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
What I am going to suggest is that us indie artist & writer folx - @thebibliosphere , @seananmcguire , @dduane , @simakai , @somecunttookmyurl , @renthony , @mayakern , @fatsexybitch , @natalieironside, @lauraannegilman , @optimysticals , @theshitpostcalligrapher - tag others, I know I'm forgetting so many people - should probably chat about where we want to start building community.
Like, we gotta. That's an unfortunate part of being a creative in the world as it is. So rather than wandering in various directions and hoping people will follow us, we might wanna like... try to do things in an organized fashion. Or at least a semi-organized fashion.
Gonna be real, though. I hate losing my community spots over and over again. Like @seananmcguire said in another thread of this post, I still miss LiveJournal.
The site will still be basically functional but we don't really have a way of knowing for how long.
It could be months or years, but overall functionality is going to start going down. The staff is being cut down to a skeleton crew.
Here are the threads for The Post:
Link 1
Hey friends 🫂
Link 2
Hey friends 🫂
Link 3
Hey friends 🫂
It's time to start coordinating on where to go next.
Tumblr had just recently started up when Live Journal was sold to a Russian company so this is where most of LiveJournal ended up and that was on purpose. People chose as groups to come here.
(LiveJournal was where most of FF.net and a fair number of deviantart artists had ended up previously when those sites had been losing popularity and having issues)
Honestly though it's been a nice decade plus here and I guess nothing lasts forever.
It's time to start archiving your blog, archiving your favorite blogs run by other people, and setting up new accounts to put everything elsewhere.
With Black Friday around the corner now is a good time to buy some flash drives or other storage for your backups.
Maybe make a youtube video of what your blog/favorite blogs look/looked like while the site is still functional to remember them by.
People will begin to discuss the merits of various platforms/websites and compare and contrast them and give them a trial run while keeping their account open on tumblr for a while.
Different communities will have different needs. Tumblr really was amazing because it catered to so many different styles of expression and because of that so many different kinds of communities could make a home here; but most sites aren't really built like that so that's where people may find some sticking points.
It may mean that we won't have a one-stop website for everything that we have a niche interest for anymore and instead have multiple sites for different things.
And of course there will be things (probably distinct reblog chains and tags scrolling / note scrolling) that only Tumblr did unless the new sites incorporate that into their design.
What's great about the fact that we were given the info now is that we can coordinate where to go to a certain extent.
Tumblr being built the way it is has fostered a lot of unique interaction but at the end of the day it's still the community and comraderie that makes this place home.
If we coordinate where to go then we'll have an easier time getting started there.
I do feel extra bad for all the recent Reddit and Twitter influx because while I'm sure you all knew you were running from a burning building into a sinking ship, no one knew quite how fast we were taking on water it seems.
one plus one equals three, 9.5k, rated t, alhaitham/cyno/kaveh
If Kaveh can help Alhaitham find happiness with Cyno, at least he would have done one thing right. It will bruise his heart, but it’s already a battered thing – it can take a few more hits.
Yeah, Lu Guang is messing up time and space for Cheng Xiaoshi or whatever but my mind is still here:
They come in and we can see that CXS is still limping a bit. So he hasn’t fully recovered yet? Oh no!
But then Lu Guang basically tells us he’s just pretending to still be injured
and even pushes him off of him. Really showing us that CXS is completely fine
Then Qiao Ling approaches and CXS realizes the surprise she has prepared for them and instead of getting up and going there on his own after being called out on his dramatic act two times already
He has the audacity to ask Lu Guang for help again. Even being shocked at getting ignored.
And to fully hammer in how much CXS does NOT actually need Lu Guang to hold him tightly they give us this:
Literal running. Because you know his leg is actually completely fine.
Sooo….?
he just wanted Lu Guang to take care of him? Wanted to be held by him a bit longer? Be physically close to him? Like a needy little boyfriend?
You just know he used Lu Guang as a crutch at every opportunity he could get while they were still in the hospital lol
Bonus points for:
absolutely no reason to have your whole arm around him CXS but you do you
A fandom gift exchange for the Genshin Impact polyamorous ship of Alhaitham/Cyno/Tighnari/Kaveh.
Participants fill in the form to submit their likes and dislikes, and some prompts to inspire their gifter. Based on these and other preferences, you are given a secret assignment to create a gift for another person who has signed up! You don't let them know you are creating for them until the end, when the gift is shared.
TIMELINE
September 25th: Sign Ups Open
October 25th: Sign Ups Close; matching begins
October 25th-November 4th: Matching Period
November 4th-January 10th: Creation period
December 4th: Check in
January 1st: Final check in and pinch hit assignments
January 10th - January 20th: posting period
RULES
Fics must be 1500 words long minimum
Art must be at least one piece including cleaned up lines and shading.
Creative endeavours other than fic or art (eg. meta, podfic, vid) are welcomed, but you should discuss with the mod to agree on an equivalent minimum effort.
You are free to do more than the minimum requirements listed above if you wish.
You are not obligated to feature all 4 characters from the ship, but the content and prompts must clearly indicate a polyamorous relationship between Cyno/Alhaitham/Tighnari/Kaveh - eg. you can't ask for, or create Cyno/Tighnari, Kaveh/Alhaitham, Tighnari/Kaveh, etc. content alone.
If you are under 18 you can't request or create 18+ content
You must share your creation publicly online during the creation period and tag your giftee.
You must respond to your gift when you receive it with a comment.
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
annaxmalina
stormborns
andulkaphoto
