The Complete

Game Development Toolbox

Everything you need to start creating and publishing your own games

By Brice Morrison www.TheGameProdigy.com

1

Hello future game developer!

Playing games is a lot of fun, but making games is even better! Lucky for you and me, today we live in a golden age of indie game development where anyone with a computer and internet connection can dream up a game, build it, and share it with millions of potential players. All it takes is passion, a little bit of hard work, and knowing where to find the right tools and resources.

That’s where this Complete Game Development Toolbox comes in. What you are reading right now is a complete guide to getting where you need to go in game development, from project planning and setting goals, finding software and resources, all the way through to publishing your game for millions to see. I just know that you have hundreds of great game ideas bouncing around in your head – now it’s time to transform those ideas into code and pixels and share them with the world!

Whether you are just getting starting making your own games or you are a seasoned veteran with numerous releases under your belt, this guide has been written to be useful to you and help you find tools and tricks you never knew about. If you want to make games to beef up your portfolio or resume, to grow your skills, or even make some money, it’s all here. So if you’re one of the few who has what it takes to be a great game maker, then get ready: you’re only a few minutes away from becoming a full-fledged game developer!

Play hard,

Brice Morrison

Game Designer, Editor of TheGameProdigy.com

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Section I: Plan Like a Pro…4

o Your Compass: What Are your Goals?

o Your Roadmap: Make a Plan of Attack

o The Virtue of Being Humble

o The #1 Difference Between Amateurs and Pros

• Indie Game Spotlight: Sky Garden…9

• Section II: Dreaming In Code…10

o Getting started with Programming

o Coding Programs and Tools

o Level Up: Intermediate and Advanced Resources

• Indie Game Spotlight: Antichamber…14

• Section III: Becoming an Artiste!...15

o Developing the Art Style for a Game

o Parts of Game Art

o Programs and Resources

• Indie Game Spotlight: Canabalt…19

• Section IV: The Sound of Triumph…20

o Music in Games

o Sound Effects

o Creating Soundscapes

• Indie Game Spotlight: Minecraft…23

• Section V: Give The People What They Want…24

3

o Releasing Your Art to the World

o Competitions and Contests

o Getting Involved in Communities and Publications

o Listen to Your Players

• Indie Game Spotlight: Wizorb…28

• Section VI: Your Bright Future…29

o Making New Games

o Build a Team

o Careers in Games

4

SECTION I: PLAN LIKE A PRO

When professional game developers make massive AAA titles like Call of Duty or Elder Scrolls, there is considerable planning involved to build a schedule, design specifications, and make sure everyone knows what to do and when to do it. You don’t need to spend nearly as much time planning your game, but we can still learn a lot of useful tips and tricks from the pros that are applicable.

By taking 5 minutes to do some simple planning for your game, you’ll put yourself ahead of 95% of other students out there trying to make games. In this section we’ll talk about a couple of quick things you can focus on before you get started that will save you tons of time later on.

YOUR ROADMAP: WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?As with anything in life, it’s good to have a goal. A goal tells you where you are going and, sometimes more importantly, where you aren’t going. A goal can help you focus you or your team’s energies into a common purpose. A goal can give your team the energy to succeed and make your dreams into a reality.

Many students don’t have goals when they think of working on a game project. They just do it. Why? Probably because it seemed like a good idea, something that would be fun to do. That’s what I was thinking when I used to work on my first game projects. And there’s nothing wrong with that, to be sure. But going forward and getting serious about game development without a clear goal often results in:

• Giving up on a project

• Losing sight of why you’re doing it

• Expanding it into an unimaginably large scope that is discouraging and leads to burn out

I’ve seen all of these things happen to student developers before, and it’s not a pretty sight.

Making games, even small indie games, is harder work than you would think. A firm commitment to a goal can help you and your fellow students persevere. There are a number of different goals when working on a student or independent game project. All of them are valid, but it depends on what consequences you and your team are after. Here are some of the more popular goals for making a student game:

GOAL OPTION #1: IT’S FUN!Having fun is often the default, unstated goal. When people just start making a game for no reason as a hobby on a random afternoon when they were sitting on their couch in their student housing apartment, had an idea, and decided to make a game out of it. They get some of their friends involved, and have lots of energy. Well, at least at the beginning they have lots of energy.

