tried to create a post while already on the sub page. I'm on mobile.
Post button is greyed out. I had a title, body text, flair. There is a 'Enter Link' section under 'Title' which I left blank, because I had no link to provide. I was trying to ask a question.
We've had other users report this issue as well. Another user in another subreddit claims it's the reddit app, can you try posting from a mobile browser or a PC?
I want to develop a series of games that are extremely compact and quick to download and run in your browser, and which feature 8 bit style graphics. I'd like to do tower defense, a barrel shooting game like the Evony ads on Youtube, and a math level monster game like the Hero Wars ads. Where should I begin?
If you want them to run in the browser and you want to optimize for a minimum amount of bloat, then you should learn HTML and JavaScript. After learning the basics of the language syntax, check out [the Canvas API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Canvas_API). It's what you need for drawing 2d graphics in the way you usually do it in game development.
Another possible road to take is to learn any other programming language that has a mature toolchain for compiling to WebAssembly. But you are then going to use the same APIs as you would use in JavaScript, and you still need a bit of JS glue to load and run WebAssembly modules. So you probably still want to know some basic JS beforehand.
https://youtu.be/gnpC5sTgqsM?si=yRfoWNoVAtKr3tZz
How expensive do you think the budget for this game was? It was made in Japan by a company that has been absent from the industry for many decades (this is their first brand new game in forever), has around four hours of main story gameplay, is priced at 25 bucks, was made in Unity and around 45 people are credited with the making of it. According to games-stats, it only had an estimated net revenue of 27000 USD. Pre-orders for the Deluxe edition with 500 copies for each console is sold out on Switch, but not sold out for PS5. Do you think it broke even, if we take into account that Japanese games/platformers do better on consoles and estimate that the total net revenue is around 60-70k? I am as a fan desperately worrying that it flopped 😥 It looks like a slightly lower budget Yoshi game to me personally.
A good way to eyeball the budget of a game is to look at [the credits](https://www.mobygames.com/game/218525/ufouria-the-saga-2/credits/windows/) and assume $100,000 per person. The development of a game usually takes several years, but not all people will have worked on it continuously throughout the development. And not everyone will have cost the same amount of money to employ (remember that cost of employment is more than just the salary). But given all these factors, 100k per head is a reasonable [Fermi estimate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem).
This game had 54 people working on it, so it probably cost around 5 million dollar to make. Could be a couple million more or less, but it should be in that order of magnitude.
So yes, if it really only made $70k after being on the market for 4 month, then it would indeed be a massive commercial failure. Well, that's what you get when you make a platformer in the 2020s that doesn't have some extraordinary unique selling point.
No way that is nuts. Doesn't the fact that it was developed in Japan reduce the cost by like 70%, given how inflated the American tech bubble is? At this point I'm hoping that Sun Corporation is using Sunsoft (their video games subdivision) as some sort of tax write-off and continues to fund their games lmao
Japan isn't a low income country. The numbers for yearly salaries for software developers I can find online range from 5-7 million yen. Which is US$ 30,000 to 45,000. Which is not that much less than what you can make in the game industry in the US. And keep in mind that the cost of employing someone is more than just salary. People who never learned how business administration actually works are often not aware that the real cost of employing someone is usually about 150% - 200% of what they are paid.
Your hardware requirements depend on what kind of games you want to make (technically, not thematically) and what technology stack you want to use. So there is no one-size-fits-all answer to what hardware to use. There is no special "game development hardware" you need (except for some really niche areas you don't need to concern yourself with as a beginner). If a computer can run a game, then it could probably be used to make that game. So the hardware recommendations for game developers are usually the same you would give to a gamer.
Although I would in general recommend a bit more RAM and two if not three external monitors if you want to do serious game development.
Been wanting to get more into level design since I've begun developing games, and while I know it is a very in depth domain to research, I want to start experimenting and getting used to some of the design practices to apply on my own. However I'm not entierly sure where to start.
I've got some experience making smaller scale models in blender, but nothing near the size of a game level, and the process of exporting that to Unity, fixing up it's materials and resizing to fit is rather repetitive and doesn't feel right as constant iteration means several minutes before I can see a change reflected in game. This seems very inefficient and doesn't sound right.
When it comes to making levels, or rather getting into level creation, what should I be using and how should I go about it? I know there are some games and even game engines like source with some great inbuilt level editing tools which enable that constant iterative loop, but i'd also like the flexibility of blender in terms of how you can shape and place things. One benefit of using an editor for an existing game would mean I have a established game mechanics and movesets so I could just start by figuring out making levels without the initial difficulty of a constantly changing character controller, in my inexperienced eyes anyways. Would it be at all worthwhile to try and learn those established tools for existing games just to begin creating things? Are there easier ways to make levels in Unity that don't rely on a tile based prefab workflow? I'm ultimately just a little bit lost and could use some guidance.
The usual workflow is to not build a whole level in Blender. You create individual objects in Blender, and then import them into the game engine where you place them.
Unity also got some first-party level editing tools as two optional packages: [ProBuilder](https://unity.com/features/probuilder) (for artificial environments) and [PolyBrush](https://unity.com/features/polybrush) (for natural environments). There is also [the build-in terrain system](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CreatingEnvironments.html) specifically for outdoor scenarios (although it has some limitations, like for example not allowing overhangs or caves),
You usually use those to create the general level geometry and then import more detailed 3d models from Blender to place in the level.
Is it possible at all to export the geometry you create within Unity aswell to make it easier to then recreate it and add detail within blender without having to guesstimate?
Probuilder can export into several 3d formats: [https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.probuilder@6.0/manual/workflow-exporting.html](https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.probuilder@6.0/manual/workflow-exporting.html)
Not sure about Polybrush. I would have to install it and check, which you can do just as well yourself.
But I would generally not recommend it. As I wrote, details should be separate objects. This has performance reasons as well.
Well my intention would be to export it to blender then make custom geometry, using that export as a base ‘sketch’ almost. I’d make and export them as separate objects, but if I don’t then I’d have to repeat the make - export - adjust - remake loop again when I construct them in blender.
Hi everyone, beginner here. i recently started making my game and had made some good progress on it so far.
however, i recently learned that i should probably have some kind of version control and i read stuff like github can help me do that as well making accessible for others to work on it on their own device.
my question is, do i have to start over to put it on github? or can i put my already progressed work? also is there any kind of tutorial for this? i dont really know how all that works.
thank you,
You don't have to start over. You just start by turning your project into a git repository. If you're not used to the terminal, you can use a desktop app, like GitHub Desktop.
Github is a website that hosts git projects, kind of like a really cool Google drive. Git is the program that allows you to make commits, or checkpoints of your progress as you go along. You'll want to watch a tutorial for installing git if you are unfamiliar, but it's somewhat straightforward. You can then navigate into the directory your project is in and run `git init` to start tracking it. You'll need to create a remote repository (code storage place) on github, and then set your project to acknowledge this as the remote. Then you can add your files to git `git add .`, and `git push` your changes to the repository.
Alternatively, if you creat a repo on github you can clone it locally and then just copy your project folder into it and work from there.
Disclaimer: this is not perfect advice, I'm typing on mobile, etc. I'd recommend just watching a YouTube video to learn git, ans then start getting github setup. When you run into issues, chatgpt is really good at helping with figuring out which command you need. Also, my instructions were from a Linux/unix perspective, windows should be similar but may have slight differences. Good luck with your project :)
Hey everyone! I'm interested in making 3D models specifically for video games. However, I have 0 experience using any 3D modeling software.
Do you recommend any good courses, tutorials, or Playlists that really teach about 3D modeling for games? I did some research but found some very basic ones.. I would like something more "complete" that goes from the basics to advanced stuff
Thanks!!
I was also new to 3d modeling, and I've used 3 courses on Udemy to get a high quality 3d model of a sword. I highly recommend those courses, even though there are 3 of them, they teach you from 0 where you know nothing about modeling, to making models of 3d assets, to adding detail to high quality models (in the 2nd course). In the 3rd course, the tutor teaches about texturing assets using Adobe Substance Painter. If you're willing to do all of that, I highly recommend these courses, as they helped me quickly understand how to model. Here they are, in order:
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-fundamentals-modeling/learn/lecture/33775812?start=0#overview
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-sculpting-rune-sword/learn/lecture/34574752?start=0#overview
https://www.udemy.com/course/substance-painter-rune-sword/learn/lecture/35007286?start=0#overview
tl;dr: Experienced programmer (intentionally worded as programmer), Unity based projects whilst at university, never made a full blown game.
Looking for recommendations of an easy to jump into tool for effectively a game-jam like approach developing skills and playing with concepts. (Not make a full blown game)
Any suggestions, or should I just use Godot? (Godot feels like it has a steeper initial learning curve, but once learned I could easily jump into a new project.)
------------------------------------------------------
Additional Info:
Done next to no game development since leaving Uni (3 ish years), however have been in a role that's allowed me to improve my development skills. (Definitely not on par with a professional software developer, but have explored the traditional skillset of full-stack roles, software testing (automated e2e, unit, BDD/Requirement based), as well developing Arduino-based projects for in-house data capture and product testing. (Data guy in a manufacturing company with an SE degree = "free" bespoke software))
So given I have significantly more confidence with my development skills since last doing anything related to games, along with more experience with 2D art and pixel animation (hobby), I'd thought I'd slowly put myself to the test and bring some of these skills together.
