Many people want to make games, but they do not know where to start. There are so many different parts to making a game, that it can be difficult knowing where to begin. This step-by-step guide will teach you all of the parts that you need to know to design a great, basic game for everyone to play.
Step One: Base Game Design Every game starts with this phase. Do you think the idea for Mario happened in one day? No, it started with someone wanting to make a 2D platformer and working off of that. The first step to any game is coming up with an idea of what you want it to be. You don’t need to know anything about the characters, story, or anything, except what you want the basis of the gameplay to be. You could make a MOBA like League of Legends or Heroes of the Storm, or you could make an FPS like COD or Overwatch. There are many different types of games that you can look up on the internet if you need ideas. Or you could think of your favorite game. What makes you like it so much? Do you like other games of that type? These questions will help you decide what type of game you want to make. The next question is if your game is going to be 2D or 3D. This becomes much easier to answer after you have an idea of what type of game you want to make, as games like FPS’s tend to be better in a 3D world, and sidescrollers tend to work better in a 2D world. This doesn’t mean that every game type is always one or the other. Platformers can easily be either 2D or 3D, depending on how you want to make it. Some games, such as Fez, even switch between 2D and 3D graphics at a moment's notice. Once you have your game type and dimensions figured out, it’s time to move to step two. Step Two: Art Style/Theme To make your game pop you need something special. An easy way to do this is by having an art style that that sets you apart from everyone else. Games like Crawl do this easily by having a very simple, yet different art style than the majority of the games on the market. This is not the most necessary step, but it helps give your game a polished and distinct feel. Choosing an appropriate art style for the type of game and the desired theme is also important. The next part of this step is the central theme of the game. Theme is the feel of your game as you play it. Is it going to be dark and gritty like Bloodborne? Or is it going to be light-hearted and bright like Animal Crossing? The theme also includes the setting of your game, the time period, and the control scheme. These are things that will support the central theme, adding to and expanding it. The setting can change as often as you want–maybe that is a key part of your game–but the tone of the game should stay the same. Step Three: Story A good story can make or break a game. The story in a video game should be creative and interesting. After all, the point is to keep players invested in the events of the game. However, not every good game needs a story. Fighting games like Super Smash Bros often don’t have a story. MMO’s like WoW may have an overarching story or lore to them, but the player is free to do what they want and can entirely ignore it, embarking on other smaller side quests and activities. Other games such as BioShock rely on storytelling as one of the central game elements. The inclusion of a story ultimately comes down to what kind of game you decide to make. Step Four: Level Design You have probably been wanting to know how to make a good level, that is probably why you even came to this guide. Sadly, there is no one clear rule to making a good level, though there are many little things that you can do to make your game have a better level design. The first thing that you want is diversity. You never want your game to always be repeating itself. Some games can have this diversity through the player's allies or enemies, if your game is multiplayer, but it is generally good to have diversity through your level. If the first level in Mario was just the same length platform over and over again, with the same goomba trying to kill you, do you think it would be fun? No, because it would be too repetitive. Mario has diversity in many ways. First, they have different lengths, heights, and types of platforms to jump across. Second, they have varying holes in the floor for the player to move around, along with shortcuts to mix things up. Third, they have different enemies. If Mario just had goombas, it would not be nearly as fun of a game than it is now, with its multitude of different things for you to learn how to avoid and defeat. Fourth, each level should have something unique about it. It could be the introduction of a new enemy, or it could be some new terrain, but it needs something to make it memorable and set it apart. What you should take from this is that inside every level, there should be some variation, even if it is just enemies coming from different directions, and each level should have something different about it. The second key thing to good level design is knowing how to lead the player. We’ve all played frustrating games where the next step isn’t obvious. This may be because there’s no obvious objective, the environments look too similar or it’s just simply a confusing map. A great example of all three of these problems is the forest area in Eragon. There are no clues as to where to go, every surface is a blurry green and brown jumble and the map is a maze. Whatever the reasons, these kind of levels aren't fun to play without a sense of purpose. Good level design hints to a player where they need to go/what they need to do without giving it away. The goal is to make the player feel like they are discovering the things for themselves, meaning show the player where to go, but don’t hold their hand the whole time. There