5

Now there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself when you’re making a game. However, if this ill-defined goal is the only thing that’s keeping you going when working on a student project, then I can almost guarantee you that sometime soon you and your teammates are going to get tired of the game, burn out, and quit. Since the game is only fueled by how much fun you feel like you’re having, when a moment comes by and you aren’t having fun, then game development stops. And in order to finish games, there are some parts that aren’t that fun (like fixing bugs). So just be prepared for that.

GOAL OPTION #2: MAKE MONEY

The second goal that many student developers have is to make a game that makes them some money. This seems like an easy enough jump. “Hey, we’ve made something kind of cool, why not sell it and make millions?” This is definitely a possibility for your game project if you like, albeit a difficult one. This is mostly a goal that applies to larger teams and video game companies; you can be certain that Nintendo is not making games solely because of goal #1; as a publicly-traded corporation, they’re in it for the money.

There are plenty of other books and online resources on how to make games that make money, so we aren’t going to go into detail here. If you want to attempt to sell your game, then you should definitely go for it. But for the methods discussed in this book, I recommend against setting a goal to make money, because it may detract from accomplishing your other goals which will be more beneficial to your career in the long term. Most successful student projects that aid in getting the students jobs, Narbacular Drop included, are given away as free online advertising for the team. If your goal is to further your career odds, I’d recommend giving your game away for free as well.

GOAL #3: DEVELOP YOUR SKILLS

The third common goal in student game projects is to develop skills. If you’re just getting started in programming, you’d like to learn more about animation and modeling, or you’re curious to see if you really are capable of designing the best game ever, then making a game is a great way to improve. You will run into all sorts of important challenges and problems when making an actual game that would never come up in a tutorial or a textbook, and you’ll be able to overcome those hurdles and really develop out your trade. Just like learning a foreign language, using the skills of the discipline you’re cultivating gets better with practice. Making a game can be a fantastic way to put yourself to work and present what you’ve learned to the world.

If this is your goal, then you’re going to want to choose tools and technologies that are going to challenge you. Using a game-making programming might help you make the game faster, but it won’t develop any of the skills you’ll be using in the industry. We’ll get into these differences and how you can choose correctly later on in the chapter.

GOAL #4: MARKET YOURSELF FOR A GAMES INDUSTRY JOB

For the purposes of this book, this is the goal that we want to focus on. If you want to impress the higher ups and the recruits at game companies, then this is the goal you will want to set for yourself and pursue with a fiery passion. Making a game is a harrowing process that takes time, coordination, and dedication, and developing just the type of game that is going to get you noticed is an incredible experience. Like the Narbacular Drop team, beginning with this goal in mind and following it through to the end truly can break you into the industry. It will guide your decisions as you decide what to put in the game, how you’re going to make it, and when you should quit. And if you start with this in mind, you’ll have an incredible bullet point or two to add to your resume.

6

Those are the main four categories. Here are some other examples of goals that fit into those categories. The more specific, the better:

• One of my goals for this project is to learn how to use Flash Actionscript

• One of my goals for this project is to learn how to make a full game in 3 months

• One of my goals for this project is to make a game using physics

• One of my goals for this project is to make a side-scrolling game, since I’ve never done that before

• One of my goals for this project is to get better at character animation

• One of my goals for this project is to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator

• One of my goals for this project is to have my game covered on a blog

The important thing for now is to be obsessively aware of what the goal of your project is, because all important decisions will be measured against that goal. So from here on out, make a promise to yourself to be very clear about what the goal of your student project is, whether it be having fun, making money, developing your skills, getting you into the industry, or something else.

YOUR ROADMAP: MAKE A PLAN OF ATTACK

Once you’ve decided the goals for your project, then the next step is make a rough plan. This consists of answering a few questions:

1. How many hours each week are you committing to this project?

2. When do you expect to be finished with this project?

3. What are the milestones of your project?

If you answer these two questions, then you are acting like a Pro Game Developer and have a much better chance of making something great!

The thing that we are trying to prevent against is working on a project that drags on and on forever. I personally like to keep track of how many hours I’ve spent on a project each week so that I know I am sticking with my goal (which may be as little as 5 hours/week).

Question 2, when do you expect to finish this project, is almost certain to be wrong. For whatever reason, people notoriously under-estimate how long a game project will take them when they start out. But that’s fine, because this is meant to be a feedback loop to help you become more accurate. If you estimate your first project will take you 3 months at 5 hours/week, and it actually takes you 5 months at 5 hours/week, then you’ll be more accurate next time (“Well, now I know that it takes at least a month to fix bugs at the end”). Each game you make, you’ll get better and better at estimating.