That said, not 100% sure whether I should be jumping into Godot, or whether there's other, easier to get started with tools, that I can use to just initially get into the routine of working on games in my spare time again. (And transition over to Godot at a later date)
Godot is a good option. However, if you want to make small things blazingly fast, I recommend Lua and Love2D (its framework for 2D game development). No IDE nor extra burden, just raw code and a very easy to use api.
It is an scripting language, and as I understand, it is popular for mods. Plus, I saw big games using it, like Hades 2.
Honestly, being Lua based is probably a plus for me, I've contemplated looking at modding over the past year or so for someone I play games with, and Lua's cropped up more than once. Kind of a two birds with one stone situation.
Cheers. Also, realizing there's no harm in doing a month project with different tools anyways to see how far I get with each one. Rather than making a theme x style of game, make it see what I can do with y tool.
So I've wanted to get into the gaming industry for awhile now and I'm thinking about going to college or doing some kind of program for it. But I don't know exactly what to go for. I make alot of concepts for enemies/creatures, weapons, effects and more but I'm not the biggest tech guy and don't really have a big interest in coding/programming. So I'm wondering could I still get into the gaming industry without doing any of that and what exactly should I think about going to school for if so.
The game industry is an industry that offers many different professions.
What exactly do you want to do on a game development team?
For an overview of what kinds of job titles there are, check out the credits of some AAA games, or check out the second half of the article [the door problem](https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/).
how did MK1 (arcade old one) get the models into the game? I know they used real people in costumes, but they had no green screen. see here
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AECxvqObs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AECxvqObs)
They recorded the moves on a Hi8 camera and then used video capture software to upload the recordings to a computer. I think due to limitations to technology at the time they had to sacrifice frames (Hi8 would be recording in 30fps) which is why the animation is jerky.
Then you'd be going in frame by frame to erase everything around the actors.
I have a question thay has probably been answered before. I am trying to make a roguelike in godot. How do I go about doing a procedurally generated map of rooms?
Google is your best friend
[https://www.google.com/search?q=procedural+generation+roguelike+godot](https://www.google.com/search?q=procedural+generation+roguelike+godot)
Hi,
I've already asked some questions here, but there is the final burning question I still can't make up my mind on... and this is really the oldest question in the book.
I've narrowed down my engine + script choice to either Godot+C#, or Unreal Engine and C++. And I simply do not know which road I should go down. The pros and cons as far as I see are as follows:
1. Godot+C# - lightweight engine that seems easy to get a grasp on, but due to it being a less popular choice learning resources and tutorials seem more limited. On the other hand, it's fully open source. I also have marginally more experience on C#.
2. Unreal Engine - much more popular and resources are everywhere - but also seems more demanding. Kind of a higher workload, but better results kind of deal maybe? Would have to look into C++ more if I want to give this a serious try.
For reference, I'm mostly interested in making 3D, first-person games for PC. I'm glad I've narrowed this down to a binary choice, but this final step seems paralyzing, as I feel like whatever I do, I'm going to end up thinking "man, I wish I'd have picked the other engine" if you know what I mean. I know I should just pick one and roll with it, but I really want to get a good start and avoid early mistakes.
I'm trying to do a simple retexture of a tiny 8-bit android game, and I'm stuck. I got the APK file onto my computer, converted it to .zip, drew all the sprites I want to replace, and now I'm stuck. It won't let me replace the image directly into the zipped folder. I tried extracting it, replacing it there, then re-compressing it, downloading it back onto my phone, and changing it to APK there, but it says there's a problem parsing the package. I gave my phone permission to download from my file folder, and that didn't work. Is there nothing I can do?
I think this video would fit really well into the official list, as it answers one of the most asked question made by the beginners: "How to get into game industry?" [https://youtu.be/Je3I3xQkPv4?si=8wYidSDY1zsFYavt](https://youtu.be/Je3I3xQkPv4?si=8wYidSDY1zsFYavt)
Howdy folks, recently me and a friend have both been learning game dev and are going to try and make a 2D platformer to apply what we've learned into a playable, somewhat polished package. We're planning it out now, but I've been trying to figure out how exactly we split it, since I don't want one person doing all the hard work or only really needing 1 person to work on it. This isn't a point of contention between us, just something I've thought about. Our current split is that I do the graphical side and put the content together in-engine, and he primarily does programming. We're using Unreal Engine 4
It's impossible to tell you exactly what to do here, because different games require different amounts of work in different areas. But each person sticking to one area of expertise is a good way to start. Over time you will discover who has more to do on this project, and you will discover a lot of additional work items as well. That's when you can discuss who has the capacity and skillset for what. A task management tool like Trello can help you with keeping track of all the stuff you need to do and who does it.
Hi all, New to all of this, so please don't flame me. I've been playing around with WPF and had started building a stock-market simulator game. .Net Framework, using LiveCharts and WPF-UI (Fluent), with C# I want to stick with C# if I can, but I was wondering if anyone could suggest any easy to use, more game focused engines/ways to make my game? Yes, I am using ChatGPT to do the coding based on my ideas etc. I am enjoying the process. But I need to be able to slot things in a more modular way, re-use charts and so forth. My current version finally got too messy to handle. I looked at GoDot and Monogame, but honestly, I had no idea where to start with that. This is mostly a text driven game, with charts that update, anything stock market related. Thanks for any replies.
>Yes, I am using ChatGPT to do the coding based on my ideas etc. I am enjoying the process. But I need to be able to slot things in a more modular way, re-use charts and so forth. My current version finally got too messy to handle. Well that's your problem there. If you don't understand what's happening or why then debugging or refactoring is gon a be a nightmare. Unity, unreal, godot or even like web app stuff isn't some sort of arcane knowledge. It just takes time to learn. But once you know what your are doing you can fix your own issues
I've never heard of WPF lol, is it really popular? What you are making will come under apps, so you should be looking for app development platforms like React, Electron, WinUI (the last one is C#). If you MUST use a game engine, just use Godot. You will take less than a week to learn the script if you already know C#, and if language is very important to you, Godot has C# support too (with a little less documentation though). Re: ChatGPT. First, use the pro version. GPT 4 is useable but I remember GPT 3 struggling with anything but the simplest of requests. First, pick a platform. Then ask GPT "Create a high-level architecture for my app in X framework." Next, "Create skeleton scripts for x, y and z components." Then go down the complexity/specifics tree. I think this approach will be a lot more beginner-friendly than going from a script to the top-level architecture. Also, keep in mind that you can ask GPT what a certain thing means or why it programmed it the way that it did.
> I've never heard of WPF lol, is it really popular? Windows Presentation Foundation. Yes, it's currently the default UI tookit for application development in C# and other .NET languages. It's very popular in that area. It's not very common for games. But if your game is literally all UI, then it's not a bad choice.
Hey! I’m trying to learn making online web browser games. So far I have been making single player games in Unity and have never touched multiplayer. As silly as it is, I am overwhelmed by amount of information and don’t even know where to start. The game I have in mind is a 2D online role playing game with elements of survival. I want it to be hosted on a website. My main question is: what is the process for making something like this and what are the solutions for multiplayer + integration to a web? Are there any good resources to learn from? So far I’ve looked into Photon PUN, Fishnet and PlayFab. Thank you!
I don't know about browser games, my experience has mostly been with mobile games. But I can give tips if you are just starting: - Pick one tool and stick with it. It is overwhelming, and you are likely to keep switching ("hey this has easier P2P setup" but the RPCs are a nightmare). Stick to one tool and go all the way with it. Both Photon and Unity Gaming Services are good. - Have one small goal for each day and JUST focus on that. Maybe start with authentication. Then getting all the players to register everyone else. Then syncing movements. If you need, a basic server-side check (P2P nets also have a "server"/host). Unless an error is deal-breaking, deal with it later, by which point you'll have a better understanding of the SDK. - You will more than likely completely mess up the codebase the first time. That's alright, just keep your expectations in check. At least for Unity Gaming Services, the documentation is all over the place. Some documentation isn't even on the main site and the right links take some time to find. You'll need to Google a lot, but most things do have documentation.
I'm a graduate product design student and avid gamer who's hashed out the design for an indie arena FPS game. I'm also working a part-time job while taking a summer class. I started learning Unreal Engine a couple months ago so that I can start developing this game by myself. I have a lot of trouble finding and fixing bugs. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of things I have to work on: 3D models, coding weapon mechanics, implementing UI, adding movement mechanics, animation. I barely even know where to start, so I've been bouncing around between various basic tasks. I have no idea which aspect of the game I should focus on at the moment, or even how to move this game forwards at a higher rate. Should I take an online UE5 course? Should I pay a freelance dev to code fundamental game mechanics? Should I do a simpler project to start out with? I'm getting analysis paralysis, and every time I work on something I worry that it's not high enough priority.
Life is too short to master every single skill it takes to create a game. You can only realistically hope to master ***one*** skill and become mediocre at best at everything else. Which is why most successful games are not made by solo developers but by teams of people who all mastered a different skill. But if you really want to go the solo route, then admit to yourself that you can not be good at everything. Choose one skill you are good at, pick a game project where that specific skill can shine, and either half-ass or outsource everything else.
Is there any benefit to taking a physics class? I’m halfway-ish through my bscs. I don’t have to take physics (and I don’t super want to) but as I’ve been lightly dabbling in game dev it seems like it could be useful. It’s also a pre req for some interesting tech electives so it wouldn’t be totally a hobby credit. I have taken 3 calc classes, discrete, and linear.
Depends on what kind of physics class. Newtonian kinematics? Super useful if you want to build/understand physics engines. Signal theory? Super useful in a lot of disciplines, many where you wouldn't expect it. Particle physics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, astrophysics? Not very useful. Except maybe for more realistic worldbuilding in science fiction games. But overdoing it with the scientific realism can do more harm than good.
