New At Game designing

#1 Lesson 1.

using all capitol letters is a no no. Most people consider it rude annoying, and wont answer.

#2 Ok Lesson 1 learnt ace.... thanks a lot.. now can you help me out pleaseeeee..............

Hi

I love playing games and i have always wanted to design a game of my own. I have done my animation and that's it...... I have no knowledge of programming at all or any other thing as regards to designing games...... I really serious about learning how to design games...... I would appreciate if you guys to tell me as to where i could start and what i would need installed and stuff to develop a game.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys !!!

Thanks

Meherzad

#3 Lesson 2.

dont post the same thing on different forums, if you findyou posted something in the rong place delete it before reposting.

#4 Ok enough of the lessons then. Try downloading one of the demos that are being worked on

Realm wars for team play

www.garagegames.com/mg/projects/realmwars/

NoESCape Sp)examples for more of a single player oriented

cleverace.home.comcast.net/

both demos can be modified and would be agood starting place, once in game press f10 and f11 to bring up the in game editors, get familiar with them they will be your best friend while developing

#5 Well ace i dont know about posting wrong am new here so posted it on this forum .......... if you think its wrong then let me know else we could move on to lesson 3

#6 If you click on the posters name, it will bring you to that names profile page, if you look at your profile page, you will see a category "notes" and yours say none, now click on mine, in "notes" mine will say i am a torque sdk owner. Until your says the same as mine, all we can really do is lead you to the free modify able demos, and you should really check one of them out completely before buying the torque license, Torque has basically 2 code bases (c++ and script) . script is for the non owners that want to developer as it calls on the c++ without really giving up the sdk.

#7 You don't necessarily need to use Torque to make games. That's just one game engine. You can use a different one or get a programmer to make one for you.

Garagegames is very Torque-centric because they created it.

You don't need to know how to program to design games, but SOMEONE will have to write the program for the game.

The big problem with game design is that almost anyone can do it if they try enough times and play enough games. So it would be a good idea for you to acquire one of the big 3 skills: programming, art, or music.

However, if you can create a really good design and have everything completely planned out down to the smallest detail, you could conceivably be a game designer without being anything else.

That is unlikely though. It seems like game designers who don't have to work on some other portion of the game tend to have impossibly high expectations of how the game's going to turn out. Even big companies turn out alot of crap - you need to set realistic expectations if you're going to be making games a few random people you find on the Internet.

There's so much to say, but no time to say it in. There should really be some sort of huge newbie faq for each game-related skill.

#8 Meherzad - Ok, you say you want to design a game. Do you really want to be the game designer and have to come up with all the ideas yourself, or do you want to work wth a game designer to create content for a game (possibly animations if that's what your current skills are in)?

Assuming you really do want to be a game designer, the thing to do is create a game design document. You need to have a concept for the game you want to make, decide what genre it should be, describe the features you want the game to have and what it should feel like to play, what the world and characters are like, etc. It's a lot of work, it takes a lot of creativity and goodwriting skills to make a game design document.

One way to start is to think about your favorite game or 2, and write down which features you really liked and which you think should be changed. The opposite approach is to think of a game that loked like it was going to be great, but turned out to be lousy. Why did that happen? What changes would have made it live up to its potential?

#9 One of the best suggestions I can give you on behalf of designing a game is to always question how to persue anything you wish to implement in your game design. It's one thing to think of something cool, it's another to question how cool it truely will be in the long run.

- What does x feature bring to my game and can I see it working effectively, even considering feature y?
- How should/does feature x work?
- Does it add gameplay/fun and/or will it add more gameplay/fun to the game without decreasing the gameplay/fun?
- How easy does it sound to implement feature x?
- Does feature x break or hinder any major game rules/open a door for poor sportsmanship - will it be neglected or abused?
- What kind, and how much, content will be needed for this feature?
- How much tweaking of feature x will need to be done to balance it in your game?
- Can the game be just as fun without this feature, or otherwise would it be best to leave it out for another time?

Yes there's a ton more you can think of, but I think you get the picture on how you should question yourself as you flesh out a game design. The designer is expected to think of just about everything pertaining to their game, and the more knowledge you have in every area of the development process, the better!

Make sure you take other things into consideration as well, like what your target audience is, how society will see your game, and what you will do to promote your game pending it's release.

Oh yeah, also, remember that being indie means you set your own restrictions and have the freedom to persue your game in a "thinking outside the box" fashion, if you so desire. Let your creativity run wild!

I wish you luck!

- Ronixus

#10 I suggest the Torque Game Engine over anything else, well... mainly because it's better. You can't beat the $100 price tag (Well you can, but not while upholding the same quality) and there are so many people in this community that are willing to help you for free/cheap. Like Bravetree, they create content packs for next to nothing. Most models cost about $100+ a piece (Some that cost that much aren't even textured).

Even I created a content pack which can be obtained at www.gamebeavers.org. It's the Arcade Development Pack. (And yes, it's free ;) ) The files come with .dts, so you have to use Torque or export them first to use them.

Also, from your sentences, I'm gonna asume that English is not your first language. I'm not one to judge because, well though I try, I still have a Chinese accent while speaking Japanese (And I'm American, with no Chinese heritage), and after 8 years of Spanish, I'd be lucky to understand "hello."

You said:

Quote:I love playing games and i have always wanted to design a game of my own. I have done my animation and that's it...... I have no knowledge of programming at all or any other thing as regards to designing games...... I really serious about learning how to design games...... I would appreciate if you guys to tell me as to where i could start and what i would need installed and stuff to develop a game.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys !!!

It should have been:

Quote:I've always enjoyed playing games, and for the majority of my life, I've wanted to design some games of my own. I have some experience in animation, but that's about it. I am completely clueless about how to program, but I really want to do this. I would really appreciate it if you guys could show me a starting point.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys!!!

Quote:Well ace i dont know about posting wrong am new here so posted it on this forum .......... if you think its wrong then let me know else we could move on to lesson 3

Please try to work on at least getting the noun and verb placement right. ;) Let's fix the sentence. It should be:

Quote:Well, Ace, I don't know which forums to post in because I'm new here. If you think that it's wrong, please tell me so. In the meantime, let's move on to lesson 3.

:-) I normally wouldn't nit-pick about these things, but it's really hard to understand you.

#11 As it turns out, designing games is a very very UNscientific process. I would not start with something as complex as Torque. Although, it is a sweet system. but as a designer myself, i would start off by looking at www.gamedev.net for articles on what designing is and how it is implimented.

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=23