Ever since I was a kid I’ve always dreamed of one day creating a game, not for commercial success or anything of that nature – but to simply have it in front of me and go “wow, there she be”
I remember always playing some great classic, and while I enjoyed them – I’d always find myself wishing “what if they did this, or had that, or…”
Then I started getting involved with music, I ended up traveling overseas due to my father’s work. Still on the move, I graduated high school. Went to college and already am in my junior year. Became even MORE involved with my music – where game BGM become a major influence for some of the pieces I’ve written. It came to the point where I did nothing but write music and create artwork for my dream game I still had lingering in the back of my head. Now I’m in my 20′s and I still haven’t made much progress with this idea, other than have a whole library of music and a backdrop of artwork to pull from.
But I’ve no clue where to start. People say to start learning a language. I understand that, but I don’t understand how that goes about into creating the actual game? At least with music I understand the process more – You go through the process of actually writing and creating the music, afterward you track and record, from there you mix, and from there you master the cd. But theres never really been no realy explanation as to what’s involved with game development. People just outright say – learn a language, and get back with us. I can’t really say I appreciate that sorta advice tbh – I like knowing what I have in store for me down the road other than “learn a language”
Learning a language I would think, would be a learning experience even over a lifetime – just as how mixing and mastering music can be a lifetime trade, always learning new things – techniques – etc.
So when i do finally learn a language, what do I do with it?
Do I use the language, to then build a game engine?
Does that engine then use what’s in store, for example layers in sprites, music, sound fx, backgrounds?
Are scripts then entered to this engine?
Do those lists of scripts then packaged to create that one level?
Are your levels then packaged together as an executable file?
Where is all this information??? I understand some of those answers may be right in there in a text while learning a language.
I like knowing there’s some sort of goal waiting at the end of everything. The same with music – I know that my goal is to complete an album, with it being as polished as much as possible. but at least there are milestones in between. I know that I would have to learn about tracking, then working out the technical difficulties with software and hardware. From there I had to learn how to mix, pleasing tonalities, what instruments sit well in a mix – and what frequencies they occupy best – their voicing. It was just a series of smaller steps within the big ones. However I’m only hearing of just the one big step as far as game development’s concerned. Learn a language?!
