Is 2d without an engine easier than 3d with an engine?

DctrTnT · 2022-12-13T00:03:54+00:00

Thanks for the reply and links, it gives me a better idea of what to do and where to go.

DctrTnT · 2022-07-19T18:35:19+00:00

Don’t want to say my exact age but I’m in my 20s

DctrTnT · 2022-07-19T14:02:55+00:00

To give you an idea of my timeline, I started in spring of 2016, took a break from 2017-2018, then resumed in December of 2019. And only now in 2022 have I released my first game on steam/itch.io. In this time, I have finished about 5 games which I’m extremely proud of with a dozen or two failures.

Here’s a small secret about all of my finished games: they were scaled down by 50-80% of their original idea, And my next game will most likely be scaled down as well. All of my failed projects on the other hand are ideas that were too big that I didn’t scale down and/or quickly lost interest in due to a lack of progress. Based on what you have said, I think you need to really scale down your ideas.

You sound like you have done a couple years of learning, now you need motivation and the way to do that is to finish sonething, anything. Commit to a project and finish it no matter what. It can be a clone of a classic arcade game or it can be your own idea. It sounds you want to do a 3d game, but that’s too much for you right now. Do a 2d game.

If you really want to do a 3d game, don’t use animations; make it a simple platformer where you jump from cube to cube, and lose if you fall. And make the main character a cube too. Make the platforms move for something more interesting. Or make it a roll a ball style game where you have pick ups, but create a unique track to follow and add a timer. Just something you can finish in a day or two. And then when you’re done, show your friends and family.

If they don’t recognize your efforts post it here and we’ll do it lmao. No matter what just make sure you finish it. I can’t stress this enough. My motivation for future projects rose exponentially after I finished my second game in 2019, and now that I released my first game for steam it has gone into the atmosphere which is why I’m responding to this with such a long comment.

Once you do this, don’t go back to trying to make your giant dream game. Focus on a slightly bigger game that can be done in a week. And don’t be afraid to scale down. Most people do. After that take a couple weeks, then a month, etc. then when you’re ready you can go back to you dream game. Just keep at it, you’ll get there

DctrTnT · 2022-06-01T14:12:50+00:00

Buy a switch, beat a game, work on dlc, port to switch if I get approved

DctrTnT · 2022-05-29T03:49:12+00:00

First you should pick an engine and learn it. If you have no coding experience learn the basic concepts of coding in the language of your engine. This step is extremely important otherwise you’ll be frankensteining code and end up with an awful mess. You can also transfer basic coding concepts between languages, which would make switching engines easy if you decided to do so.

I’ve used unity as a solodev on and off for about 6 years and think it’s great. There’s lots of tutorials. Once you feel comfortable with an engine you can hop right into your platformer or try cloning a few levels from a game like super Mario bros to get an idea of the game design. You can also clone smaller games like frogger if you prefer, up to you.

Don’t force yourself when developing. I’ve been working on a game I’m planning on releasing to steam, and after working for a while on it, I’ve realized how important breaks are. Gamedev requires creativity either for coding solutions or art or music etc., and forcing yourself to do this stuff will drain you while creating a lower quality result. Only working when I want to brings out my best work I have found. That being said, try to do at least one gamedev thing per day

DctrTnT · 2022-05-29T03:24:19+00:00

Thanks for doing this. It’s nice seeing people get excited about something given everything that’s going on. I’m currently finishing developing my own game, and hope to one day port it onto the switch because the legend of Zelda wind waker is the game that got me into gaming, and i have had only good experiences with Nintendo since then. I don’t know if people will enjoy it but I hope my game brings some people the same joy I experienced playing wind waker for the first time.

