TyberthiaGaming

First, I believe I must thank both for their response. I really ought to stop mixing up terms like game idea and setting. At least Stormynature guessed correctly the setting would be applied to a simple, very simple sim game, the type that a beginner can make.

I carefully read and re-read your comments and took notes from it. Most of them were spot on. I really ought to be careful not to forget that I still need to write out everything in this silly head of mine.

I only have one personal note of criticism when it comes to these comments:

On the off chance you were effectively asking how your writing was, as English is not your first language. Then my answer is I have no complaints and you write well enough to be understood.

I am rather proud person, one who actually takes pride in his English skills even though he is not a native speaker. I personally would prefer to receive comments without any regard for whether I am or am not a native speaker. I would prefer to have the whole truth, rather than a watered down version just because I am not a native speaker.

I do understand you do this to be considerate for which I thank you, but for future reference you should not spare my feelings. Corrections and criticisms are always business, so I take no personal offense to them when given.

Thank you, I decided to write a journal here, sharing all the things I am doing as I embark on this journey. Who knows what advice I can gather by doing so? Learning on your own is all fine and dandy, but in the end guidance is still invaluable and thus I will probably frequent the forums here throwing a tidbit of my (deplorable) work every so often on the heap.

I once more wish to thank everyone for their advice, encouragement and, of course, their kind words.

Oh my, so many responses...First, I wish to thank you for all the advice you have offered. It was a truly a pleasure to read them all.

Construct 2:
This is a great little package that allows you to create 2d HTML5-based games that run in a web-browser. It has an active and helpful community and is constantly being updated with new features. Although the focus is on HTML5 games Construct 2 already offers experimental support for exporting to both Android and iOS which is getting better all the time, and will also soon allow you to export Windows executables if you wish to do so.

No traditional programming is required to use Construct 2: your game is created by adding and positioning objects in a visual editor, adding and configuring pre-set "behaviours", and by adding "events" to another visual editor to control any additional logic needed. It is also possible to extend the engine using JavaScript plug-ins, a large number of which have already been created for a variety of purposes. While it's probably possible to somehow create 3d (or fake-3d) games with this package I wouldn't recommend it for that usage, but it's fantastic for anything 2d -- well worth at least investigating the free version.

Mmm, I will check this out. Though I must say, I do aspire more towards 3D games. Though, 2D games do have their charm and perhaps starting out with simple 2D games and actually finishing them, will make me feel..."accomplished".

It sounds like you might want to learn about programming, art, design, and anything else that you can throw into the game development bin. If that's the case, there are a ton of tools out there that allow you to do some of the programming while also helping you skip all the nitty gritty stuff.

This might be the best way describing my intentions at the moment, since you cannot decide on a role to do without actually trying your hand at it. Though the role of level designer actually does appeal to me the most after some careful reading of various posts, blogs and other sources about game development.


Though after reading all your wonderful advice, I feel a bit bad by saying I pretty much decided on a learning path, I think would be acceptable, unless everyone starts advising against this.

I think I will not be focusing my energy on 'creating' games for now - I have no skills to do so, beside my knowledge of Java - and focus on aqcuiring skills that are linked to the part of game development that I find appealing: level design.

The path I intent to follow is:

• Step 1: Learn 3D modeling using 3DS Max. In the mean time write game design documents for simple games; to learn to put my ideas in such words people know what I mean. This step will last until I have a solid grasp of the basics of 3D modeling.
• Step 2: Start learning how to use UDK. A biased choice here, because I enjoy a lot of game that use the Unreal Engine and so wish to master the very engine myself.
• Step 3: Create a very simple game.
• Repeat step 3 increase the difficulty scale every repetition. Time schedule: 2 years.

This is a very simple 3 step plan, though most likely a lot more steps might be added and most steps themselves are even subdivided in many little steps.

At the moment I am at step 1.1: Create a damn cardboard box!

I hope I am taking a correct approach to this. All suggestions are welcome.

PS: If you know any good books for total beginners on these subjects, do mention them. I am a rather fond book lover. I prefer to read things, rather than watching videos and such to learn things.

How silly of me, I never thought about it in these terms as goal. I think, the most feasible goal for me, a goal I would content myself with is being able to create a functioning indie game which is enjoyable to play for others beside myself. Everyone can make games, they like, but it is hard to make a game you and others enjoy.

Thus I think if I were to put it in your terms it is a mix, because I do wish to share the games I create, but earning money is at the moment not a goal on itself, but might be a goal in the long run. Though the goal at the moment I might describe as creating a game out of love to learn the entire concept of creating a game. But, perhaps that is just a silly idea...

Mmm, formulating a goal is a lot harder than I imagined now, but I hope I could express my idea of my goal to you.

Tyberthia.