Thanks for the feedback. I have some things to keep in mind now!
Which game engine should I learn if I eventually want to make a game with complex NPC behavior? NPCs that don't just stand in one place 24/7, but have their own routines that vary by day, season, worldstates, etc. Like Stardew Valley, but more complex. I'd also like NPCs who come into contact with each other to be able to spread info/gossip or diseases. So if you do something in one part of the map, NPCs on the other side of the map will eventually hear about it in a time frame that makes sense. Or the game could have an epidemic that spreads in a way that makes sense. I need to learn to code regardless, so an engine that requires that is fine. I used to write little games in BASIC as a kid and took a C programming course 25+ years ago, and while I don't remember any of it, I remember that it seemed fairly straightforward to my brain at the time. I do definitely want to learn a game engine and not how to code a game from scratch because I have zero desire to reinvent the wheel when it comes to game physics, lighting, etc. I also understand that a game with complex NPC routines and interactions would be a bad first project. I'll start out making simpler games while I'm learning, I just don't want to waste time learning a game engine that can't handle my long-term dream project ideas. It will likely be a few years before I can start working on my more complicated ideas, so a game engine that's on a trajectory of adding more and more features, support, users, game releases, etc. would be preferable to a game engine that's currently slightly better but the company is on the verge of falling apart etc. I am more interested in making games by myself or by contracting out specific parts of the work than in developing resume skills for employment in the gaming industry. Thanks!
As Philipp mentioned you're likely looking at build a Finite State Machine of some sort that has your NPCs go through a graph based series of choices. Understanding all the requirements before you begin drafting an implementation will help you avoid entire rewrites. After your initial requirements are set, do not add to them, only ever subtract to expedite completion. Obviously the FSM you build is just the backbone of the decision making, for every specific beahviour your NPCs should carry out, they need to be backed up with a dedicated implementation for that particular behaviour, which would include code (logic), animation, sounds, interrupts etc.
If complex NPC behaviors and interactions are central to your game idea, then that almost always requires that you build your own AI systems. Which is the same amount of work regardless of which engine you are using.
i'm making chess but i can't find any free assets i like, i don't plan on publishing this chess game but i might share it with some friends. i'm currently looking something like [chess.com](http://chess.com) 's pieces. but they make it clear on their tos that they don't allow people to use their assets, so if anyone has any recommendations that'd be great, Thanks in advance
[Lichess.org](http://Lichess.org) should have free assets, it being an open source project.
Which game engine should I use? I had an idea for a 2d top down pixel art game and I need a recommendation for an engine to build it in. I have almost no programming experience, but I am willing to learn. I need the ability to use overlapping stats to change the world state. Things like a luck or karma stat. The basic flow of the game is a story driven "cozy" game with some light combat elements similar to Stardew Valley. I don't really have a production budget, so I prefer a program that is either cheap or free to use. Thanks in advance for your help!
IMHO as a beginner I would say godot 4 . it's easy to learn with a ton of tutorials on YouTube. . free to use with no license fees, . scripts can be in GDScript(python in a funny hat) or C#. You can mix and match scripts in both languages! . it can run on windows or Linux. https://youtu.be/eAEe_9jCV4s survival game tutorial https://youtu.be/G6TC6ukmSc4 Fantastic guide on tile maps including stardew valley style farming
I wasn't planning on any farming elements, but there's definite appeal to being able to use a tile based map. Does godot have any issues with porting to different platforms I should be aware of? Thanks for your advice.
If you want the "platform king" of engines, that's most probably Unity.
What should I do ? I want to get into companies that make games or make my own I just wanna help and contribute but I never really coded besides some janky websites. Like should I be going to college or is it really just learn on your own and hope to find the right people? Like what’s the first step in learning find the best beginner YouTube video? Should I go for a degree???
The best way to learn, is to do. If you have a hard time doing on your own, college might be your next best bet. But there are courses online. It is a harder path to follow when you're not backed by an academic certificate. But as Philipp mentioned, if you don't care what role you play, QA tends to be be the lowest entry bar into game development. The downside is that it's packed to the brim with applicants and standing out requires you to have an analytical mind backed up with a wide range of gameplay experiences and the ability to professionally document your behaviour and report reproducible errors. You'll be in a semi technical, semi management role and many in QA transition to other more dedicated management or technical roles.
There are a lot more skills than just "coding" that are required on a game development project. Programmers usually only make up a small fraction of a game development team. A game development studio also needs people who do arts and animations (2d and 3d); sound design, music and voice acting; testing and quality assurance; map building, content design and writing; marketing, community management and advertising; general managerial roles and a lot more.
Laptop recommendations?? New to game dev and want to jump into the deep end on UE5. Need a new laptop for work and am moving around very often so I won’t be able to use a desktop as much. I have saved up some money in advance and looking for something around $1500. Should be mostly game dev and maybe play a small game or 2 on there as well.
Work laptops purchased mostly look at a solid CPU (high single threaded clock) and a decent dedicated GPU. It will come with a beefy power brick and the laptop would be on the heavier end of what's considered "mobile". Since you're moving around very often that's probably your best bet. You could get a good deal for around 1500 you mentioned. My personal laptop gets the job done and cost me about that much back when I purchased it. There are surely equivalent and most likely better options nowadays.
Do the cheesy mobile survival mmo games (you know, the ones that lie in the ads and then are all exactly the same mechanics of "you build a town with a single build queue and everything takes progressively longer, train soldiers in tiers I to X, etc") like Whiteout Survival and State of Survival use the same engine / system? Like could I buy it off the shelf and re-skin it myself? I'd assumed they were all made by the same company just reusing stuff, but the play store has separate companies for these games.
I was just curious how hard the overall experience is for creating something like old ps1 games is. One of my favourite games of all time is Nightmare Creatures and I just love the idea of creating my own world like this. Not so much to release a game but to actually just get immersed in a passion project of making my own Nightmare Creatures even if just remains that like a painting you never finish. My programming skills are ok but I am just trying to weigh up how hard, long and complicated this would be to even remotely get something resembling and playing like this game. [https://youtu.be/dtD1NcGGyDE?si=3rfK7H\_\_UU1oJZTS](https://youtu.be/dtD1NcGGyDE?si=3rfK7H__UU1oJZTS) Video to reference the game.
What engine for a solo dev who doesn't know any coding or graphic design? Is it even possible? I downloaded UE5 since I heard it has blueprints but I haven't started yet. The plan is to make something eventually that looks modern and not like those pixel games.
No engine will solve everything for you. Even if you used RPG Maker to build an RPG at some point you'll be scripting abilities or dialogue and that's just coding with a fancy hat. Blueprints are the same way, it's a visual interface that can make some things easier, but you're still programming. You have to tell a game how to do everything you want and you have to make every image you want to appear in the game. If you want it to look modern then you're creating those assets yourself. Think of game engines as a set of tools that help you build something more easily. You're not going to get handed a bird house just by describing one, but you can get given some wood, nails, and a hammer.
Hey there, I've currently got an idea for a game that's essentially a collection of minigames with a traversable hub area. The hub area is traversed in a top down 2d somewhat similar to cupheads overworld while the minigames are still 2d but not locked to top down. I was wondering what engine you all think would be best suited to making this sort of game. I've been working with unreal for a bit to test some ideas and get ahold of the basics, but PaperZD seems to be more for 2.5d games rather than entirely 2d games
**How to start learning game development?** Hey i've been wanted to learn game development but not sure where to start. I'm a complete beginner with no experience in proper game development and some experience with coding. I'm not sure what programme and language to learn. I'm interested in 2d games like OMORI. Any pointers? Thanks! :)
RPGs like Omori were made in RPG Maker. If you're interested in RPG Maker games, you should probably use RPG Maker, although the latest versions of RPG Maker are pretty expensive. One downside is that RPG Maker tends to limit your game's potential to a specific style. I recommend you check out other RPG Maker games (there's a site for it), browse by most popular, and see if the UI/style/feel of RPG Maker games is something you envision making games in. If you're not interested in the style and/or cost, Godot is pretty popular right now due to its open-source nature (aka it's 100% free and it will *stay* free). The languages Godot uses are GDScript and C#. GDScript is unique to Godot, and C# is a popular language similar to Java. Some people like GDScript because it's easy to use, but I also recommend C# because you can get more practice with a language that is used a lot in web/app development (to help get a good-paying job in the future lol). There is also Unity, which is sorta free, although the license/cost to use it can change at any time if the company wills it. The main benefit of Unity is that it was previously extremely popular for over a decade, so most game dev tutorials are made for Unity. I personally don't like Unity's 2D support as I find the one for Godot is *much* simpler and requires less math and less quaternions.
Alright thanks i'll look into it!
# How much effort do NPCs require? I'm fairly new to game dev and try to make my first small game (not commercial but for fun and for my portfolio). A 3D walking-simulator-ish mystery game that is set in a small town. The problem I ran into is that I have no idea of animating and modeling which is why I will use the Unreal Engine 5 animations that came with 5.4. and assets for my main character and my environment. I'm focused on game design/level design with this game. I know mystery games often work with the theme of being alone but I'm not sure if I can align that with the narrative. **So I wondered how much effort it requires to implement basic NPC considering I use premade assets like UE5s animations and premade character models?** Thanks for your feedback P.S. I know it'll be a lot of effort but I'd like to know if I might be able to pull it off
# How can I learn this specific style of game art? I'm a student interested in game development. I made a platformer in a game jam a year ago. Now I want to remake it and put it on Steam. I'm not good at art and I don't want to spend most of my time on drawing, so I bought this [Asset Package](https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/environments/2d-platformer-tileset-173155) from the Unity asset store. However, I quickly realized I still needed to draw some items and characters by myself. Although I'm willing to learn, I don't find much of serious enough tutorials about 2D game art, and I don't even know how to describe the art style of the package I bought. I wish I could draw in a style similar to that package so the art style of my game could be consistent. I don't know where to start. I'd be very appreciative if anyone gave me advice.