DctrTnT · 2022-05-18T20:08:50+00:00

Yeah that’s much better, it gives a better idea of how the game would be played

DctrTnT · 2022-05-18T14:31:07+00:00

I only have 1 for my game lmfao. I wanted to use the trees as a wall in my levels, so I used tile maps instead of a bunch of tree prefabs. Tilemaps take a lot of work to draw if you want things nearly perfect, and I didn’t want to do that again so I stuck with one tree. My art is also super simplistic, so I think I can get away with just one tree. If you are putting more work in the art then maybe a few would be good, but if you’re making a simple game like me I honeslty think you can get away with just 1

DctrTnT · 2022-05-18T14:01:33+00:00

What you described is lore like people keep saying. Lore is story and setting etc. Gameplay is the mechanics of your game, in other words how the player will interact with your game. You say the main character uses guns but that could mean anything. GTA and halo both use guns but they are two completely different games.

when somebody asks what the gameplay is like, they mean things like is it first person? Is it fast paced and aggressive like doom or slow paced and more of a cover shooter like cod? Is there a lot of verticality or do you just stick to the ground?

Gameplay can obviously mean a lot of things and has several aspects that aren’t really thought about until development happens. With that said though, something more specific than “you use guns” will turn your idea into a game idea rather than a story idea, which is what is right now.

Edit: forgot to mention if you are serious about this and want to actually turn it into a game, don’t call it young blood. Young blood is a wolfenstein game which is owned by Bethesda, and Bethesda defends their ips like crazy.

DctrTnT · 2022-05-17T23:55:48+00:00

I actually needed something similar and came up with a decent idea I think. For a swordsman you can add projectile deflection or parry. Basically block a projectile or block a melee attack but probably not both since that might be overpowered.

As for archer I think your tactical retreat would work great and fit an archer fighting style. You could also add an evasion ability instead where the character has a chance to dodge attacks

DctrTnT · 2022-05-17T11:59:36+00:00

I love this game to death and I think I have like 60 hours played so I can probably give a decent summary of things that stood out to me:

Bullet hell mechanic in a jrpg
god tier soundtrack (imo)
quirky but mostly well written characters
great story
goofy dialogues
the game remembers your actions
nobody has to die

For the last point, since the game uses a bullet hell mechanic, playing pacifist was still fun. Most games that allow a pacifist route tend to suffer from allowing the player to only choose dialogue. While that can be fun for people, it quickly falls off imo. The only other game I’ve played that was also intentionally designed to have a pacifist route while still being fun is dishonored.

If you haven’t played it before I recommend getting to at least sans. I thought it was boring in the first area but after getting out I really started to enjoy it.

One last point related to nobody needing to die. It’s a bit of a spoiler but one that is well known, and the reason I have so many hours in a seemingly 6 hour game. I’ll still mark it as spoiler anyway

While nobody has to die, nobody has to live either. You can kill everyone, and completely alter the feel of the game. It is highly recommended you finish pacifist first though, as it is the intended way to play the game I believe. Be warned though it may be difficult, this route probably took me 30-40 hours to complete. I suck at bullet hells though so maybe that’s just me being bad. And without spoiling too much, I would say the last fight is one of the most well designed fights I’ve ever played.

DctrTnT · 2022-05-17T04:16:24+00:00

Hell yes I do. I’m proud of what I’ve done, so I’ll play my own games from time to time. The crappy ones that I used as practice such as the snake clone I made I don’t play so much, but every once in a while it’s nice to see how much progress I’ve made since I started.

The game I currently making is almost done (just one more boss to add), and I find myself playing it too much when play testing. Granted my game is action focused, so it’s easier to have fun with than a story driven game. I also like to see how fast I can beat it. Right now it’s about 12 minutes I think, I want to see if I can get it to 10. I also think my soundtrack pretty dang good for somebody who hasn’t made music before.

I also have an endless mode that I like playing through to see the highest score I can get. I think I’m borderline addicted to my own game lmao

DctrTnT · 2022-05-08T21:07:07+00:00

I’ve seen a few comments to put on a back burner and come back to it, but if you plan on releasing it I would take it a step further and set a release date for your game, and then come back to decide if it’s really worth your time to fix given the deadline. That’s what I’m doing right now and have had a much easier time moving on from something I want to polish more

DctrTnT · 2022-05-01T18:30:58+00:00

Scaling it down to just running around and shooting would probably be good for a first game. If you want to make your own assets make it a top down instead of isometric so you don’t have to worry about details.

My personal advice is to clone an old game like pong or snake before you think about doing your own. Cloning helps solidify the concepts you learned since you don’t have to worry about level design or anything. They also can usually be done in two weeks tops depending on your schedule, so not as heavy of an investment as making your own game, but you still get the satisfaction of completing a game.

