The gaming industry is one of the fastest growing segments of the IT industry. How difficult is it to learn how to create games or at least some of their elements? Can a user cope with such tasks alone? How do professionals create computer games?
What do you need to start creating games?
First of all, involvement in the industry as a player is necessary. Without knowledge of the structure of games from the inside and the psychology of gamers, observing how computer graphics work in real time, and not in theory, it is very difficult to achieve success in releasing your own games. If a game is created with an eye to commercial sales (or at least for the purpose of promoting its developer’s personal brand), then it must be competitive, reflect the current demands of the gaming community. To release a product without guessing with the “trend” is to waste time. Therefore, it is important to be not just an amateur gamer, but also to study the market, to be able to put new games on your computer, to test them. This means that the developer will also need a very powerful PC. And here we go to the second main condition for success in the gaming industry. We are talking about hardware components - hardware.
It is known that the most powerful computers (from a PC, of course, we are not talking about industrial computers) are gaming. They include hardware components (processor, video card, memory, chipset), which are much more technological than PCs for office and home use. Outwardly, of course, computers of various classes can hardly differ, but from the point of view of the electronic "filling" the difference is significant. A gaming PC can cost 5-10 times more than an office or home PC. It is possible that even some separate component (for example, the same processor) will have a price higher than the entire finished PC for the office. By the way, powerful hardware will be needed not only for testing gaming products. High-performance components also require specialized software for playing games on a computer. Those with which masterpieces of the industry will be created.
The third component of success in the release of cool games is, as the experts of the "gaming workshop" say, a special kind of thinking. It should combine two, it would seem, completely different principles: logic and creativity. The first is necessary in order to navigate well in the construction of scripts, scripts and various kinds of dependencies laid down in the product concept, to determine how to write a game in a structure that future users will understand and accept. The second is to give your product unique features that distinguish it from similar or competing solutions.
Game Creation Methods
How to create games on the computer? Experts identify three main ways to develop gaming products: the use of designers, the use of game engines, as well as writing from scratch. The first is the simplest, the third is the hardest. Therefore, if we are new to the field of creating games, then it makes sense to us to pay attention to the possibility of using designers. However, it will be useful to consider the features of each of the tools.
Game designers
A constructor is a set of patterns that have a programmed behavior model. The closest analogy that can be given, explaining how to create a game using such a solution is “Lego” parts. Just as children construct by reading a manual or improvising, houses, cars and other interesting plastic masterpieces.
The user has relatively great freedom in managing templates, setting scripts for their work. It is unlikely, of course, that with the help of a designer, even an experienced game developer will be able to produce a product that will make a sensation in the world market. Such programs are more likely to be educational in nature, allowing beginner gamers to understand how to create computer games. However, even this kind of task assigned to designers is important from the point of view of industry development.
Game engines
Creating games with the help of engines is a process in which the user receives a disproportionately wider set of tools than in the case of designers. It is quite realistic to say that through the interfaces supplied by the manufacturers of such solutions, it is possible to create competitive solutions even at the world level - arcade games, 3D-action games, simulation games. The engines are installed on the computer without problems and are almost always accompanied by a convenient interface for using them. As a rule, also high-quality reference and training systems.
What is an engine? This, in fact, is just a set of commands (albeit a very complex one, consisting of hundreds of thousands of algorithms) that allow you to run individual game processes. The number of templates, similar to those available in the designers, as a rule, is minimized. And those that are are very easily amenable to modification or replacement with those that the user himself will develop. Engaging engines requires, of course, more skill than working with designers. If we are talking about creating a serious game, then the user will most likely have to attract someone else to help (we will consider the structure of a typical development team later). But once having mastered the engine’s interfaces, subsequently a person will be able to adapt existing knowledge and skills to create almost any game products.
Game from scratch
In the event that the user has outgrown the capabilities of the game engines, not to mention the designers, learned several programming languages, studied in detail the principles of creating 3D graphics, then it is time for him to master the most difficult tool for creating games - writing a gaming masterpiece from scratch. The stages of the release of a new product will most likely include the development of its own engine - rarely what kind of game is complete without it, all the more claiming recognition in the community.
