This post outlines the process I used to make Epic. I believe it to be highly effective based on the results it produced.


SO U WANT TO MAKE UR GAEM?

You sit down, make a blog post about how awesome it's gonna be, and hire someone to rip make you a player base. And bam, now you're a game developer.

er... but you haven't done anything to get to the "game" part.


HERE WE GOOOO

1. WANT TO MAKE GAME.

In order to make your "epic" game, you'll need a powerful instinct inside of you to always be saying, "Dude. Make it." If you don't have that drive to make something that others can enjoy as much as you do, then this is not for you.

2. LEARN HOW TO DO THIS.

You need experience. A good 90% of the people you'll "hire" will be useless vegetables if you have no experience in finding a good dev team.

You'll have to make the whole core engine solo. There's no other choice, in my opinion, if you want YOUR game to not only become playable but be YOUR game.

3. PLAY GAEMS.

Play random games that you like, or that revolve around the theme you want to pursue. If I wanted to make a roguelike zombie survivor, I'd play Rogue Survivor, Project Zomboid, and Desktop Dungeons. You'll need a role model regardless of how new you are to game design.

Oh, and don't pick shitty games. If you want to make a "dbz gaem", then that doesn't mean you should pursue the game-play of mainstream commercial Dragonball Z related games. You should try playing things like Street Fighter if you're making a fighter. (NOTE: "DRAGONBALL" is NOT a game-play theme. "Multiplayer action RPG with fighter elements" is a game-play theme. "Street Fighter mixed with WoW" is a game-play theme. But not "dragonball"- that's atmospheric.)

4. WAIT.

You have the drive to make a game, but unless the game-play is crystal-clear in your imagination it is never going to become true. You shouldn't make a game until you know EXACTLY what you want. The game should, "make itself" per se. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try- You'll know you have your game when it's there, but it might take a couple prototypes to get going.

5. PROTOTYPES!!!

This is where a lot of you people seem to stop comprehending me. You HAVE to prototype your game. This involves taking the game-play, programming it into life, and then playing it to see if it's fun. The first thing you do should NEVER be sitting around waiting for some retard to rip naruto icons for you. everrr.

When I made Epic, I sat on my couch and went through at least 5 different drastic game-changes until I had what I wanted. The first thing I did was draw some turfs(ie. grass was filling a square with green.), mobs(circles.), and random objects that would make good dungeon puzzles(chests, etc). Now that I had all the icons I needed to make this game playable, I tried experimenting with different control schemes. First I tried shmup controls- WASD and the mouse to aim your character. Didn't go so well with me. Then, I tried using only WASD's directions to control the character and had the mouse control actions...

*shines magical halo of light on self*

6. MAKE DAT CORE

Now that you have a solid idea of how the game will play, it is time for you to devote hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of your time to developing the game's core. Make everything. Epic had multiplayer dungeons, combat involving bows swords and magic, ability hotslots, quests, inventory screen, hp and mana bars, and er.... Just about everything I wanted, before I revealed it to the public. This was version 0.1, with three dungeons and 1 quest.

Oh, and personally up until the core is finished and I have a playable demo I don't tell ANYONE about my project. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment, when in reality I accomplished nothing until the game's playable.

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL YOU SINGLE PROGRAMMERS OUT THERE: Make sure you program your game to be idiot proof. Make the things like abilities, quests, items, and dungeons(examples from Epic that may not be specific to your game) be so easy to add that a monkey with no programming experience can do it.

DEVELOP!!!!!

Now that your game is revealed to the public, I recommend you grab someone to help you expand your game! If you made it idiot proof like I mentioned up there ^ then it shouldn't matter WHO does it. Pick a loyal friend who enjoys playing all of your games as much as you do, and I'm 100% sure that you'll be able to get things going.

Your loyal buddy's job would be to expand the game, while your job is to expand the engine and make the game even larger than it was first intended. Each update in Epic involves Blazekid adding 4 dungeons with gear and abilities to match and me adding whatever comes to my head to the entire game, or polishing the engine/whatever. It is fun for me to do because I get to be lazy and make substantial changes with little effort and it is fun for Blazekid because he loves playing my games and now he gets to expand on them.

ANOTHER NOTE! I RECOMMEND YOU ALLOW PEOPLE TO PLAY YOUR GAME AS YOU PROGRESS. IT WILL HELP YOU GENERATE A LOT OF FEEDBACK AND DEVELOP A STRONG FOLLOWING, ESPECIALLY IF YOUR GAME IS GOOD. AND IF IT ISN'T, FEEDBACK WILL MAKE IT GOOD.

and note 2: Be ready to change things on the fly. Like I said, feedback is good AMAZING. I'll have one player sit down and play Epic for a while, and any comment that they make about inefficiencies in the game-play forces me to instantly go in and change things to accommodate to their needs. Your players are the people who are most important, and if they don't like something, changing it will almost always make your game better. (and better games get more players = more feedback = <3)

Finish it.

Before you'll know it, you'll have a huge completed game. Epic releases a new demo around once a week which increments the version by 0.1 each time. Each version has 4 new dungeons, and that's how we base how far we are in terms of progress. Between versions, however, I make drastic changes and awesome additions to the game-play. It's extremely fun to add to a fun game like this, especially since the engine is already finished. It's not like anything I've ever done before(well actually this is the method that developed Pokemon 3 years ago back when I was a crappy programmer xD) and motivation loss is almost always out of the question.

Blazekid's even worried about 1.0, because he's afraid we won't work on it any more. It's not work- it's a hobby. Epic is not demanding to work on at all. The programming is set up to be easy for me, and I can make quick changes or additions on the fly. I get so much done so fast, and I spend most of my day sitting around playing minecraft and Pyrce High(which is actually a great Mitadake High clone, lmao).




Read this if you want to have fun making a long-term project. There's so many other reasons why this development approach is working for me, but one reason stands above all others:

I have a game. Epic is a game. That's where most of you go wrong when approaching game development- you forget you're making games.</3>