How to get started in game development

Though creating games can be a fun & exciting adventure, we'd be lying if we said it was also an easy one. Whether you're new to it or a seasoned vet, each new game brings with it new challenges, & many don’t have an easy or straightforward solution.

And while developing games can simply be a fun pastime, becoming a professional or successful indie game developer requires a lot of time, energy, dedication, & passion. The game industry is extremely competitive, & while we’re not suggestion as a solo game developer you need to single handedly be able to produce the next grand theft auto or call of duty to succeed, you do need to be able to produce art, design, or code, that is quality enough to be incorporated in those games, if working at a professional game studio is your goal.

When you're first getting into game development, you don’t need the most powerful computer. Many inexpensive desktops or laptops will be enough to run many of the applications you’ll need to get started. In fact, we often advise new, or potential game developers, not to spend all their money on the front end investing in hardware, or high priced equipment.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a game engine is, a game engine, is a software-development environment designed for people to build video games. In many cases, game engines provide a suite of visual development tools in addition to reusable software components. These tools are generally provided in an integrated development environment to enable simplified, rapid development of games.

Sound is easy to take for granite in a game, but plays a pivotal role in every game experience. Even a simple sound can set the entire mood of a game & can shift a players experience.

Sound in video games can be broken down into three parts:

• Gameplay Cues

• Feedback

• Driving emotions

Whether it’s 2d or 3d, art, like programming, is an essential part of almost every game. From characters to environments and menus to vehicles, art in games can sometimes rely on a variety of different softwares, tools, & skills that you need to, at the very least, familiarize yourself with.

The first question you need to ask & answer is, do I want to make a 2d or 3d game? 2d & 3d art rely on completely different softwares & skills you need to learn, and while in some cases, mainly involving 3d, the software may overlap, there are many aspects of them that don’t.

Programming is a huge part of any games development. Everything from interactive elements to character actions like walking, running, jumping, shooting, or fighting all have to be programmed into a game. So it’s not surprising that most people think that in order to develop a game you have to either know how to program, or ideally, have a set of programmers on your game development team.

And while learning how to code for games is an extremely useful skill that can allow you to create anything from game mechanics to developer tools, learning & mastering every single element of game development can be a monumental task.

From art and programming to sound design and testing, creating games entails so many different skills, knowledge, & software, it can almost seem overwhelming if not impossible to ever be able to create a game.

But remember, you don’t have to master, or even learn every single discipline in game development to create games.

Game Developers Republic is excited to announce, The Astro Galaxy Game Room! A brand new course created to not only help you learn & master lighting, & using unity’s various Render pipelines, but also teach you how to create games & game mechanics, without writing a line of code.

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So weather you an artists, designers, or programmer, with over 17 hours of video lessons, over 90 prefabs, over 100 unique texture maps, over 150 sprite & UI elements, 20 LUT color look up tabs, & HDRI images & materials, The Astor Galaxy Game Room - Mastering Unity Lighting, Render Pipelines, & Unity BOLT, course was designed to give you the knowledge, techniques, & the game asset, you need, to take your game from an idea, to a playable reality.

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