I'd love to see a companion video on the BEST game genres to start with, and maybe also another about which engine to learn for what kinds of projects if you're in the position of thinking about getting into an engine for the first time (or learning a new one).
I'm not a game dev, buy my guess would be: classic arcade games. For example, Galaga, Dig Dug, Pacman, Joust, Tetris. They have simple gameplay loops, are 2D, minimal UI, easy to understand and playtest, and everything fits on just one or two screens (main menu, game screen, maybe a score screen). That's where I'd start if I wanted to learn how to make games.
Agree on Tower Defense. I'm a very experienced programmer so the systems/mechanics/UI are not that daunting, but the actual game design and balancing seems very challenging. I'm at the point where I need to trade the code editor for Excel for a while and figure out how this is all going to work :)
That's a great video, thank you! As a beginner, I've started with a Flappy Bird. And then moved to a metroidvania. Made 3 rooms that you can finish in 2 minutes and feel like quitting it. Those 3 rooms took me 4 month to implement and considering feedback from my friends, they are notoriously hard x) So I'm thinking of making a strategy game now.
I started making games back in 99 and recall just wrapping my mind around the complexities you mentioned for plataformers and brawlers. Just designing the animation and hitbox system and editor was a lot of work... and that was using allegro to ease development, I can only imagine how tough it was a decade earlier.
@@LazyDevs the evolution of game design never ceases to amaze me! Gameplay is much more refined these days overall (sure, not all games are great, but the average for 2d games have improved a lot). It amazes me because it is not something that is super dependent on technology or performance, so the progress is people learning and improving upon previous games... and as you said the tools these days are incredible (I guess that frees time to work on better games!)
I think there might be some points to take away here, but I disagree that any of these genres are bad for a starting point. The argument against each of them seems to be "don't make them because you don't understand how the genre works". Well, if people want to start out with something easy, like a Tetris clone, trust me that anyone who understands how Tetris works will immediately recognize everything your game gets wrong. Hell, a lot of people start out making 2d shooters, because it's such a simple basic engine, but few people realise how insanely difficult it is to actually design a *good* shooter. My advice, outside of simply "create whatever motivates you" is focus on a genre that you know well, and don't try to reinvent anything. And don't compare yourself to the best games ever created. This is just your first game, it's a learning experience. No one ever made Super Mario Bros. on their first try. But making a simple, fun platformer really isn't harder than making a simple fun game of any other genre.
Thank you for you comment, Morten. I do agree with a lot of what you say. I just wanted to clarifiy some finer points. The argument isn't so much "don't make them because you don't understand it" but "don't make them because you probably underestimate the ammount of work". Making a bad Tetris is still easier than making a bad platformer. I agree that motivation is important. But also motivation will carry you only so far. Mid-way through the project the motivation will peter out. Depending on what decisions you made at the beginning, you might be left stranded in the middle of a hopelessly over-ambitious project. Or you might be stranded in the middle of a hard project but one that you can actually finish with hard work and discipline. Ideally you pick something that you are excited for AND something that is withing reach of your skills.
Great video, although I have to say I disagree a little bit on platformers/runners. I'm with you on the fighting, adventure, and RPG games because they often require a large scope and lots of work (interesting story, complex attacks, etc.) that beginners can't maintain. It's something we all fall for (myself included), getting into game dev with a dream idea only to realize you can't make it. However, I think platformers are perfect for learning, assuming you're using a game/physics engine to do the collisions for you. It teaches player input, basic level design, fundamental logic, and making the game "feel" good (all you need to play around with is the player's speed and/or jump height). Tower defense is good too as long as you keep the scope small (like maybe a Bloons TD1 clone). Almost every intro-level game dev video tutorial focuses on making a platformer or runner style game, and for good reasons.
I'd add another one: MMO! OK, I'm joking somewhat, but there are surprisingly many people who want to create an MMO as their first game on /r/gamedev on reddit, for example.