are many ways of doing this, one way being with having one clear path. This is the most simple way of leading the player, as there is only one way to go. A great example of this is Mario, how there is only one way that you can really go, but there are different ways to get there through shortcuts and side paths. Another way to lead the player is by giving them small hints on where to go, but not fully telling them what to do. Dark Souls barely lead the player along, but it is fun because of that. The player only kind of knows what their goal is, but they know that they need to keep going and exploring. Both games are great in their own way, and both games have a very different approach for leading the player. The third key is to make sure your levels have the right amount of challenge to them. You do not want your game to be too easy, making it not fun, but at the same time, you don’t want your game to be too hard because that would just frustrate the player. Games are better when they start off easier and slowly amp up with the difficulty as the player learns to play the game better. This is shown in almost every game, with the tutorial level generally being the easier part at the start and then after that, the game starts to get harder. The game should progressively get harder, but it should never be too hard that it makes the game unfun. It is good to throw in easier levels, that would have been harder earlier in the game, to show how far the player has advanced and to make them feel powerful. What you should get from this is that you want your game to be difficult, but not too difficult to make the player feel bad. The three big keys that you should get from this is that diversity, leading the player, and having a challenge, really helps to make good levels. Other things may help, but these three things are the biggest things that you need to make a good level. Step Five: Replayability Replayability is a massive part of games. If your game is long enough, it doesn’t always need to be replayable, but it is always better if it can be. Replayability makes it so people want to play your game, they become invested into it and they like it. It is important to have replayability for a few reasons. The main reason is that it makes it so you constantly have people playing your game, meaning that there are always bug testers and people testing to see if the game is fun or not. Another reason why replayability is good is because it makes it so the game is fun. Without it the game would only be fun for so many hours, and then after you beat the game, it is useless and a memory, nothing more. With the ability to replay the game people will keep playing the game, which in the end is what you want to happen when you make a game. To make your game replayable you need to have something different when the player plays through again. Games aren’t fun when you do the same thing over and over again, so you need something different that the player can do to make each runthrough different and unique. An example of a game that does this is Terraria. They do this in a variety of different ways. The first way that they do this, that is not need for many and most games, is that they have randomly generated worlds. This helps make each playthrough feel different enough to make it fun. Not all games need this though, if you have enough other content it will fill in the need for any random generated material. The second big thing that Terraria does is that they have multiple different “characters”. There are four distinct roles that you can fill in Terraria making it so you can play the game at least four different times and have completely different experiences. Another thing that they do is having multiplayer. Games are more fun when you play with other people, and other people will do things differently than you will, making each time you play the game feel new. With all of these steps, you should be able to get on your way to making a game. The last few things that you really need to do is choose what platform you want to make your game on and in what language, but there are many other guides out there for that, and it is all based on what you already know. This guide has set you up to be able to have a great game concept, start to finish, that should make creating your game, or pitching your idea, easy to do.
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This Event is the reason that we all decided to work on the game in the first place, and make this dream game into a reality, and most of it happened in the 36 hours leading up to and during this event.
Alec and Kaden were coding like maniacs and chugging mountain dew, Anna and Tate were frantically making backgrounds, and sprite sheets late into the night, Henry was working relentlessly on the ranged attacking code in the game, and Alissa was working on making every fall into place with miscellaneous tasks. Even friends of the team, Jake and Noah, were helping where they could, on things like the LED sign. When we got to OGPC we immediately removed a post from a doorway in order to get the arcade cabinet inside the event area, and spilled tea everywhere. The boss, and ranger weren't working, and we were given a early judging time. Somehow we managed to have a descent judging session, and there was always a crowed around our game. By the end of the day we came out with the Judges Choice award, and a bunch of sleep deprived teenagers, so we packed up to head home, and continue making the game better for BetaCon the next weekend. |
WHo WE AREWe are team ATAAHK, a group of six juniors at Wilson High School in Portland, OR. We're making a pretty awesome arcade game that we're hoping to release on Steam if once the our game polished enough. Archives |