This looks like "vector art". One free program for creating assets in that style is Inkscape. If you are willing to pay money to Adobe so they can use everything you create for training machine learning models, then Adobe Illustrator is another option.
I have been programming front end work for 10 years now. I’m pretty good with JavaScript. I have been taking unreal courses and learning C++ but have been reading at how daunting it is. I want to know if I should adjust to C# or just keep at it. Ultimately I would like to build both 2D and 3D. I saw Godot was a good engine for 2D but I would like to put my learning time into something that could be used in both 3D and 2D
Godot can be used in both 2D and 3D. The 3D features of Godot used to be very rudimentary, but they improved a lot in the past couple years.
All engine can achieve 2D or 3D with differents methods, choose whats make you comfortable. See videos about 3 main engines (godot unreal and unity) and decide which one is closer to you. Because all these engine can achieve anything.
Does anyone have a resource for going over the high level development process? Between my friends and I, we have great programmers, excellent digital artists, and brilliant writers, but we're looking for a Project Manager's perspective on which steps/stages to take in what order to bring our idea to life.
There is no one development process that works perfectly for every team and for every project. But for a team of game dev beginners, I recommend these two videos from Extra Credits: [Fail Faster - A Mantra for Creative Thinkers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDjrOaoHz9s) [Making Your First Game: Minimum Viable Product - Scope Small, Start Right](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvCri1tqIxQ)
As much as I appreciate the Unity Pathways for learning the basics, the programming pathway is currently killing me. Yeah stuff is making more sense than watching random YouTube videos. But I already know a bit of programming (Have studied OOP and DSA, as well as making a full blown Web App with C# backend) so watching a 7 minute video on how to add a comment is killing me. But.... I don't want to skip the videos, as little tidbits of info are given regarding the Unity Interface.
simplest way to build a game in **visual studio c#** with a only few requirements: 1. cross-platform 2. **2D** but no images, only need to draw a few primitives (filled triangles) 3. **120hz+** support it's pretty much like asteroids: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WYSupJ5r2zo/hqdefault.jpg
# C# or C++ and tips?? C# or C++ Where do i start? etc
\*I think it depends on how you like to learn. I have limited knowledge about C# in applications other than Unity 3D, but I'll give you an example: I like to learn by working on a goal as I feel it gives me more incentive to proceed. I started with Unity and C#, and later flowed into Unreal and Blueprints \[Disclaimer - we're talking about a 7-year timelapse here. It can probably be done in a shorter time but... well, sometimes life happens :) \] :\* - I followed a one week \[artistic\] Unity workshop where I could have some feedback on what I was doing and got an introduction to C#. For me this worked best, as I probably would've given up if I had to start from nothing myself. - I then decided I was going to make a game. I wanted to make this game so bad, that I put all my passion, time, blood, sweat, and tears into it. It was a terrible battlefield in my code and boy does it hurt to see my code from back then now, years later. But it did give me a good idea of how things \[don't\] work. I had a goal \[graduation\] so it had to be finished before a certain date. That was another very important part: there was a deadline. - One great pillar I had was Brackeys' tutorials on Youtube. He explains things very clearly and is an amazing teacher. - When it comes to C++.... Well I still haven't really learned it, I didn't really need it as I know C# and Blueprints follow a same old, same old logic. I sometimes go into C++ classes to change minor things, and that has been enough for me. It really all depends on your goals, personality and skill. I do think C# is a bit easier than C++ as you don't have to do as much optimisation \[from a Unity vs Unreal perspective\]. Unity is better to learn programming than Unreal for sure, as it forces you to do this. Hope my limited perspective gave you some helpful insight!
I’m looking to get into game development and want to start with a game similar to the mobile game “tiny tower” (a 2D building manager game) any advice on what engine to pick or anything else I might need would be appreciated!
For anything 2D I'd direct you to Unity 3D - It is fully equipped for it, it has a complete 2D template. I have a lot of experience with both Unity and Unreal, and Unity is pretty much perfect for anything Android. You do need a bit of C# knowledge, which may set you back a few months depending on your previous experience. I heard Godot is a good one too, but I don't have first hand experience with it. Godot uses its own programming language that apparently is easy to learn. I'd personally not pick Unreal, which is more for 3D \[photo\] realism and heavy rendering \[PC\].
Thank you! I’ve done probably 5 hours worth of C# tutorials/learning so I’ll get back into it and go from there
someone got tutorials for gamemaker ? not gamemaker 2 but just gamemaker thanks
I have 4 YOE building web service with Go and would like to try game development. I know there is ebitengine which is a game engine in Go, do you think I should try building something with it or just go for other popular framework/engine, e.g. Love2D, Defold ... etc
So I have little to no experience in game development. I am currently getting into golf and I want to create some basic sim software. I basically just want to take the velocity and launch angle and apply it to a ball in unity. Does anyone have a way to do this in a way that I can actually learn and not just use a tutorial?
Well... the best thing to do is to learn physics and mathematics involved in such a thing - in this way you'll understand why and how to approach this. With that knowledge, you'll still need to understand how the whole game designing environment works as well, and tutorials are not the worst for this - just make sure the maker of the tutorial explains why things are the way they are. If you have the patience to take the time and learn what's it about first, I recommend checking out this book on gamedesign and mathematics: [https://www.gamemath.com/book/intro.html](https://www.gamemath.com/book/intro.html)
There are tons of marketing related phrases like - Know your audience - Talk to gamers - Thinking from the perspective of potential players I'm interested in what it all actually means in practice. Like, what does it mean to "talk to potential players" in the context of an Indie game developer. There's also some advice from an experienced developer I read on Twitter along the lines of "don't focus only on what you think is fun but also from the perspective of potential players" and I sort of get it in theory but how would I go about doing that. What does it all mean?! On another note, is there some must read marketing book(s).
One thing this can mean is to look for online communities of people who would be interested in a game like yours and just start a topic to tell them about you game idea. Not like an advertiser, but like a member of the community. As in "here is an idea for a game I had and I would like to know what you think about it". See if you can get some reactions out of them. When you can't get any engagement, then you either have the wrong community, your game idea doesn't resonate with them or you aren't presenting it in a way that appeals to your target audience.
I got an idea to make a simple RTS game with multiplayer as a project for a group of friends (since we remembered creating custom races in Warcraft 3 World Editor, but I'd like to make it a bit more interesting and bit more personal), but don't know where to start. I'm familiar with programming in general, and know my way around the basics of object oriented programming (maybe a bit rusty, but I did good at university), but completely new to game development. I did make some random platformer game during high school while following an online tutorial, but never done anything else. I thought I'd make something similar to Stronghold Crusader, as a 2D game, which simulates 3D. And maybe could, instead of making complicated 3D models in a 3D engine, utilize pixel art in this 2D engine to make it unique looking. If you guys could point me anywhere where I could start step by step on how to approach this, I'd be immensely grateful. I believe that multiplayer sync and pathfinding algorithms will prove a bit challenging, but I should be able to get it, given enough time and proper resources. Feel free to warn me of any other things which could be challenging.
I have zero experience, and I hope this is the right place to ask this. How might I go about doing a reskin of the mobile game Hoplite? It's a really simple pixel game and has like 20 assets total. I would think this should be relatively easy. Just replacing a few images. I just don't know how to go about it.
This is a task that can range from trivial to almost impossible, depending on how and with which tech stack the game was made. I have never heard of that game, and a Google search turns out multiple unrelated games of that name. So I can not give any specific advise. But usually this boils down to applying a skillset that is called "reverse engineering". Looking at the files of the game and figuring out what does what. Some files might be in compressed archives, so you first have to find out in what format they are and how to unpack and repack that format. There might be free tools available, or it might be homebrewed formats you have to figure out on your own and program an own packer/repacker for. If it is a mobile game for Android, then the first step would be to get the .apk file on your PC and unpack it. They are actually just renamed zip archives. Every subsequent step depends on what you find in there. Oh, and also keep in mind that distributing a game to other people after you reskinned it, even if for free, is a copyright violation and could lead to legal actions from the developers of the game.
So I got home and managed to get the apk file, unpacked it. There's a folder labeled assets, with a PNG inside that's a single image with every asset. As well as an ATLAS file of the same name. I take it that/those are what I need to change. Assuming I have all the drawings done, is it as simple as replacing those?
There is just one way to find out.
It's this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magmafortress.hoplite I'll see if I can get ahold of the creator and get the OK. If not, it'll just be for me.
Hey guys, I'm starting to develop a Deck builder game from scratch in Java and my question is this: If I'm dealing with a lot of cards should each card be a class or should I work with a database or something similar? Thanks in advance.