Subbed. You wonderfully point out the psychological traps we fall into. 1. You mistake familiar with simple. 2. You miscalculate work needed and time-estimates. (Dunning-Kruger effect?) 3. You lack trust in what ideas will come in the future, so you overcompensate by starting off with a overblown idea(thus you take from yourself the option to spontaneusly, creatively and incrementally improve upon the initial idea) 4. You think like a consumer/player, not like a producer/developer. (overgeneralizing, not going into nuance of what something is, and if a game is easy to play it means it is easy to develop) 5. you need to get analytical/philosophical about what makes something fun. 6. to be a game-developer you must be obsessing about playing all games from the genre :)
when I started I went with pong since it was the first game ever and even that took me like 2 weeks to wrap my head around the math of collision and just keeping the damn ball on the screen xD good times
I'm trying a Bad Dudes de-make as my first major Pico-8 game. Its a simple enough beat 'em up with the art assets done, just needing to be scaled down. I figure if I get the basics of this right, I'm pretty much set for any type of game I want to make. I immediately ran into the problem of different sized punching sprites, as well as all the actions taking up so much room on the sprite sheet. It gets worse when you get to jump kicks. So now I'm working on a system of animation where each frame of object animation is made up of any number of sprites with their own sizes, x-y offset, duration, and other stats including basic animation of their own. Not only does this allow for the different sprite sizes, it also allows more complex animation that only need keyframes of data rather than frame by frame (although still allowing frame by frame as well). It also allows for a more voxel like design to characters, which I might actually use to save sprite space. I can also use this structure to include hit boxes in the animation data. This means a deeper dive into tables and tables in tables and functions in tables than if I were just doing a simpler game, but this animation structure will be very useful as a back bone for all types of games, and I'm not having to worry about the art or design of the game at this point so I can really focus on developing the tools. I love Pico-8. It's the perfect balance of just enough capability but still having to figure out the basics of the structure of the program yourself.
I was just watching this video and the first big-ish pico-8 carts I made was a platformer! (Coindash) It wasn't the worst thing I had made and at the time I was really proud, even though now it's kinda poopy.. But I can deffently see that making platformers are not always the best first-ish projects : p ALSO: Before I made coindash I was working on another pico-8 cart where it was textadaventure + earthbound/paper mario battles.... While it was fun and I got somewhat far, it was exactly what you said in the video; What do you do next? It was a project I dropped even though I liked it.
My newbie experience was all ovber the place. I started developing an RPG as my first game (fortunately I didn't have to "code" anything), then when I needed to code went to a 4 week development of a rhythm game. That thingy was not an expandable idea, and lacked optimization, but it was a nice start. My next project after failing at an attempt of a HearthStone-type card game, I went to a PvZ style Tower Defense, and I never imagined that my bigger struggles were with colliders,damage rates and goddamn calculus of all things. I learned the hard way Tower Defense games were complex, but I'm having a blast developing it. (P.S: I'd also add card games to the list, basic things can be already hard to code, and let's not mention then chaos it'll become the more mechanics you insert)
Card games are just not something I see people try often. This is an old video and things like Slay the Spire might have changed the culture somewhat. I will say that card games have the unique advantage of being a good candidate for paper prototypes. So my advice there would be - make sure the game works with physical placeholder cards before implementing them. If your ideas don't hold water you'll see that pretty quickly.
I know i am late, but i have to agree, however i think that the guy in the video wanted to talk more about genres that look easy to make. And fps is obviosly something that looks hard to make.
Great video. Basically any genre more complex than something really basic (infinite runner, maybe pong?) sounds like a really bad idea. Would really love to see a follow up with the positive version of this video now 🙂 (and why).
I found this video about 2 hours after publishing my first game, made with Pico-8... A tower defense game 😂 I'll keep these points in mind for my next project!
Hi, not exactly my first game but the first game I'm actually somewhat confident I can complete and polish is a tower defense game I've been working on for a little while now. After trying my hand at platformers, point and clicks, puzzles, and RPGs, this is the first one I'm actually having a lot of fun making and there's a lot of tangible progress as I go. That being said, TD games are very hard to make unique or interesting 😅 so take what I say with a grain of salt and some pepper while you're at it.
@@LazyDevs Game development as a whole, a few years. This tower defense project? Only about a month or so. That being said, a huge chunk of the base code is working almost perfectly, leaving most of the remaining work to be art and polishing.
Resource Management games (like Settlers or Banished) are also bad just because of the sheer number of assets you have to build (all the huts/houses, items, crafting animations, etc.). In fact, that seems to be the theme for all the bad genres to do as a first game. I'm doing a tower defense game as my first game and it's the fact that I have to do X towers, Y enemies and Z levels that's just sucking the time away. One of the first things I did was add a DPS and cost per DPS calculator in my stat sheets for each tower. Very easy to balance the towers including knowing how much damage the user can do with the resources given at the start. Then it's just picking the right ramp up curve based on the level layout.