7

The final part is making milestones. These are when you’ve reached a huge point in the development of the game, and having a milestone to work towards helps keep you focused. Each successive milestone should be significant and move you towards the completed game step by step. For example, a good first milestone is having a playable first level. Crappy artwork or no artwork, no sounds or music, just a level you can play through. Driving towards this milestone makes sure that you focus on the right tasks at the right time – get the gameplay working and don’t distract yourself with artwork or sounds.

Here are some example milestones for a 2D game to help you focus on what’s essential. Read this over, and then make some milestones for your own project. Each milestone should have a date you are shooting for to be done.

A Mario-Style Platformer Game, my Milestones might be:

1. Make the first level playable (no artwork/sounds) – 3 weeks

2. Add in artwork and effects to first level – 5 weeks

3. Complete the first world, including a boss level – 9 weeks

4. Add power ups and special abilities – 11 weeks

5. Finish all levels – 15 weeks

6. Finalize artwork and add music and sounds – 18 weeks

7. Polish and fix all buts – 20 weeks

THE VIRTUE OF BEING HUMBLE

If you’ve never played tennis before, would you go try out at Wimbledon as your first match? If you’ve never played basketball, would you start in the World Series? If you’re just starting to learn how to speak a foreign language, then are you going to offer to translate a 3,000 page book?

No! In each of these situations, you slowly work up to harder and harder challenges as you learn.

Many people are overly ambitious when they plan out their first game. I don’t want to squash anyone’s dreams, but if you’ve never made a game before, then building the next great Fantasy MMO is not going to be your first title, no matter how innovative your ideas are. Starting with an idea that is too ambitious is a recipe for failure because you are likely to severely underestimate how much work it takes. It’s much better to step up slowly.

Some game genres are more complex than others. There are programming, art, and design challenges associated with each, but each genre has lessons that can be applies to others.

This is my rough list of games in order of difficulty. If you want to make games lower down on the list, make sure that you have made most of the games earlier in the list first.

1. A text based game with no images (“Guess the number” or a simple RPG)

2. A simple menu game, such as a classic Final Fantasy battle

8

3. A 2D puzzle game such as Tetris or Bejewled

4. A 2D action game such as classic Super Mario

5. A 3D action game such as Call of Duty

6. An MMO like World of Warcraft

Here are some other guidelines to understand how difficult different game genres are:

• 3D is much more difficult than 2D

• Real-time is much more difficult than turn-based or stop/start

• Images are much more difficult than text

• Online is much more difficult than offline

So the takeaway here is to be humble. When you are deciding your next game project, don’t try to do some giant project that would take a 100 person team 5 years to build. Make something small, smaller than you think it needs to be. You’ll likely be surprised how long it takes you.

That said, don’t stop dreaming big! If you have an idea for a game you want to make one day, then write it down. I keep a list of ideas that I want to make one day, and every time I finish a project I look over the list and pick something else that feels like a reasonable challenge for me. As they say, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

THE #1 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMATEURS AND PROS

Do you know what the #1 difference between amateur game developers and professional game developers is?

Pro game developers finish games. Amateur game developers don’t. Period.

Because of a lot of the reasons that we’ve already discussed, such as being overly ambitious, not doing simple planning, not setting goals, professional game developers are much better at completing projects. Amateurs always have several projects they’re working on, lots of ideas, lots of games that they’ve started, but they haven’t finished anything. Their computer looks like a graveyard of failed and abandoned projects.

The other reason for this is persistence. As we’ve already discussed, a lot of people who start making games just because it’s a lot of fun in the early design stage quit when it gets hard. And let me tell you, at some point every game project gets difficult. It’s being able to keep going and going and going until it’s finished that separates the pros from the amateurs. And this is what will separate you from everyone else.

I have a rule for myself that I am not allowed to write a single line of code or draw a single image for a new game idea while I am working on another game. I force myself to finish the game I’m working on first. This works very well for me and has allowed me to complete many games that would have fallen by the wayside otherwise.

9

So learn to be persistent and not quit on your game. When things get tough and they aren’t all rosy and fun anymore, keep going, keep pushing, keep developing. Eventually you’ll get those bugs finished and release your game and it will feel so good!

