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
Seriously cannot recommend GBStudio enough for beginners, it makes making a gb/gbc game pretty simple, it's also FOSS (free, open source software) and the devs in my experience are very responsive as is the community
A quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite handheld video game system.
Worth noting that ren'py and gb studio will happily let you add whatever ridiculous code you want on top of their frameworks. GB Studio will straight up dump the entire engine as a CMake project if you want to work in assembler or C, so if you don't like the way something works you can change it.
A while ago, I made a doc filled with pretty much evwry cheap and free resource I could find for game dev, and Im still working on it. Highly reccommend checking it out.
your petscop art is really cool and different and makes me feel so much <3
thank you so much ♡♡♡ petscop means a lot to me, and its been one of my favorite unfiction stories for a long time. probably one of the most complex, high-effort, and unique of its kind.
Hi! I saw you mention this one comic called dropout awhile ago on your insta story and I read it and really liked it and the author's other works! I was wondering if you had any other good webcomic/story/book recommendations?
pretty much everyone on my side of the internet has read this by now but pinky and pepper forever is another awesome independent webcomic..! johnny the homicidal maniac, though i haven't read it in a few years, was a favorite when i was in highschool. the umbrella academy comics are an interesting read as well (another highschool fav) and, if you're alright with heavy sex themes, the pervert by remy boydell and michelle perez is a good read. ive heard remy's other works are good too, ive been meaning to check them out.
i actually haven't read that many comics in the last few years.. i should really get back on them.
and as for books, im barely getting back into reading as of last year -- my current favorite is "im thinking of ending things" (and i highly recommend the film adaptation too! it's different but, in my eyes, just as good)
The Birthday Phone Animal comes to those deep in grieving on their birthday, and follows them around. Opening its mouth as if to bleat, the tinny sound of a phone ringing comes out. if you pick up, you’re rewarded a short phone call with the deceased person you wish to hear from most.
blinkie made using blinkies.cafe, images for the stamp & button are from the max2019 neocities and gifcities
image ID's under the cut
second image: an animated gif stamp. the first frame reads "max2019" in blue underlined times new roman font, as if it were a hyperlink, in front of a background of colorful digital static. the second frame reads "i'm so sick" in black times new roman font with the "zalgo" effect, in front of an illustration of a light-skinned woman with blond hair and angel wings, with some digital distortion on her face and wings.
third image: an animated gif web button reading "max 2019" in black times new roman font, in front of a plain white background. in the center, an angel in white robes flaps its wings twice; then, after a frame of static, it briefly has six wings, before looping back to the beginning of the gif.
third image: an animated gif web button reading "max 2019" in black times new roman font, in front of a plain white background. in the center, an angel in white robes flaps its wings twice; then, after a frame of static, it briefly has six wings, before looping back to the beginning of the gif.
fourth and fifth images: the first image (the "hey peebrain, you teleport?" blinkie) repeated, but in a smaller size.
you guys im so sorry it happened again. i fell off posting my art on tumblr LMAO. sorry im so used to instagram and am just barely getting myself warmed up to twitter. im drawing my oc's and scott pilgrim over on those if you wanna see more of my stuff 👍👍 i will probably just be intermittently reblogging on here
"Where's the part where he turns out to be lying and there's no HL2VRAI?"
Congratulations, you figured it out. You know all my tricks.
The student becomes the master.
Master of shit.
It was HLVRAI the whole time!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
>>
partway through the stream i had the passing thought of "wouldn't it be funny if at the very end hlvrai was mentioned as some kind of twist?" and. well.
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