@@LazyDevs Ok, so my first game was so obviously a bad choice that it wasn't even on your list. And my second one wasn't as bad, but made it onto your list. At least I'm trending in the right direction... lol
Believe this man. Even when using Gamemaker to assist with the coding and some online tutorials, it took me 3 years to work out how collisions work. After making my first game as a school project, I learned from programming an item how finicky game states can be, so I immediately knew that melee combat was going to be a mistake. It was easier than expected to create a simple punch, but I never got around to animating the project. I was able to get a good platformer functioning, but I did run into the "And then content happens" problem. It took me 2 years of constant development just to work out how to make a functioning turn-based combat system. I now cherish UI designers above all other parts of a programming team. If you want to learn how to make a Tower Defence, I actually recommend trying to make the first 3 levels of a small PVZ clone. Currently, despite having deep reservations about the engine, I'm using RPGmaker to try and make a really simple JRPG. I'm doing this to try and figure out how to conquer the "And then content happens" hurdle by having all the coding done for me so I can move onto the more problematic parts of my game development cycle.
I made an adventure as my first game. It took 3 years. It was hell. I kept going because I really love this kind of horror game. And top of that I didn't know how to code. If I had known how to code, I think it could have been better. Kids don't try this at home. :)
I think this video is a great sanity check for people who vastly underestimate the amount of effort that goes into these games. However, you'll never know your limits if you don't try to push them. I think the real takeaway should be to make smaller projects to test the waters before you commit to your dream project. Game jams are great for this purpose, because the strict time limit forces you to narrow the scope of your game. I learned more in two days making a top-down shooter than I did in weeks of following tutorials, and most importantly, I now know that I can actually make something original. Don't underestimate the dopamine rush that comes with finishing a small project. ;-)
yes my economy sim inspired by railroad tycoon, is not here so i am good to go then xD in seriusness i know this was 4 years ago but can confirm the points in this video, i think i am on the 5th attemt at making 'my first game' and the first that actually look like might have a chance to get of the ground
Depending on your definition of rpg, a dungeon crawling roguelike might be a good way to go, so long as you understand the algorithms for creating a dungeon. You can create a massive amount of content procedurally, allowing you to focus the mechanics.
"Thanks to procedural generation, I can produce twice the content in double the time” - Orteil If you're into procedural algorithms then it's not your first game. Absolutely no roguelikes.
@@LazyDevs Well, your procgen content doesn't have to be complex to be adequate for your first game. My first game was a roguelike shmup, level generation is pretty basic (but then the shmup part needs to be very solid.)
I made a video about this. Also, dude, if substracting 5 genres leaves you completely out of options, maybe this should be a wake-up call to broaden your horizon. "Multiplayer" isn't even a genre. I'm worried about you.
Big Blue Frontend I disagree with that. Minus the platformer example, which is a good start for new devs cause it teaches collisions and is quite easy, the other types of games can be quite difficult for a new dev. And I say it’s well researched because he finds a lot of examples from other games to illustrate his point.
All those already existed when I made the video. To be more specific: Pathfinding - You are probably already over your head when you find yourself in need of an off-the-shelf path-finding solution. Procedural generation - It's most often HARDER to tweak an algorithm than to just make the content yourself. Store Assets - Managing a lot of content is hard even if somebody already pre-made that content for you. In the beginning you are better off aiming for a game that doesn't need that much content in the first place.
Um. Depends. I wouldn't recommend it. But there are ways to make it work. I think making levels for existing shooters can work very well. Older "boomer" shooters like Doom, Duke Nukem and Quake have pretty comfortable level editing tools and playing around them can be a great way into game making. Also a lot of the 3D engines are basically designed to make shooters easy to make. If you are using Unity, the path to a simple FPS is shorter than a Platformer. And there totally are advantages to FPS like not having to model and animate a player character. But you get into hot waters if you try to re-create AAA FPS games and many newcomers will attempt to do so. Also, making levels can be pretty hard just because they are 3D
Depends entirely on your skill as a writer. If you love to write, if you can write a lot without getting tired, if you can't help but to write - sure, grab something like Twine and knock yourself out. Otherwise - you'll find creating text content is as hard as any other type of content. You might run out of ideas by the time you're at the second or third room. And the players will burn through all that laborious content in the blink of an eye.