10

INDIE GAME SPOTLIGHT: SKY GARDEN

WRITTEN IN: FLASH

DISTRIBUTION: KONGREGATE

LINK: HTTP://WWW.KONGREGATE.COM/GAMES/BARNSLIGPARK/SKY-GARDEN Sky Garden is a free flash game that involves solving puzzles in nature. Players turn trees into rivers, seeds into trees, destroy ice, and avoid lava in dozens of perplexing levels. The calming piano music and easygoing sound effects draws the player into a deep sense of relaxation as they think through the riddles before them. Each set of levels introduces new abilities and blocks until the evening comes, drawing a close to the player's day.

With almost 150,000 plays on Kongregate and other websites and featured in Casual Connect Conference’s Innovation Showcase, Sky Garden is a great example of a simple of game that can go far. Making a game similar to Sky Garden would be a great starting point for early game makers to learn about programming in flash, level and systems design, and more.

11

SECTION II: DREAMING IN CODE

Modern games would not exist without computers. While we’ve always had games of some sort, such as sports or chess or tabletop RPG’s, but computers are where the real magic happens. As a result, all games today, the games we are talking about in this toolbox, require some sort of coding to create. There are a wide spectrum of tools, programming languages, and applications to help game making. In this section we’ll run through all of them and get you on your way to building something.

Whether you’ve never written a line of code in your life or are a veteran hacker, the tools in this section should help you go even further. This section will also tell you where to go to get a lot of these programs, often at steep discounts worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

GETTING STARTED WITH PROGRAMMING

If you’ve never programmed before, don’t worry. It isn’t nearly as intimidating as one would think. With a couple of the right websites, books, and programs, you can get up and running and on your way to being a coder in no time flat.

The general process for going from never having written code before to making your own games goes something like this:

1. Start with simplified game programs

2. Move to engines and scripting languages

3. Dive into core programming languages

First, you’ll want to try making a game with a simplified game program. This will help you get your feet wet with some simple programming that offers a lot of help and hand holding along the way. Making a few games this way is a perfect method to use to get started.

Inevitably though, the simpler game programs won’t be able to do something in your game that you would like to do. Maybe you want to publish your games on a Flash website or have more control over the kinds of animations you can do. Maybe you want to have auto-generated levels or go 3D. These are all things that are obviously possible in games but may not be easily done in a simplified program. At this point it’s best to pick a scripting language or game engine and start from there. Game engines and scripting languages are great for making more advanced games that you want to build without having to worry about a lot of deeper programming challenges.

Finally, if you want to really become a hacker and on your way to being a professional game engineer one day, you’ll want to move to a core programming language, where you’ll learn all about data structures, memory management, algorithms, and more to create any technology you can think of.

So to begin, let’s look at some of the best simplified game programs out there! Pick your favorites and start exploring!

12

SIMPLIFIED GAME PROGRAMS

GAME MAKER STUDIO

PRICE: FREE, $49 STANDARD

LINK:

HTTP://WWW.YOYOGAMES.COM/GAMEMAKER/STUDIO Game maker is a favorite of a lot of independent developers out there. With an easy to understand interface and powerful scripting, you can have a game up and running literally in minutes. It will get you started in 2D games and has a fairly strong scripting language to get you familiar with programming. But honestly, you could go a long way in Game Maker before running into limitations.

Here is a great video put together that shows off what’s possible with Game Maker: 100 Game Maker Games in 10 Minutes

MULTIMEDIA FUSION

PRICE: FREE DEMO, $119 FOR FULL VERSION

LINK: HTTP://WWW.CLICKTEAM.COM/WEBSITE/WORLD/MULTIMEDIA-FUSION-2 Multimedia Fusion is a competitor to Game Maker and has many similarities. It is optimized for making 2D games and features a similar drag and drop interface.

Like the Game Maker video, here is a video that shows off what’s possible with Multimedia Fusion: 50 Multimedia Fusion Games in 10 Minutes

ENGINES AND SCRIPTING LANGUAGES

Once you’ve gotten your feet wet with some simplified game programs, it’s time to dive deeper and use some of the tools the pros use.

FLASH CS

13

PRICE: $699 NORMALLY, $194 FOR STUDENTS

LINKS:• http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html (Official adobe site)

• http://www.studica.com/Adobe (Student discount site)

Flash and its associated ActionScript 3 are the de facto game making technology for the web. Whether it’s games on Kongregate and Newgrounds to the thousands of games on Facebook, almost all of them are made in Flash. The official Flash software from Adobe is very high quality and allows you to do all sorts of things, such as create movies with a timeline, make animations as well as doing heavy scripting. If you’d like to be making games in flash, be sure to take advantage of the links above for the student discount – you’ll save a ton of money.