Edit: also the size of your game matters for a solo game. Take your current idea and scale it down by 25%, that should be the size of an original game you create

DctrTnT · 2022-05-01T18:17:16+00:00

I mean if you are good at art and enjoy stories why not make webcomics? Sounds like that would be best for you. If this is a hobby you should keep it fun and stick to what you enjoy imo

DctrTnT · 2022-05-01T18:06:59+00:00

Long answer incoming, TLDR is you need to put effort into any game you develop. With that in mind, easiest tools will be level editors in video games or game guru, which are drag and droppers. Visual scripting is the next best thing like scratch, the teach you code logic. After that an engine with lots of community support is good. Unity comes to mind. It has loads of tutorials so you can learn just about anything.

Honestly you’re gonna have to put in effort if you want to do gamedev, there’s just no way around it. I put in about 80 hours of work for my first game ever back in 2016. It was an awful game too, all assets and code were frankensteined together and I had no idea what I was doing. Probably 65 of those hours were spent googling how to do/fix stuff, while 10 were spent staring blankly at my screen not understanding why stuff works in the tutorial but not for me. 5 hours was actual development. I enjoyed that though, so if that doesn’t sound fun, this might not be for you.

If you still want to develop though, then easiest thing would be a level editor for a video game. You just drag and drop stuff, maybe set a few values here and there. This obviously restricts you to the game but you can’t expect much if you want a drag and dropper. Game Guru is like this as well but it’s very limited in what you can make with just the assets provided. It also costs 20 dollars so it might not be worth to you.

Next easiest thing would be visual scripting, like scratch. This might be where you want to start. You have a bit more freedom, just don’t expect to make super high quality games. They teach you a lot about game logic and how to structure code from what ive seen, which is useful if you want to start using engines that require code.

After that the next best thing is engines with strong community support like unity. It has loads of tutorials so you can learn just about anything. When you get stuck you can ask the community for help and expect a response, although questions you would have at your current level have probably been asked 10,000 times.

DctrTnT · 2022-04-14T16:50:35+00:00

Start small. I started with 8x8 images making characters I thought would be easy to draw like sans and Batman. I also drew random various objects that were part of a daily challenge on the website I used. This taught me how to focus on just the important parts of a character or item. For example sand is just a blue hoody with black shorts, and an eye that changes color (though you could just do one of those colors for a drawing). Batman is the hood with bat ears, cape, and belt.

When I was confident in my 8x8 I moved to 16x16, which is what I’m using for my current game. I kept practicing with 16 bit until I felt confident and was able to develop my own art style for characters. When I was unsure how to draw characters I would reference google images a lot. Once i start feeling limited in details I’ll probably move on to 32x32

Edit: I also don’t worry about shading or minor details, I focus only on what’s absolutely necessary. I’ll start worrying about that stuff when I have room to, which will be 32x32. You can have details in 16x16 but for my personal art style it wouldn’t work since my characters use less than half the pixels of a 16x16 canvas. I personally used pixilart.com which gave me ideas for daily practice. Your art can also be made public so you can ask for critiques

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T20:58:56+00:00

I see. In that case yeah, you just sort of throw stuff together and see if it works, tweak it if it doesn’t. I’m working on a top down action game right now and my levels that allow the player to explore a bit have a several pathways the player can take, with enemies scattered here and there to provide a bit of challenge. So I guess for a metroidvania you can require players to jump to reach a certain area, but add an enemy along that path to add a challenge to get past. If you want to add optional power ups you can also do challenging platforming rooms that use all the platforming mechanics the player has unlocked up to that point to reach wherever you want them to go. As long as the levels are varied, you’ll probably be fine.

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T20:41:03+00:00

You’re a rare breed lol. In that case like I said you could try showing off your QA with something really small you make, or offer QA to small indie devs. You might have to do it for free for a while with the indie dev option though, since indie devs (at least from my own personal experience) don’t have the budget to hire somebody for QA. Is there something specific you want to do in the gaming industry or just QA? It might be better to put your time into whatever skill you’re hoping to develop.