Haha I tried to make a platformer once, but I set out to make something more like the platforming in Achievement Unlocked or This Is The Only Level - functional but kinda janky. Collision is hard. Heh, actually "sorta janky but fun old browser game" is probably a reasonable target in general. Though not as reasonable as it used to be because flash was actually good at UI stuff and nothing today is.
Follow-up: 5 Overlooked Genres for Your First Game
ua-cam.com/video/4TxIS3Zi_RQ/v-deo.html
Alright, time to make a procedurally generated metroidvania then.
Dead Cells? Is that you?
Terraria
I hate to be “that” guy but him actually🤓 dead cells isn’t a metroidvania it is a precdurly generated rougelite
Every genre reveal I'm just like "at least he hasn't said Tower Defense".
Then he hits the last genre *facepalm*
Same.
I'd love to see a companion video on the BEST game genres to start with, and maybe also another about which engine to learn for what kinds of projects if you're in the position of thinking about getting into an engine for the first time (or learning a new one).
i agree so much with your comment!!!
I concur!
He made one! ua-cam.com/video/4TxIS3Zi_RQ/v-deo.html
I'm not a game dev, buy my guess would be: classic arcade games. For example, Galaga, Dig Dug, Pacman, Joust, Tetris.
They have simple gameplay loops, are 2D, minimal UI, easy to understand and playtest, and everything fits on just one or two screens (main menu, game screen, maybe a score screen).
That's where I'd start if I wanted to learn how to make games.
yeah this video doesn't really help me with what *to* do, only what *not* to do
Agree on Tower Defense. I'm a very experienced programmer so the systems/mechanics/UI are not that daunting, but the actual game design and balancing seems very challenging. I'm at the point where I need to trade the code editor for Excel for a while and figure out how this is all going to work :)
That's a great video, thank you!
As a beginner, I've started with a Flappy Bird. And then moved to a metroidvania. Made 3 rooms that you can finish in 2 minutes and feel like quitting it. Those 3 rooms took me 4 month to implement and considering feedback from my friends, they are notoriously hard x)
So I'm thinking of making a strategy game now.
I started making games back in 99 and recall just wrapping my mind around the complexities you mentioned for plataformers and brawlers. Just designing the animation and hitbox system and editor was a lot of work... and that was using allegro to ease development, I can only imagine how tough it was a decade earlier.
Hah yeah. It's weird because the tools get better. But also the bar is so much higher
@@LazyDevs the evolution of game design never ceases to amaze me! Gameplay is much more refined these days overall (sure, not all games are great, but the average for 2d games have improved a lot). It amazes me because it is not something that is super dependent on technology or performance, so the progress is people learning and improving upon previous games... and as you said the tools these days are incredible (I guess that frees time to work on better games!)
I think there might be some points to take away here, but I disagree that any of these genres are bad for a starting point. The argument against each of them seems to be "don't make them because you don't understand how the genre works".
Well, if people want to start out with something easy, like a Tetris clone, trust me that anyone who understands how Tetris works will immediately recognize everything your game gets wrong. Hell, a lot of people start out making 2d shooters, because it's such a simple basic engine, but few people realise how insanely difficult it is to actually design a *good* shooter.
My advice, outside of simply "create whatever motivates you" is focus on a genre that you know well, and don't try to reinvent anything. And don't compare yourself to the best games ever created. This is just your first game, it's a learning experience. No one ever made Super Mario Bros. on their first try. But making a simple, fun platformer really isn't harder than making a simple fun game of any other genre.
Thank you for you comment, Morten. I do agree with a lot of what you say. I just wanted to clarifiy some finer points.
The argument isn't so much "don't make them because you don't understand it" but "don't make them because you probably underestimate the ammount of work". Making a bad Tetris is still easier than making a bad platformer.
I agree that motivation is important. But also motivation will carry you only so far. Mid-way through the project the motivation will peter out. Depending on what decisions you made at the beginning, you might be left stranded in the middle of a hopelessly over-ambitious project. Or you might be stranded in the middle of a hard project but one that you can actually finish with hard work and discipline.
Ideally you pick something that you are excited for AND something that is withing reach of your skills.