However, it is worth noting that it is very difficult to cope with the release of a product from scratch alone (although the history of the gaming industry knows such precedents). But to go through some stages of the development of the game (such as, for example, creating characters, drawing graphic elements) in order to then connect other people, having assembled a team, it is quite possible for one user.
Professional developers
If we are talking about the development of games as a separate market segment, then the main role is played by professional studios with the financial and human resources to produce commercially competitive products.
Creating top-level games costs hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars, and dozens of specialists of various profiles join in their release. There are, of course, small and medium-sized development companies whose budgets for the release of gaming products can fit in the amount of 8-10 thousand "green", but this is a very specific segment.
The structure of a professional gaming studio
Continuing the conversation about the professional gaming industry, it will be useful to study the structure of the average development company. Who should work for a company that claims to create a world-class gaming bestseller? How do people who do this on a professional basis create computer games?
The development team must include designers and artists. Without their talent, computer graphics will not impress users. Graphics is, according to many experts, a key factor in the success of the game. In some cases, posts of this type are divided by function. For example, in the team of game creators there may be separately 2-D, 3D-designers, as well as the so-called concept artists, who offer their colleagues and company management for approval sketches of future graphic elements.
The next group of specialists is the "modelers." They, to match the naming of their position, create prototypes of the characters of the game, as well as the surrounding artifacts, equipment, buildings, "model" the future virtual world. In some cases, specialists in this category are helped by animators (in those cases when it is necessary to model especially complex movements of characters).
In most cases, the programmers themselves are involved in the creation of the games. This happens most often when the development company uses its own engine, but you need to periodically coordinate the scripts written in it with the features of the game animation laid down by the artists. If the engine is supplied by a third-party developer, then, as a rule, changes to the program code are not required.
A serious gaming product cannot be made without an art director. This man is called upon to consolidate the efforts of artists and designers within a single concept. He, moreover, will be responsible for work efficiency, organization of processes so that the game is released on time.
We create games ourselves: review of programs
How to create a game with only general knowledge regarding the work of programs for the development of gaming products? There are so many tools that even an amateur can create their own game. Here are some examples of those types of solutions that we talked about above.
Game maker
This program makes it possible to create a game even for those users who do not speak programming languages. This, however, is not about the development of three-dimensional masterpieces. The program allows you to create only 2D-games, but in a wide variety of genres. You can make very simple computer games : "shooter", "rpg". The menu available to the user contains a large number of ready-made templates. All that essentially remains to be done is to come up with your own game scenario.
The program contains quite detailed instructions, a good quality help system. Having mastered the capabilities of Game Maker at a basic level, the user can proceed to study the built-in language of this program - Game Maker Language. Using its capabilities, you can go beyond the limits laid down in the software templates and create games from scratch.
Construct 2
Construct-2 is recognized by experts as one of the most functional solutions in the class for creating games by users who do not speak programming languages. A huge plus of this solution is that with its help you can release games for most of the platforms used today - Windows, iOS, Android, create them in HTML5 and applications for Facebook (after understanding how to make programs to run on this social network, the user will learn how to create a game in VK, show it to friends). Construct-2 users note the simplicity and clarity of its interface. You can work mainly on templates, but there are a lot of them, and therefore there is almost anyone that fits into the script invented by the user. A nice aspect - with Conustruct-2 you can create your own game for free.
Unity 3D
Two of the above programs are designed to create games in 2D-mode. Unity allows you to work using the capabilities of 3D-graphics. The opportunities that the program provides are a huge number. As in the case of Construct 2, there is multi-platform (there is even support for consoles - Xbox, PlayStation, Wii).
The program includes one of the best in the world, according to experts, game engines (it is also called Unity). Therefore, this solution, without any exaggeration, allows you to create world-class gaming masterpieces (unless, of course, we manage to assemble a team comparable in terms of personnel to at least an average development studio). It will be possible to release very serious games on the computer. Shooting is unambiguous, strategies are also quite real, racing, simulations are easy.