FLASH DEVELOP

PRICE: FREE

LINK:Flash Develop is a great resource. While it doesn’t come with the timeline, easy animation editor, and all the bells and whistles of Flash CS, it is free! This is the cheap way to develop in Flash, and some coders actually like it because it has easier editing for programming.

UNITY ENGINE

Price: Free Demo, $1,500 for Pro Version

Link: http://unity3d.com

http://unity3d.com/gallery/made-with-unity/game-list

Unity is fast becoming the gold standard of game engines for all sorts of platforms. It’s built ground up with games in mind, with powerful scripting, 3D modeling, and more. One of the best parts of unity is that you can build your game for many different platforms, from web to iOS, Android to PC and console games. It’s really taken off as the easiest way to make mobile and tablet games. While the full professional version is a bit steep for students, it is a great tool to download for free and learn to use.

UNREAL ENGINE

Price: Free for non-commercial purposes

Link: http://www.unrealengine.com/udk/

The Unreal Engine was used to create some of the most cutting edge visuals ever seen in the history of the games industry, and not it’s available to you. Not for the licensing cost of millions of dollars, but for free. Free! Be sure to check it out – it has amazing lighting capabilities, rendering effects, modeling, and more.

XNA GAME STUDIO

14

Link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23714

If you want to make games for the Xbox, then XNA Game Studio is the way to go. Microsoft has made this tool available for free to students in order to get more people making games for their platform. If your favorite memory of playing games was on a console, then this might be the place for you to start!

LEVEL UP: CORE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Most game developers can get pretty far with the tools we just discussed – many successful independent games have been made using Unity, Unreal, or XNA Game Studio. However if you are interested in diving even deeper and want to one day become a game engineer, then you’ll want to start writing games (and maybe even other programs) in some of the core programming languages.

With each of these you can find online tools for free to start coding. As for learning, however, they are bit more difficult to pick up. To learn one of the languages here, I recommend getting a book to get you started and then going deeper and exploring as you see fit.

JAVA

PROGRAMS: ECLIPSE LINK: WWW.ECLIPSE.ORG BOOKS: BOOK KILLER GAME PROGRAMMING IN JAVA Java seems to run on everything – in fact before smartphones became the norm, cell phone games were written in Java. This language is slightly more high level than C++ because it has its own garbage college and virtual machine, but is still powerful enough for Minecraft to be written in it. Eclipse is a great (and free!) program for getting going in Java.

C++

PROGRAMS: MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO

LINKS: WWW.MICROSOFT.COM/VISUALSTUDIO/ENG C++ has been around for decades and is still one of the top programming languages to learn. It offers more detailed memory management than Java which makes it better for some applications. You can find a free copy of visual studio to get started.

FURTHER CODING RESOURCES

STACK OVERFLOW

LINK: HTTP://STACKOVERFLOW.COM/ When you are programming, you are inevitably going to run into problems. The program won’t compile, the frame rate is too low, you can’t figure out how to get the collision right, or you can’t even get your level to load. Stack Overflow is a community site for programmers to ask one another these questions. It’s a great source of information and a great community to be involved in for when you get stuck.

15

GAMEDEV.NET

LINK: HTTP://WWW.GAMEDEV.NET/ GameDev.net has been around for years and is still one of the top resources online for engineers who are interested in making games. With daily or weekly articles, many resources and a vibrant online community, GameDev.net is somewhere that you should get familiar with if you are interested in programming at any level.

16

INDIE GAME SPOTLIGHT: ANTICHAMBER

RELEASE DATE: 2013WRITTEN IN: UNREAL ENGINE

DISTRIBUTION: STEAM

Written in the Unreal Engine, Antichamber is a game that takes players to another world, where rules and laws of physics in our universe no longer apply. Players can walk through walls, fall up, change their perspective by looking through windows, and more. Nominated for numerous game awards, Antichamber has been praised for its imaginative rooms, intriguing puzzles, and mind-bending effects.

The game was written using the Unreal Engine, a tool that is also available to any students or hobby game developers who are interested. After going “on tour” by being entered into numerous game competitions such as the Independent Games Festival, it was released on the Steam platform for PC.