Great video, although I have to say I disagree a little bit on platformers/runners. I'm with you on the fighting, adventure, and RPG games because they often require a large scope and lots of work (interesting story, complex attacks, etc.) that beginners can't maintain. It's something we all fall for (myself included), getting into game dev with a dream idea only to realize you can't make it. However, I think platformers are perfect for learning, assuming you're using a game/physics engine to do the collisions for you. It teaches player input, basic level design, fundamental logic, and making the game "feel" good (all you need to play around with is the player's speed and/or jump height). Tower defense is good too as long as you keep the scope small (like maybe a Bloons TD1 clone). Almost every intro-level game dev video tutorial focuses on making a platformer or runner style game, and for good reasons.
I'd add another one: MMO! OK, I'm joking somewhat, but there are surprisingly many people who want to create an MMO as their first game on /r/gamedev on reddit, for example.
Cool, I'll start with an FPS metroidvania roguelike then.
Only if it's MMO ;)
Don't forget about sandbox mechanics
You are back, YAY! Excited for the next tutorial series
Subbed. You wonderfully point out the psychological traps we fall into.
1. You mistake familiar with simple.
2. You miscalculate work needed and time-estimates. (Dunning-Kruger effect?)
3. You lack trust in what ideas will come in the future, so you overcompensate by starting off with a overblown idea(thus you take from yourself the option to spontaneusly, creatively and incrementally improve upon the initial idea)
4. You think like a consumer/player, not like a producer/developer. (overgeneralizing, not going into nuance of what something is, and if a game is easy to play it means it is easy to develop)
5. you need to get analytical/philosophical about what makes something fun.
6. to be a game-developer you must be obsessing about playing all games from the genre :)
when I started I went with pong since it was the first game ever and even that took me like 2 weeks to wrap my head around the math of collision and just keeping the damn ball on the screen xD good times
I'm trying a Bad Dudes de-make as my first major Pico-8 game. Its a simple enough beat 'em up with the art assets done, just needing to be scaled down. I figure if I get the basics of this right, I'm pretty much set for any type of game I want to make. I immediately ran into the problem of different sized punching sprites, as well as all the actions taking up so much room on the sprite sheet. It gets worse when you get to jump kicks.
So now I'm working on a system of animation where each frame of object animation is made up of any number of sprites with their own sizes, x-y offset, duration, and other stats including basic animation of their own. Not only does this allow for the different sprite sizes, it also allows more complex animation that only need keyframes of data rather than frame by frame (although still allowing frame by frame as well). It also allows for a more voxel like design to characters, which I might actually use to save sprite space. I can also use this structure to include hit boxes in the animation data.
This means a deeper dive into tables and tables in tables and functions in tables than if I were just doing a simpler game, but this animation structure will be very useful as a back bone for all types of games, and I'm not having to worry about the art or design of the game at this point so I can really focus on developing the tools.
I love Pico-8. It's the perfect balance of just enough capability but still having to figure out the basics of the structure of the program yourself.
Sounds like you're having a bumpy ride. Hope you can pull trough. Good luck!
I was just watching this video and the first big-ish pico-8 carts I made was a platformer! (Coindash)
It wasn't the worst thing I had made and at the time I was really proud, even though now it's kinda poopy..
But I can deffently see that making platformers are not always the best first-ish projects : p
ALSO: Before I made coindash I was working on another pico-8 cart where it was textadaventure + earthbound/paper mario battles.... While it was fun and I got somewhat far, it was exactly what you said in the video; What do you do next?
It was a project I dropped even though I liked it.
My newbie experience was all ovber the place. I started developing an RPG as my first game (fortunately I didn't have to "code" anything), then when I needed to code went to a 4 week development of a rhythm game. That thingy was not an expandable idea, and lacked optimization, but it was a nice start.
My next project after failing at an attempt of a HearthStone-type card game, I went to a PvZ style Tower Defense, and I never imagined that my bigger struggles were with colliders,damage rates and goddamn calculus of all things.
I learned the hard way Tower Defense games were complex, but I'm having a blast developing it.
(P.S: I'd also add card games to the list, basic things can be already hard to code, and let's not mention then chaos it'll become the more mechanics you insert)
Card games are just not something I see people try often. This is an old video and things like Slay the Spire might have changed the culture somewhat. I will say that card games have the unique advantage of being a good candidate for paper prototypes. So my advice there would be - make sure the game works with physical placeholder cards before implementing them. If your ideas don't hold water you'll see that pretty quickly.