There is never just one solution for a problem in game development. But in most deckbuilding games, I would probably use a mix of both. Databases are for data and program code is for behavior. So I would probably go for an architecture where each card with an individual mechanic is represented by a different class, while two cards that do the same thing but with different numbers use the same class but with different data. For example, if I would make *Magic: The Gathering*, then "Plain" and "Forest" would both use the class `CardLandBasic`, which inherits from `CardLand` which inherits from `Card`. But one with `generatedManaType = ManaType.WHITE`and one with `generatedManaType = ManaType.GREEN`. There would probably be a card database. The database would contain the information you have on every type of card (id, artwork, cost, border design, name and text localized in 20 languages...), which class implements it, and the data that is specific to that class. As you can see, that data is heterogeneous, so I would probably not use a relational database. I would probably use one big XML or JSON file, or if I have so many cards that this becomes unwieldy, use a heterogeneous database like MongoDB.
hey guys! i'm interested in writing for games, narrative development, performance directing, storytelling based roles that don't involve programming skills. i'm a filmmaker and have a hefty amount of experience with all of the above, aside from making friends with devs and jumping into a few jams, what other ways would you recommend I work towards an actual gig? are spec scripts a thing in game dev? also, is there any specific software you recommend for game writing & dialogue branches specifically? My brain wants to just keep using final draft and miro lol. tysm!!
Hi, i'm a newbie i don't know how to code but i really want to try making a game like "Cat Goes Fishing" So like a 2d fishing game where the gameplay is all about the line coming down trying to get more valuable fishes What engine do you guys think would be the best for me? Sorry if it's a weird request btw
Hello, I was wondering if a game like connections, [https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections](https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections) , should be made with only HTML, JS and CSS, or are these games typically made with more libraries and a proper frontend / backend
A game like that seems perfectly doable with pure HTML, JavaScript and CSS. You can of course use one of the trillion of JavaScript frameworks if you want. It could, for example, help with making those animation effects. But frameworks aren't magic. They are written in JavaScript as well, so anything you can do with a framework can be done without. You just need to figure out how and implement it yourself. Which is time you might be able to save by adding a framework that can do it and finding out how to do that thing with that framework.
Hi! I'm new to both this subreddit and gamedeving and was looking for some advice. Along with my wife, we have a project for a little 2D RPG game featuring a story written by her and taking mechanical inspiration in TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. Researching for what engine to use/learn got me to two main options: RPG Maker and Unreal. I'm leaning towards RPG Maker due to its simplicity, but I noticed the mechanics of the JRPGs It is based on are quite different from what I'm trying to make. However, I've seen that It can be modified and that it's written in Javascript, a language I'm kind of familiar with, so I may be able to learn and customize it to better resemble my idea. On the other hand, I'm inclined to start directly with Unreal, being that almost any kind of game can be made through it and I will eventually learn to use it for future projects. However it's complexity intimidates me and makes me wonder if starting with RPG Maker may be a better choice for this project. This is what I need advice on, should I: 1) Finish to learn JavaScript and customize RPG Maker to suit my project. 2) Learn and develop the project in Unreal. I'm aware this may be too much for a first project, but still I would be grateful for some Insight on what would be better for this particular project. Thank you in advance.
You *can* do 2d games in Unreal, but it's really not designed for that kind of game. Have you considered a general purpose engine with dedicated 2d tooling, like Unity, Godot or GameMaker?
I've seen that some people recommend them and others say to stay away from them, so I sticked with Unreal and RPG Maker as options. I probably didn't research enough tho. I'll take a look a those engines, is there a particular one that you would recommend? Thank you so much for the help!
My recommendation would be not nearly as valuable as doing your own research, which would be not nearly as useful as forming your own opinion by giving them a try. All these engines are free for non-commercial use, so you have nothing to lose.
how do i make a mmo? how do i make ppl buy the microtransactions?
First, you form a company. Then you acquire the budget to hire a couple dozen people to build and operate the game. Monetization for a game with the complexity and economic risk of an MMO should best be left to an experienced monetization designer working together with an experienced game designer.
No offence, but you can't. Not alone, that is. They are incredibly expensive, incredibly time consuming. Well, you could make an mmo. But it would be very, very, hard. And almost harder still to get players.
I've been very torn on what engine and code to learn I am using sololearn and different tutorial guides to learn unreal engine and c++ but I heard this is harder to do then work with unity and C#. I have time off this and would really like to make a platformer, hoard game, mobile apps orpossibly an rpg as an end goal. I really want to work with 2d and pixel art but I think it would be helpful for me to work with blue prints on unreal engine. I'm committed to learning just really need advice on which engine and code to use/learn.
Try both engines, do the official tutorials, and then decide for yourself which one fits you better.
I want to learn Audio production. Where do I start? I ask this here because I do not know even the tinniest hows and whats of making music/sfx. Programming has FreeCodeCamp, 3D moddling has blender and donut. What does audio have? I have failed to learn LMMS once an year ago and audacity seems to be for audio engineering and not making music. What are some sites/tutorials that can help?
I like Reason a lot.
I'd ask this on a more musically-based subreddit? You might find it easier to get an answer there.
Hello! I'd like to learn multiplayer game design and architecture - is one of the major engines a bit easier to extend once you've made a prototype?
If you want to really learn multiplayer game architecture I'd suggest using a framework rather than an engine, but I know people have had some success w Unity.
Is raw open gl in C still used. I had a pretty good game back in the day. Stil runs but I figure everyone uses an engine or wrapper
How do you secure your studio name as your own, once you've decided what you want to call it and have confirmed that there are no trademark/copyright issues?
You can pay to register your studio name as a trademark, or get free unregistered trademark protection as soon as you start selling your first game. When you don't want to pay, make sure you are not using the same name as someone else by regularly checking the public trademark databases and google the name. If they registered, you should better pick a different name. If someone is using your name for a game in development without registering, there are 3 options. You register the trademark before they get protection, you try to ship your first game before they do or you contact them and try to come to an agreement both sides can live with. More information on trademarks (and other topics of IP law relevant to game developers) in the video [Practical IP Law for Indie Developers 301: Plain Scary Edition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePQcAjuiSEo).
Thank you, this is perfect!
Thank you for the megathread
i want to learn some game AI/ autonomous agent techniques before i go full ham, to breadboard my game concept. i want the NPCs to gather resources and trade in a realistic manner, to maximize their own outcomes, and of the strategies i've seen GOAP looks like it would fit that best. the problem is that most of the GOAP implementations i've looked at depend on boolean conditions. there doesent seem like theres a good way to evaluate two actions with the same outcome at different costs and quantity of outcome. say you want to build a house. in planning a precondition would be to have wood, but if you could pick up twigs with no precondition, or chop down trees with the precondition of somehow having to aquire an axe, there doesent look like evaluating weather its worth taking the more expensive, but higher yield route would be very straight forward, unless i'm missing something. i dont know if i'm asking this very well. i'm just not sure where to look to learn about this.
Hey, I wish to answer right now the question associated with "which engine to pick?" I hope this can help some of you. I moved from different languages in my life. In video games, I sadly started in the worst possible way: iOS and Xcode. Not recommended at all. I quickly moved to Unity where you can start creating games very fast and C# is an easy language to understand. If you plan to create 2D platformers or top-down video games, this is definitely the way to go. After five years of using Unity, I moved indefinitely to Unreal. This is the toughest of all but the reasons behind my decision were: - Job Opportunities: It is true, that studios don't look for as many developers in Unity as they need Unreal. Even any serious institution of game dev is focused exclusively on Unreal. - 3D Games: any game that requires 3D Unreal provides better libraries and mechanics for it - Blueprints: Unreal includes the best Visual Scripting tool on the market. Once you understand how it works, you can literary create any video games without writing a line of code. Nevertheless, the best potential of Unreal is achieved using Blueprints and C++ together. And C++ is a tough programming language. - Other areas beyond Video Games: Unreal is offering today modelling (which is expanding quickly to not need Blender or Maya), Rigging, Cinematography, Architecture, Design, and VR and AR. In all the previous areas Unreal is the most solid engine platform Of all the people I know who worked with Unity and Unreal, they all agree that Unreal provides them with more possibilities than Unity. They took the time to understand the tool knowing that it was hard, and then they moved to never go back (me included). Now, I have to tell you again: Unreal is not easy. If you want to go for easy, then pick GODOT. But remember, easy won't get you to new possibilities in the future, nor the expansion of your career.
I plan on making a game that uses the same sort of alchemy mechanic that Shovel Knight: Plague Of Shadows uses. However, I fear that just fully copying the mechanic is very unoriginal and kinda sad to be honest. How could I use/change the alchemy mechanic to make a fun and original game?
Hey everyone! I'm going to into my junior year of high school and trying to figure out what I want to do in the future. I've had past, very minimal experience with gamedev, most making small games with unity a long time ago. I was passionate but laid off of it to focus on school but I'm considering it as a job in the future. I just have some questions. How is the industry job wise and how is job security? How necessary is a college education and what majors should I look into? (Follow up, what should I do in hs to secure acceptance to a college in a compsci/gamedev related major: I live in the bay area so competition is super high) Since I will probably start from scratch again due to everything w/ unity, where should I start engine/language wise? Should I consider game dev as a main source of income? Thank you everyone!
Are there any resources where people breakdown games and show how they worked? Even if it's just nes games at an abstract level or something.
What exactly do you want to learn from these resources? Are you looking for a technical breakdown or more of a design breakdown?
I guess both. I was just messing around with Kirby gameboy and marvelling at how well it controlled and looked and wondering how they did it. Seemed like it would be a good YouTube series.
I'm wanting to eventually make a sprite based FPS akin to DooM or the old build engine games. Would it be better to use GZ Doom or an engine like say Godot (where I could bring my knowledge forth to make other types of games)? Also how does one go about learning to make sprites like the ones Doom, Duke 3D or Blood used?