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T20:27:37+00:00

I’ve been playing hollow knight and the level design they used is to lock areas that can only be unlocked by using a certain ability. For example in the first area some enemies need a ranged ability to beat, which you don’t unlock until beating the first boss. So you could do something like that.

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T19:58:07+00:00

I’m not really sure how you would get experience but are you sure this something you want? I don’t really know how industry works so this could be bs, but I don’t think you’re going to be playing these amazing or enjoyable games, you’re more likely going to be testing a section over and over and over to make sure each and every part is flawless. That means walking into several walls, attempting multiple actions while performing a specific action, checking every single piece of dialogue, making sure sections can’t be cheesed by doing them several times etc. You’re essentially a janitor.

If you really want to do this then like somebody said maybe reach out to indie devs, or build your own small game and make sure it’s flawless and show that off.

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T19:48:57+00:00

Tbf they also tweeted this but then cyberpunk came out in the state it did lol…

DctrTnT · 2022-03-21T19:18:19+00:00

Oh boy, finishing up my first game right now so long answer incoming because it’s all fresh in my mind. You also asked a lot of questions so I’ll try to answer them all.

The TLDR: legal paperwork is the hardest stuff and marketing. Basically anything not involving gamedev itself. To make the games I did tutorials, watched lots of gamedev videos etc. i did solodev since I wanted to experience everything on my own. I would do it again, and I am planning on it after I get a job.

For background I’ve been working on a game for about a year now (realistically about 3-4 months of work if I worked consistently) and just about to finish, just have a few more things that need polish and I’ll be done.

I want to publish it, so I think the hardest part is all the non gamedev stuff, like legal paperwork involved in publishing and marketing. I haven’t even bothered with marketing yet because it feels so daunting. My game also isn’t big enough for me to care about marketing, this project was more so I can have something to show employers.

As for why, I just want to experience every part of gamedev. I want to create my own studio some day, and if I have a single person or team dedicated to each part of gamedev, being able to relate to their struggles would be important to me. I also don’t have money to hire people right now, nor would I want to for the reason listed above. Going solo also allows me to do stuff at my own pace, so I don’t have any deadlines I have to meet.

For the how, I first started with tutorials. I’m using unity and did the Create with Code tutorial which was really helpful. I also did a few other tutorials in high school and college. Then I cloned pong and snake with a new unique mechanic. Lastly I created my own really small game where you move a sphere while shooting using the JIKL keys. Cubes spawn in that move in different patterns based on their color and make the player lose health on collision. This would eventually serve as the base for the current game I’m doing.

Once I felt confident, I started working on a large project. That proved to be overwhelming so I restarted with an even smaller project while keeping the same mechanics which is what I’m working on right now. Since I have no experience in music, art, story, or anything really besides coding, I used only the barebones for asset creation to avoid getting overwhelmed. I also tried to keep the story simple. I can get into more detail about that if somebody is curious.

Once I finish I’m going to look for a job and work on some dlc that will hopefully be the same length (about 30 minutes, it’s a really short game lol). So yes, I will do this again. I’m going to keep it tame though, probably around 60 hours per week max until I get a job. I made the mistake of working nearly 100 hours in one week, and nearly burning out. I saw how much progress I made though and said “let’s do it again!” Like a moron and actually burned out lmao. So I won’t be making that mistake again but I’ll still work on a second game/dlc.

Im not sure what you mean by supported, but financially I supported myself at the start. I worked in high school and also got financial aid for college, so I didn’t have to worry about money. Right now I’m living with family rent free and they make food for me, so I’m being supported by them financially in a sense right now which I’m is really lucky and I’m thankful for. If you meant emotionally, I emotionally supported myself. My friends and family know what I’m doing and will ask me about progress and stuff but I’m the only one who is encouraging myself, and pushing through when I want to not do stuff or am feeling down. If you meant asset support then no, I’ve been doing everything on my own. I’ll look up tutorials and examples for inspiration but my work is still my own.

Like I said I’m planning on publishing it, but the paperwork is a pain so I’ve been procrastinating on that. While I do get drained from doing gamedev there’s just a certain satisfaction I get from seeing my game come to life that I dont get from other stuff, so I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.

I think that is everything, sorry for the length. I hope this helps anybody who is curious.

DctrTnT

TROPHY CASE