I thought for sure you were going to include FPS in there!
I know i am late, but i have to agree, however i think that the guy in the video wanted to talk more about genres that look easy to make.
And fps is obviosly something that looks hard to make.
@@shem_badui Yea, I agree. FPS are hella hard to make but I think the focus was on 2d games.
Great video.
Basically any genre more complex than something really basic (infinite runner, maybe pong?) sounds like a really bad idea.
Would really love to see a follow up with the positive version of this video now 🙂 (and why).
i would say also RTS like command & conquer, but even the old dune 2 or warcraft 2, anyway, great video mate!
I found this video about 2 hours after publishing my first game, made with Pico-8... A tower defense game 😂
I'll keep these points in mind for my next project!
Hi, not exactly my first game but the first game I'm actually somewhat confident I can complete and polish is a tower defense game I've been working on for a little while now. After trying my hand at platformers, point and clicks, puzzles, and RPGs, this is the first one I'm actually having a lot of fun making and there's a lot of tangible progress as I go. That being said, TD games are very hard to make unique or interesting 😅 so take what I say with a grain of salt and some pepper while you're at it.
How long have you been at it?
@@LazyDevs Game development as a whole, a few years. This tower defense project? Only about a month or so. That being said, a huge chunk of the base code is working almost perfectly, leaving most of the remaining work to be art and polishing.
@@toxic_shr00m Sounds like you had some bad projects. Good luck on the TD game. Hope you can finish this one!
Resource Management games (like Settlers or Banished) are also bad just because of the sheer number of assets you have to build (all the huts/houses, items, crafting animations, etc.). In fact, that seems to be the theme for all the bad genres to do as a first game. I'm doing a tower defense game as my first game and it's the fact that I have to do X towers, Y enemies and Z levels that's just sucking the time away. One of the first things I did was add a DPS and cost per DPS calculator in my stat sheets for each tower. Very easy to balance the towers including knowing how much damage the user can do with the resources given at the start. Then it's just picking the right ramp up curve based on the level layout.
There are many bad choices. But most people don't go for a Banished as their first game. The complexity on those is obvious.
@@LazyDevs Ok, so my first game was so obviously a bad choice that it wasn't even on your list. And my second one wasn't as bad, but made it onto your list. At least I'm trending in the right direction... lol
Sage advice, thank you.
Also, does anyone know the name of the game at 20:35 ?
Oh man. I tried to track it down but I have no idea. I just picked a random TD game from Steam.
Ok grerat im gonna attempt a puzzle game then! maybe I should still be worried about the "and then content happens"...
the whole time i am thinking "please dont say snake please dont say snake" lol
Believe this man. Even when using Gamemaker to assist with the coding and some online tutorials, it took me 3 years to work out how collisions work. After making my first game as a school project, I learned from programming an item how finicky game states can be, so I immediately knew that melee combat was going to be a mistake. It was easier than expected to create a simple punch, but I never got around to animating the project. I was able to get a good platformer functioning, but I did run into the "And then content happens" problem.
It took me 2 years of constant development just to work out how to make a functioning turn-based combat system. I now cherish UI designers above all other parts of a programming team.
If you want to learn how to make a Tower Defence, I actually recommend trying to make the first 3 levels of a small PVZ clone.
Currently, despite having deep reservations about the engine, I'm using RPGmaker to try and make a really simple JRPG. I'm doing this to try and figure out how to conquer the "And then content happens" hurdle by having all the coding done for me so I can move onto the more problematic parts of my game development cycle.
Excellent choice. No shame in avoiding reinventing the wheel and RPGmaker is a rock solid tool
Using myself the engine to learn
Such a great video! So in depth
I made an adventure as my first game. It took 3 years. It was hell. I kept going because I really love this kind of horror game. And top of that I didn't know how to code. If I had known how to code, I think it could have been better. Kids don't try this at home. :)
can I get the names of the games shown pls?
Where is the gameplay from at 16:26?
Ultima 7
mad nostalgia watching that MYST playthrough
Good one!