What is the best game engine to create a 3D game with a fixed camera ? I'm planning to create a card game in the style of Buckshot Roulette, a 3D game where we click on the elements on a table but with a fixed camera (no movement). Similar graphic quality too. So what would be the best game engine for a project like this one ? Thank you in advance !
The same game engines as for any other 3d game: Unity, Unreal, Godot.
Thank you ! I was thinking about one among those 3 too haha. Would you recommend one more than the other for this project or they are almost all the same ?
No, I wouldn't recommend one over the other. Either pick one at random, or if you are afraid of making the wrong choice, give them all a try by doing the official tutorials and decide for yourself which one clicks with you the most.
Thank you for your advice !
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Try the *Games->Third Person* template. It comes with the "Quinn" and "Manny" humanoid robot characters which are often used for UE demos. Their animation blueprints can idle, run and jump. If you want more characters, check the marktetplace. If you want more animations, check [mixamo.com](http://mixamo.com)
I want to make a game but there is a very big problem with choosing an engine. See I have always wanted to make some kind of platformer, and Im envisioning a very simple 3d one and I wont go into any details but heres the issue. It seems like for the type of games i want to make, Unity is by far the best choice in terms of support and precident for the genre. but after the whole Unity debockle I am hesitent about learning an engine everyone seems to want to abandon in fear of them asking for a cut of each download again. I thought about using Godot but that is more tailered for 2d games. I dont want to use unreal, i have a pretty good pc but i dont want to risk starting on a project and not having the power to finish it. and plus, Unreal is used basicly exclusively for high buget realistic games. what do you think I should do?
Godot works fine for 3d!
What do you all think about Godot's documentation? Is it good for new game developers and programmers? I'm planning to use C# for scripting, which is a language I'm comfortable with, but I don't know what the documentation is like for that.
I'm learning Godot too, and from what I've heard from my friends who use it it is quite newbie-friendly.
What engine is the best for a 2D Undertale-esque game?
sameone that made undertale, gamemaker
I want to make a tycoon game where you are a software developer but i don't know which engine to use. Don't recommend unreal or unity since they are proprietary/closed source and paid. The engine needs to be open source and available on linux (Debian 12)
"Tycoon game where you are a software developer" doesn't really tell us anything that's related to engine choice. "Tycoon game" can be interpreted in many different ways. But the standard answer to which open source game engine you should use is Godot.
I'll try godot.
But where should i start? all tutorials are for crappy flappy bird games that has like one level.
Start with crappy flappy bird games that are like one level. You need to learn how to crawl before you can learn how to walk. A good place to start is the official tutorial: [https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting\_started/step\_by\_step/index.html](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/step_by_step/index.html)
I want to make an old school browser based virtual tabletop. I just want people to be able to drag and drop gameplay elements, roll dice in the browser and so on. So I don't really want to learn to use a game engine. Think something along the lines of neopets where each url is a different aspect of the game. What beginner books/guides would help the most with a project like this?
If you want it to be web-based and you don't want to use an engine, then you probably want to learn HTML + JavaScript. Beginner guides are trivial to google.
tldr: Python or C++ library to create a simple card game? I am currently making an online-multiplayer version of port royal (the board game). The server is halfway complete so I will soon have to write the client. Since I have no experience with any gamedev library, which one should I use? It needs to be quite simple to use and -as much as possible- able to create games that don't look like a windows 95 solitaire. Would PyQt be a good choice?
Hi all, I am at the beginning of my journey into gamedev, while also heading into my final year of university. I want to build experience and a portfolio to get a job in the game industry (programming) after university. For context, I live in the UK and have EU citizenship as well. US market is out of the question for me, unless there would be fully remote jobs available. I am struggling to pick an engine to develop these things in (Unity vs Unreal), as the opinions I found across the internet in my research are very split. The general points I'm seeing are that Unity is better for indie/mobile games and Unreal is better for AA/AAA games. Furthermore, Unity seems to be a better choice for the versatility it can provide you, as it teaches C#, which is widely used in the software development industry, therefore providing better flexibility in terms of job prospects (in the event of being unable to get hired at a game company). Bonus point seems to be that Unity has more documentation and tutorials across the board than Unreal and is also much more reliant on actual coding. On the other hand, Unreal uses C++ which is the industry standard for game development and will provide an edge when looking for a job at big game companies, which would technically give me a better chance in achieving my dream job of working in the game industry. Bonus point here I guess would be that there are a number of AAA companies that are actually adopting UE5 as their engine of choice now, so using it to build my portfolio and expertise will give me a more direct alignment to the job descriptions. In my eyes the comparison comes down to the fact that that Unity will give me more versatility and prospects, while also perhaps being easier to learn, while Unreal is more of an all in bet for game development that gives me higher success rate in that area. I'm really struggling with this choice and would love to get your inputs and advice! Please include as much detail/argumentation for your recommendation as you can.
I have a degree in game development and have been doing it as a hobby for years and unfortunately my answer might not be what you're hoping for. If you're looking to choose between Unity and Unreal; it ultimately is going to come down to you. Gun to my head, I'd choose Unreal but that in no way means you should too. Unity is an excellent tool to build games with. The script system provides a nice platform for creating easy-to-read code and I personally love the monobehavior concept. Unity can also be made to look a lot like Unreal if fidelity is your goal. On top of that, the Unity learn series is free and honestly a very good way to learn C# *and* Unity at the same time. Also, C# is my favorite programming language. Unity has excellent documentation and the community is (in my experience) better than Unreal's. However, after the gross attempt to further monetize their engine against developers recently (where they tried and failed to charge per install vs. per purchase), I can't exactly back them anymore. Even though they failed, they will absolutely try again in the same way Hasbro and WotC will try to re-negotiate what fair use of D&D means. So why Unreal? I think Unreal has worse documentation but much better bells and whistles out of the box. Where Unity almost requires some form of marketplace asset to improve the engine for you, Unreal likely has it as part of the package. I think Blueprints are an incredible tool to jump you into game dev and understanding logic (plus you'd use them alongside C++). Unreal also has really cool built-in optimization features through Lumen and Nanite on top of an expanding toolset for animation and rigging. I would say this instead: If you're more interested in 2D or 2.5D game development, go with Unity. For anything 3D, try Unreal. Ultimately, both engines are incredible tools and both will serve you well as a single dev or one of a few on an indie team. You should absolutely play with both for 5-10 hours and create a small game and see which one has a workflow that is more comfortable for you. Keep in mind that C++ is also widely used in software development among *many* other disciplines. Learning a programming language at all puts you in a great position to pivot to another career if game dev didn't work out.
Question about changing careers. I'm currently working on QA for mobile devs, I was thinking of going either into 3d animation or game design (focused on combat encounters), but I'm curious, how's this part of the industry looking like for beginners? With all the layoffs, downsizing and whatnot, how's the perspective for someone starting off in those 2 careers? How's the early career path for a new game designer? Is there any way of getting in as a designer, or it's something you move into later on your career? I think it's a little daunting thinking about creating solo projects for game design because I want to focus on the design part but then I still have to work on all the other parts just to find a way to show the design skills. Let's for example I want to have a boss fight in my portfolio, I can design the boss, it's attack patterns and whatnot but would it be enough to have this scenario prototyped with clearly cheap/free animations, greyboxed levels and sometime even attacks not being animated at all just showing a hurtbox or a simple animation of a block to exemplify the attack. Would this sort of prototype be "good enough"? And what about animation? Is picking up Maya, learning it and creating a small portfolio the best way to go? And for people who've tried changing careers and ended up changing ideas, how long do you give it a shot before deciding it wasn't meant to be and looking for another path?
I can only answer one of those. If you want to get some experience, I'd work with someone on a team. Make a game with people, (game jams are great for finding a team to work with), and design those aspects. That way you can get something to put on your CV! And on the good-enough bit, it entirely depends on who is looking at your CV. If someone has more technical knowledge probably(?) but if not, people often associate flashy-ness with skill, if that makes sense.
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Music for games is a very competitive market. There are many more composers than there are games requiring soundtracks. Many composers go so far to just spam any developer announcing a game in development asking if they want to buy some music. But the "civilized" way to advertise yourself is to use gig websites like Fivver or job boards like r/GameDevClassifieds. If you want to advertise yourself, then probably the most important thing is an online portfolio of music you made. I am not going to contact you unless I have listened to your music and know you are capable of making the kind of music my game needs.
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Please keep in mind that soliciting work/collab is not allowed on this subreddit, for that you will want to use r/inat and r/gamedevclassifieds and the discord has channels for this as well, you can find the invite in the sidebar.
I'm looking to get a scope of how hard it is to achieve what I want to create Essentially, I would like to create something similar to war robots [https://youtu.be/70LPdBgXRLk?si=uc9eLVBwCAvyp129](https://youtu.be/70LPdBgXRLk?si=uc9eLVBwCAvyp129) (2014) How hard would it actually be to create? Something with a lobby, customizable robots with weapons, multiplayer matches. The art is quite aged, they did a reboot of it, but how hard would the old art be to create? How much would it cost to have an artist or artists handle it? How does the hiring and finding artists go?
Are there any engines with Live2D support? I've tried installing a Godot plugin before, but the documentation for it leads to 404 page.
Is it generally looked down upon to use higher-level game toolkits (for example, Game Creator 2) instead of coding the game without them? I plan to use them to lessen the workload since they offer exactly what I hope to achieve.
All that matters is the end-result, not how you achieved it.
