HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME!

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Ib, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

"your boobs are huge" thank you it's where I keep my big beautiful heart

if enjoying stylized top surgery scars is wrong, I never want to be right. cut up that boy's chest like ✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦

Please help out this cool person if you can! Or spread the link more

im in financial trouble again boys. really badly this time

gofundme link

pre-tdlr: my mom no longer has a job and wasn't given paid leave. i don't have a way to make money right now, rent is expensive, and we have a lot of kittens to take care of until they can be given away. we need money very very very bad. we are both physically disabled to a degree (severe chronic pain, hers worse than mine). I'm offering art in exchange for donations. okay now here's a detailed rundown

To give a more in depth recounting of the situation for the uninitiated, for the past year and a half, my mother and I have been virtually homeless. We've been temporarily housed by friends and family a few times, but patience with this sort of thing runs thin, so my grandpa (very generously) bought us an RV to stay in. We have a spot to park it, but rent for a PARKING spot for it is 800 a month--And it's over 1k a month in other places. shits fucked

Now, here's the main problem: My mom lost her job. She wasn't fired, but they moved shop, and despite essentially begging for compensation, they have given her nothing. This is with knowledge of our situation, too.

We do qualify for food stamps (thank god) but we desperately need money to help cover rent and cover some other...troubling problems. The RVs tags are expired, and it takes a crapton of money to get them replaced; If we were to move the RV with expired tags, we would get in legal trouble, so I'd really rather not be dealing with that if we get kicked off the property

On top of everything else, we have several kittens and even more cats; The kittens are still weaning on their mother and can't be given away, but we need money to feed them, too. seeing them go hungry would break my already broken heart into a million more broken little pieces

Most of the money would be going toward rent and bills, laundry (we have to go to the laundromat for washing clothes), gas for the car, new tags for the rv, and fees involved with me getting an ID, alongside whatever else comes up, just to help keep us afloat until my mom can land another job.

I will be offering rough-and-dirty commissions in exchange for donations to the gofundme if that gives you any incentive. Please. Please? Pretty please

If you can't donate, that's fine, but please share & reblog! It would mean the world and I'm just. Trying to keep it together while all this is happening. I'm planning on getting an ID as soon as possible, alongside a bank account, but I don't know when that will be. For now, this is my only option. Thank you so much!!!!!!!

gofundme link

0/3,000 (goal may change)

EXAMPLES OF WHAT ART TO EXPECT UNDER THE CUT!

Im willing to draw pretty much anything, including mechs, furries and gore. nothing too NSFW preferably, and not anything hateful. will do suggestive stuff. OCs, fanart, so on so forth. If you do want a comm, just screenshot proof that you donated and shoot me a DM and we can talk about it :3

this entire animatic is a good example too actually

i actually made this study guide/cheat sheet on the v models for myself a while ago!! big help for my previous post i hope y’all can get a kick out of it too

stupid

I made a Room Building tutorial! Lemme know if it helps! 🧡

Tip me here| Commission info here!