It would've been nice to give some ideas on what to make instead. Because at the end it feels like there's nothing doable left...
ua-cam.com/video/4TxIS3Zi_RQ/v-deo.html
I think this video is a great sanity check for people who vastly underestimate the amount of effort that goes into these games. However, you'll never know your limits if you don't try to push them. I think the real takeaway should be to make smaller projects to test the waters before you commit to your dream project. Game jams are great for this purpose, because the strict time limit forces you to narrow the scope of your game. I learned more in two days making a top-down shooter than I did in weeks of following tutorials, and most importantly, I now know that I can actually make something original. Don't underestimate the dopamine rush that comes with finishing a small project. ;-)
great content!
yes my economy sim inspired by railroad tycoon, is not here so i am good to go then xD
in seriusness i know this was 4 years ago but can confirm the points in this video, i think i am on the 5th attemt at making 'my first game' and the first that actually look like might have a chance to get of the ground
Good luck!
Depending on your definition of rpg, a dungeon crawling roguelike might be a good way to go, so long as you understand the algorithms for creating a dungeon. You can create a massive amount of content procedurally, allowing you to focus the mechanics.
"Thanks to procedural generation, I can produce twice the content in double the time”
- Orteil
If you're into procedural algorithms then it's not your first game. Absolutely no roguelikes.
@@LazyDevs Well, your procgen content doesn't have to be complex to be adequate for your first game. My first game was a roguelike shmup, level generation is pretty basic (but then the shmup part needs to be very solid.)
what genres are even left? survival? multiplayer?
I made a video about this.
Also, dude, if substracting 5 genres leaves you completely out of options, maybe this should be a wake-up call to broaden your horizon. "Multiplayer" isn't even a genre. I'm worried about you.
I don't know my first, but my last will be a gatcha game.
Because afterwards you retire to as a rich person to an island on the Bahamas, right? RIGHT?
@@LazyDevs yes.
This is very well researched.
Big Blue Frontend I disagree with that. Minus the platformer example, which is a good start for new devs cause it teaches collisions and is quite easy, the other types of games can be quite difficult for a new dev. And I say it’s well researched because he finds a lot of examples from other games to illustrate his point.
Nice video! You bring things to the point. Looking forward for new videos.
Still suffering from heatwave, huh?
Does this still apply? There are way more assets and tools to assist in game development now.
What assets or tools were you thinking of?
@@LazyDevs tools that speed up the process like pathfinding or procedural generation. There are also sprite sheets and 3d assets available now.
All those already existed when I made the video. To be more specific:
Pathfinding - You are probably already over your head when you find yourself in need of an off-the-shelf path-finding solution.
Procedural generation - It's most often HARDER to tweak an algorithm than to just make the content yourself.
Store Assets - Managing a lot of content is hard even if somebody already pre-made that content for you. In the beginning you are better off aiming for a game that doesn't need that much content in the first place.
What about fps? Animations are very advanced
Um. Depends. I wouldn't recommend it. But there are ways to make it work. I think making levels for existing shooters can work very well. Older "boomer" shooters like Doom, Duke Nukem and Quake have pretty comfortable level editing tools and playing around them can be a great way into game making.
Also a lot of the 3D engines are basically designed to make shooters easy to make. If you are using Unity, the path to a simple FPS is shorter than a Platformer. And there totally are advantages to FPS like not having to model and animate a player character.
But you get into hot waters if you try to re-create AAA FPS games and many newcomers will attempt to do so. Also, making levels can be pretty hard just because they are 3D
im currently making a fighting game lol
ok lemme start with a metroidvania then
what about graphicless completely text Adventure games? 🤔
Depends entirely on your skill as a writer. If you love to write, if you can write a lot without getting tired, if you can't help but to write - sure, grab something like Twine and knock yourself out. Otherwise - you'll find creating text content is as hard as any other type of content. You might run out of ideas by the time you're at the second or third room. And the players will burn through all that laborious content in the blink of an eye.
@@LazyDevs thanks for the realistic answers :) I'm realizing how incredibly difficult some "easy" games are 😂 ✌️ new sub from Spain 🇪🇸
@@LazyDevs thanks for taking the time to reply to this
Haha I tried to make a platformer once, but I set out to make something more like the platforming in Achievement Unlocked or This Is The Only Level - functional but kinda janky. Collision is hard.
Heh, actually "sorta janky but fun old browser game" is probably a reasonable target in general. Though not as reasonable as it used to be because flash was actually good at UI stuff and nothing today is.
Big fan on Achievement Unlocked. Probably the best type of game for a beginner Platformer.
Cap. My first project is literally a 3D platformer with advanced movement.
Tower defence is not that hard to make in Godot
Classic
My tips for making said game. Don't lol