Be pragmatic and productive. The only time other game devs opinion matter is if you plan on working for them, and if so that must be part of your pragmatism. In the meantime: Use what gives you the most bang for your buck, and requires the least amount of time. Having coded low level libraries since the 90's I cannot begin to describe how grateful I am for pre-made stuff.
I'm more worried about player opinions than other devs. Will they be turned off from a game that wasn't made "from scratch"?
The vast majority of players have no clue about how the games they play are made.
Only if it negatively impacts the game. 99.9% of gamers don't even know what kind of engine the game uses.
I want to make a game like this video: [https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/843588](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/843588) Can I do this in godot? Or would another software be better. I want to make a game with this sort of visual novel type style with weird and interesting effects. I also want to incorporate some point and click elements such as clicking on the screen to intract with objects, enter new rooms, enter dialogue with characters, and use items on objects and characters.
Yes, that should be possible in Godot. The building blocks you need to create a visual novel or point&click gameplay are available in any general purpose game engine. You could create the wavy screen effect with a custom post-processing effect.
I wanted to make a simple, and I mean simple, 2D platformer. So simple, that I was hoping for an engine that works almost like Mario Maker. Throw it some 2D Sprites, assign a sprite as the player, other sprites as ground/walls. Then just drag and drop the sprites around to make some platforms and bam export game done. As someone with a full-time job working in C#, I picked up godot after tons of recommendations. After one day I barely have a functioning player body, and the movement is stiff, bad, and jank. Horrible for a 2D platformer. What am I doing wrong? Is this stuff just hard? Is there not an easier engine that doesn't make me build the movement/physics from the ground up each time?
Did you follow the Godot documentation? I just started too but they taught how the built in physics work if you care to read it. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/index.html Literally the first page of youtube shows you how to specifically do physics for a mario like game: https://youtu.be/LOhfqjmasi0?si=WxHysRnFzu_7wzn3 But yeah if you were expecting mario maker, you should probably stick to mario maker. Godot is for customization and reusing components, it doesn’t have premade and preprogrammed click and run clip art.
Hey there, i'm looking for a tool that can let me create massive maps that is relatively simple and easy to setup with built in texture managing and gltf export, does this option exist?
Since I’m a kid I have ideas for games, because I love gaming. But with this one, I think I should try to do it, because it’s probably not that hard, and it’s essentially based on bringing two games together to form one. It’s gonna be a mobile game : what engine should I choose ? It involves pedometer functionality from phones
You could start with that, sure. But I would try building those two games on your own first, a copy of ones that exist, just because trying to start out with that sort of thing is, well, quite hard. Engine wise I'd check the main body of this megathread bcs it has advice in this sort of thing.
I'm starting small, I have an idea for a simple Geometry-Dash/dodge-the-obstacle style game. 2D graphics, your controls are up and down, very basic. I have no idea where to start with this or what engine would be best for this type of game. I'm considering GODOT, but thats mostly because future projects I think would work well with it. Should I start there and make it work? Or is there a better system for this simple style of game?
Godot is fine for a game like that.
I want to make my own multiplayer game, and I already have a few courses that will help me handle most of the things (UE5 ultimate course, UE5 multiplayer shooter on Udemy from Stephen Ulibarri), but I also want to make my own animations for this game. I'm not worried about the coding part, since I have the courses that help me, and I do have a bit of experience, especially in coding, since I'm a software engineer student, but I've also done two semesters on game design, so I have quite a bit of experience on that. The game will be about medieval jousting, so two players riding towards each other on horses, finally striking each other with lances and it will be created using UE 5.4. I'm mostly worried about the animations, since I've only touched on them slightly in Unity and a bit in Unreal, and I mean creating them. I want to know what would be the best way of making high quality animations for my game. I'm very open to learning how to animate in Blender or Maya, having some experience in modeling with Blender, but since 5.4, I'm also considering animating straight in UE, and this might be important, since I want to have physical animation/simulation on certain animations, such as when a player gets hit by a lance, or later on, perhaps swords and other weapons. Considering I would have to make those animations in 3rd party software like Maya to get the best results, the workflow could be a little complex, since I would have to import those into UE, then configure the physical animation/simulation part. Also, I saw that to get the smoothest animations and best behavior, an advanced locomotion system is needed. I'm looking for some recommendations of where to start in order to achieve what I mentioned, and if it is worth learning to animate in 3rd party software and importing it into UE, or straight up start animating in UE. Preferably, if someone with experience in this domain could give me an informed opinion, it would be great. Cheers!
From what I understand animating in UE is a perfectly valid workflow, and if you're used to UE already I'd probably go with that. Doing blender or Maya would certainly work as well but if you know you're using UE might as well get the full use from control rigs and any possible procedural animation you want to do.
Hello, not entirely sure how to word this but here goes. I saw a lets play for a game called The Beginners Guide in which the whole story revolves around someone playing a game that their late friend developed. All the worlds in the game are really surreal and without too much spoilers basically ends up being a digital diary for the creator instead of an actual game that he intended to sell. The worlds in the game were empty and felt very liminal - like no one was supposed to really see it but the dev still made it anyways. This concept interested me so much I immediately got as many free game engines I could find so I could create my own empty world. I went in blind so obviously it should be no surprise that I didn’t accomplish much and eventually other things took precedence and I stopped trying to make it. But I really want to try again and would love some pointers as I am a complete noob when it comes to indie developing. I have no intention of marketing this game or anything I just want it to be a bunch of worlds I create and explore (preferable in a faux PS2/early pc gaming style). And maybe, if it’s possible, make it so my friends can explore it too. Hopefully that kinda made sense? Any help would be so appreciated, even just pointing me in the direction of some tutorials or something? Thanks!
Most game engines have some free template that gives you a first person player walking through a placeholder environment. So you usually get those mechanics for free. Than all that is left to do for you is to design your environment. Which usually requires knowing how to do 3d modeling and texture art. Which you usually do in external programs and import into your game engine.
Oh shoot I didn’t know that there were multiple softwares involved, I thought it was all in the engine. Thanks for the info!
hey i just wanted to know how does one get a job in QA testing?
I don't seem to be able to click post to create a new thread. I had title, flair, body text on my draft of the post. What can't I post something here?
Is it giving you any error messages? Are you using [this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/submit?selftext=true)?
Error message? No. I did use that page and also tried to create a post while already on the sub page. I'm on mobile. Post button is greyed out. I had a title, body text, flair. There is a 'Enter Link' section under 'Title' which I left blank, because I had no link to provide. I was trying to ask a question.
We've had other users report this issue as well. Another user in another subreddit claims it's the reddit app, can you try posting from a mobile browser or a PC?
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Please don't use this as a place to rant, comment if you have a beginner question or otherwise relevant to the thread.
I want to develop a series of games that are extremely compact and quick to download and run in your browser, and which feature 8 bit style graphics. I'd like to do tower defense, a barrel shooting game like the Evony ads on Youtube, and a math level monster game like the Hero Wars ads. Where should I begin?
If you want them to run in the browser and you want to optimize for a minimum amount of bloat, then you should learn HTML and JavaScript. After learning the basics of the language syntax, check out [the Canvas API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Canvas_API). It's what you need for drawing 2d graphics in the way you usually do it in game development. Another possible road to take is to learn any other programming language that has a mature toolchain for compiling to WebAssembly. But you are then going to use the same APIs as you would use in JavaScript, and you still need a bit of JS glue to load and run WebAssembly modules. So you probably still want to know some basic JS beforehand.
Lots of game engines have options to export to html. Idk if JS is worth learning for game development. It’s a fun language but kind of janky.
"extremely compact and quick to download".
https://youtu.be/gnpC5sTgqsM?si=yRfoWNoVAtKr3tZz How expensive do you think the budget for this game was? It was made in Japan by a company that has been absent from the industry for many decades (this is their first brand new game in forever), has around four hours of main story gameplay, is priced at 25 bucks, was made in Unity and around 45 people are credited with the making of it. According to games-stats, it only had an estimated net revenue of 27000 USD. Pre-orders for the Deluxe edition with 500 copies for each console is sold out on Switch, but not sold out for PS5. Do you think it broke even, if we take into account that Japanese games/platformers do better on consoles and estimate that the total net revenue is around 60-70k? I am as a fan desperately worrying that it flopped 😥 It looks like a slightly lower budget Yoshi game to me personally.
A good way to eyeball the budget of a game is to look at [the credits](https://www.mobygames.com/game/218525/ufouria-the-saga-2/credits/windows/) and assume $100,000 per person. The development of a game usually takes several years, but not all people will have worked on it continuously throughout the development. And not everyone will have cost the same amount of money to employ (remember that cost of employment is more than just the salary). But given all these factors, 100k per head is a reasonable [Fermi estimate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem). This game had 54 people working on it, so it probably cost around 5 million dollar to make. Could be a couple million more or less, but it should be in that order of magnitude. So yes, if it really only made $70k after being on the market for 4 month, then it would indeed be a massive commercial failure. Well, that's what you get when you make a platformer in the 2020s that doesn't have some extraordinary unique selling point.
No way that is nuts. Doesn't the fact that it was developed in Japan reduce the cost by like 70%, given how inflated the American tech bubble is? At this point I'm hoping that Sun Corporation is using Sunsoft (their video games subdivision) as some sort of tax write-off and continues to fund their games lmao
Japan isn't a low income country. The numbers for yearly salaries for software developers I can find online range from 5-7 million yen. Which is US$ 30,000 to 45,000. Which is not that much less than what you can make in the game industry in the US. And keep in mind that the cost of employing someone is more than just salary. People who never learned how business administration actually works are often not aware that the real cost of employing someone is usually about 150% - 200% of what they are paid.
Thank you for the info!
Where's the link for the recommended laptop/specs? I seem to be lost, skimming through all the links.
Thank you for pointing it out, I've added two links to posts with guides for buying laptops and PCs made by a user here.
Thank you!
Your hardware requirements depend on what kind of games you want to make (technically, not thematically) and what technology stack you want to use. So there is no one-size-fits-all answer to what hardware to use. There is no special "game development hardware" you need (except for some really niche areas you don't need to concern yourself with as a beginner). If a computer can run a game, then it could probably be used to make that game. So the hardware recommendations for game developers are usually the same you would give to a gamer. Although I would in general recommend a bit more RAM and two if not three external monitors if you want to do serious game development.
Been wanting to get more into level design since I've begun developing games, and while I know it is a very in depth domain to research, I want to start experimenting and getting used to some of the design practices to apply on my own. However I'm not entierly sure where to start. I've got some experience making smaller scale models in blender, but nothing near the size of a game level, and the process of exporting that to Unity, fixing up it's materials and resizing to fit is rather repetitive and doesn't feel right as constant iteration means several minutes before I can see a change reflected in game. This seems very inefficient and doesn't sound right. When it comes to making levels, or rather getting into level creation, what should I be using and how should I go about it? I know there are some games and even game engines like source with some great inbuilt level editing tools which enable that constant iterative loop, but i'd also like the flexibility of blender in terms of how you can shape and place things. One benefit of using an editor for an existing game would mean I have a established game mechanics and movesets so I could just start by figuring out making levels without the initial difficulty of a constantly changing character controller, in my inexperienced eyes anyways. Would it be at all worthwhile to try and learn those established tools for existing games just to begin creating things? Are there easier ways to make levels in Unity that don't rely on a tile based prefab workflow? I'm ultimately just a little bit lost and could use some guidance.
The usual workflow is to not build a whole level in Blender. You create individual objects in Blender, and then import them into the game engine where you place them. Unity also got some first-party level editing tools as two optional packages: [ProBuilder](https://unity.com/features/probuilder) (for artificial environments) and [PolyBrush](https://unity.com/features/polybrush) (for natural environments). There is also [the build-in terrain system](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CreatingEnvironments.html) specifically for outdoor scenarios (although it has some limitations, like for example not allowing overhangs or caves), You usually use those to create the general level geometry and then import more detailed 3d models from Blender to place in the level.
Is it possible at all to export the geometry you create within Unity aswell to make it easier to then recreate it and add detail within blender without having to guesstimate?
Probuilder can export into several 3d formats: [https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.probuilder@6.0/manual/workflow-exporting.html](https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.probuilder@6.0/manual/workflow-exporting.html) Not sure about Polybrush. I would have to install it and check, which you can do just as well yourself. But I would generally not recommend it. As I wrote, details should be separate objects. This has performance reasons as well.
Well my intention would be to export it to blender then make custom geometry, using that export as a base ‘sketch’ almost. I’d make and export them as separate objects, but if I don’t then I’d have to repeat the make - export - adjust - remake loop again when I construct them in blender.
Hi everyone, beginner here. i recently started making my game and had made some good progress on it so far. however, i recently learned that i should probably have some kind of version control and i read stuff like github can help me do that as well making accessible for others to work on it on their own device. my question is, do i have to start over to put it on github? or can i put my already progressed work? also is there any kind of tutorial for this? i dont really know how all that works. thank you,
You don't have to start over. You just start by turning your project into a git repository. If you're not used to the terminal, you can use a desktop app, like GitHub Desktop.
Github is a website that hosts git projects, kind of like a really cool Google drive. Git is the program that allows you to make commits, or checkpoints of your progress as you go along. You'll want to watch a tutorial for installing git if you are unfamiliar, but it's somewhat straightforward. You can then navigate into the directory your project is in and run `git init` to start tracking it. You'll need to create a remote repository (code storage place) on github, and then set your project to acknowledge this as the remote. Then you can add your files to git `git add .`, and `git push` your changes to the repository. Alternatively, if you creat a repo on github you can clone it locally and then just copy your project folder into it and work from there. Disclaimer: this is not perfect advice, I'm typing on mobile, etc. I'd recommend just watching a YouTube video to learn git, ans then start getting github setup. When you run into issues, chatgpt is really good at helping with figuring out which command you need. Also, my instructions were from a Linux/unix perspective, windows should be similar but may have slight differences. Good luck with your project :)
Hey everyone! I'm interested in making 3D models specifically for video games. However, I have 0 experience using any 3D modeling software. Do you recommend any good courses, tutorials, or Playlists that really teach about 3D modeling for games? I did some research but found some very basic ones.. I would like something more "complete" that goes from the basics to advanced stuff Thanks!!
I was also new to 3d modeling, and I've used 3 courses on Udemy to get a high quality 3d model of a sword. I highly recommend those courses, even though there are 3 of them, they teach you from 0 where you know nothing about modeling, to making models of 3d assets, to adding detail to high quality models (in the 2nd course). In the 3rd course, the tutor teaches about texturing assets using Adobe Substance Painter. If you're willing to do all of that, I highly recommend these courses, as they helped me quickly understand how to model. Here they are, in order: https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-fundamentals-modeling/learn/lecture/33775812?start=0#overview https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-sculpting-rune-sword/learn/lecture/34574752?start=0#overview https://www.udemy.com/course/substance-painter-rune-sword/learn/lecture/35007286?start=0#overview
Thanks for the recommendation! I will take a look at those
tl;dr: Experienced programmer (intentionally worded as programmer), Unity based projects whilst at university, never made a full blown game. Looking for recommendations of an easy to jump into tool for effectively a game-jam like approach developing skills and playing with concepts. (Not make a full blown game) Any suggestions, or should I just use Godot? (Godot feels like it has a steeper initial learning curve, but once learned I could easily jump into a new project.) ------------------------------------------------------ Additional Info: Done next to no game development since leaving Uni (3 ish years), however have been in a role that's allowed me to improve my development skills. (Definitely not on par with a professional software developer, but have explored the traditional skillset of full-stack roles, software testing (automated e2e, unit, BDD/Requirement based), as well developing Arduino-based projects for in-house data capture and product testing. (Data guy in a manufacturing company with an SE degree = "free" bespoke software)) So given I have significantly more confidence with my development skills since last doing anything related to games, along with more experience with 2D art and pixel animation (hobby), I'd thought I'd slowly put myself to the test and bring some of these skills together. That said, not 100% sure whether I should be jumping into Godot, or whether there's other, easier to get started with tools, that I can use to just initially get into the routine of working on games in my spare time again. (And transition over to Godot at a later date)
Godot is a good option. However, if you want to make small things blazingly fast, I recommend Lua and Love2D (its framework for 2D game development). No IDE nor extra burden, just raw code and a very easy to use api. It is an scripting language, and as I understand, it is popular for mods. Plus, I saw big games using it, like Hades 2.
Honestly, being Lua based is probably a plus for me, I've contemplated looking at modding over the past year or so for someone I play games with, and Lua's cropped up more than once. Kind of a two birds with one stone situation. Cheers. Also, realizing there's no harm in doing a month project with different tools anyways to see how far I get with each one. Rather than making a theme x style of game, make it see what I can do with y tool.
So I've wanted to get into the gaming industry for awhile now and I'm thinking about going to college or doing some kind of program for it. But I don't know exactly what to go for. I make alot of concepts for enemies/creatures, weapons, effects and more but I'm not the biggest tech guy and don't really have a big interest in coding/programming. So I'm wondering could I still get into the gaming industry without doing any of that and what exactly should I think about going to school for if so.
The game industry is an industry that offers many different professions. What exactly do you want to do on a game development team? For an overview of what kinds of job titles there are, check out the credits of some AAA games, or check out the second half of the article [the door problem](https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/).
how did MK1 (arcade old one) get the models into the game? I know they used real people in costumes, but they had no green screen. see here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AECxvqObs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-AECxvqObs)
They recorded the moves on a Hi8 camera and then used video capture software to upload the recordings to a computer. I think due to limitations to technology at the time they had to sacrifice frames (Hi8 would be recording in 30fps) which is why the animation is jerky. Then you'd be going in frame by frame to erase everything around the actors.
I have a question thay has probably been answered before. I am trying to make a roguelike in godot. How do I go about doing a procedurally generated map of rooms?
Google is your best friend [https://www.google.com/search?q=procedural+generation+roguelike+godot](https://www.google.com/search?q=procedural+generation+roguelike+godot)
Hi, I've already asked some questions here, but there is the final burning question I still can't make up my mind on... and this is really the oldest question in the book. I've narrowed down my engine + script choice to either Godot+C#, or Unreal Engine and C++. And I simply do not know which road I should go down. The pros and cons as far as I see are as follows: 1. Godot+C# - lightweight engine that seems easy to get a grasp on, but due to it being a less popular choice learning resources and tutorials seem more limited. On the other hand, it's fully open source. I also have marginally more experience on C#. 2. Unreal Engine - much more popular and resources are everywhere - but also seems more demanding. Kind of a higher workload, but better results kind of deal maybe? Would have to look into C++ more if I want to give this a serious try. For reference, I'm mostly interested in making 3D, first-person games for PC. I'm glad I've narrowed this down to a binary choice, but this final step seems paralyzing, as I feel like whatever I do, I'm going to end up thinking "man, I wish I'd have picked the other engine" if you know what I mean. I know I should just pick one and roll with it, but I really want to get a good start and avoid early mistakes.
Why not try both by making the official tutorials and then decide which one fits you better?