17

SECTION III: BECOMING AN ARTISTE

One thing that I love about games is that they are part science part art. There is no one way to make a game, there are thousands and thousands! Games are the art form of the 21st century, combining all previous art forms before it – music, drawing and illustration, animation, film, story – and adding in human interaction.

Since all games are visual, the art plays a very important role. What the characters look like, how they move, the color palette and modeling of the world, the textures on the ground, these are all things that will convey a virtual world that you invite players to live in for a period of time. So it’s important to have an understanding of how professional game developers approach art and then where to find the right programs, tools, and resources you need to create your own artwork.

In this section we’ll cover both. Who knows? You could be the Michelangelo of this decade!

DEVELOPING THE ART STYLE FOR A GAME

When professional game developers start working on a project and come to the stage where the art is going to be defined, then they typically start by gathering lots of what’s called “reference art”. Reference art is simply images and pictures that will inspire the game’s look and feel. While they aren’t copying anything, they are finding the colors, shapes, and ideas that are going to influence their game’s artwork.

You can do this as well. Keep a folder on your computer and use it to collect reference art. Do you see something that inspires you or helps you dream up cool ideas? Do you see something that looks awesome and you’d like to learn from?

Then, when you are going to actually draw or create the assets for the game, you can look at your reference art for inspiration. It can help you decide:

• What kinds of colors do you want to use in your color palette?

• What kinds of shapes? Are the characters blocky? Round? Tall or short? How about the buildings and trees? Hills and clouds?

• What type of faces will you use?

• What kinds of shading or outlines will you have?

• Is the look more like a cartoon, or gritty and realistic?

Your reference art will set the stage for the mood and atmosphere of the whole game. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

PARTS OF GAME ART

18

There are four main parts for making game art: Background art, character art, user interface, and effects. We’ll break down each of them.

BACKGROUND ART

This is what your game’s world and levels will look like. The ground, the trees, the sky, and so on. Or if you are doing a type of board game or puzzle game, this is the board that sits behind the pieces.

Typically background art doesn’t move, so it needs to look fairly interesting with few animations. Again, pull from your reference art and look at how difference scenes are made. Then try and recreate the scenes in your game.

Some games will have a single picture that you draw as the background art, whereas other games will slice it up and build levels out of tiles. If you are doing a tile based background system, then it’s important to make sure that the tiles fit well together.

Another trick that you should employ is to use color to draw the player’s eye to what is important. Since you typically want the players focusing on the characters fighting on screen or the blocks moving around, then the background should be a little less muted than these other aspects that are moving around. Use darker or more grey colors and make the character colors brighter and more saturated. This will help the game to feel more in balance and no cluttered visually.

CHARACTERS

Characters are the heart of a game, the point where the player’s eye is going to be focus on for the duration of their play. Whether you are making a fantasy game with mages and knights, or a Tetris type game with blocks (who I’d consider the “Characters” of Tetris), then you want to make sure they pop more than your background. Feel free to pull out all the stops to make your character look jaw-dropping.

Many students aren’t sure how to do animations for their characters – they can draw a picture of their character standing, and a picture of them swinging a sword, but when they put it in the game it seems very choppy and unrealistic. To fix this, animators use a technique called “tweening”, which is where they look at two frames of an image, the first and last, and then they attempt to draw another one that is in the middle of those. Then they repeat the process. When you put it all together, this will help make the animations look much smoother.

USER INTERFACE

User interface (typically called “UI”) is what the player will use for their menus, buttons, and for the Heads-Up-Display (“HUD”), the information that is always on the screen to show the player what the need to know. There are many different ways to style your menus and buttons, you just need to make sure you are consistent with the rest of your game. If your game’s background and character art has a nice, soft, painterly feel, then you won’t want your menu’s to be all hard 3D steel-looking with sharp corners and edges. The best titles try to match their style.

EFFECTS

Effects are what make the game pop and sizzle. When you get a level up, then you’ll want to have fireworks go off. When you shoot a lightning bolt at an enemy, then you’ll want to have little flash particles fall off of him. When your character runs off, you’ll want to have a little bit of dust kick up at his shoes as he takes off.

19

Effects are the little touches of love, the little animations that really take a game from good to great. Inexperienced game makers just make the characters and the background and UI and call it done, but pros know that this is just the beginning. Putting lots of subtle effects around the game, a splash here, a ray of sun there, are what makes the game feel like it was “made with love”.

One note: don’t go overboard on the effects. A good effect is subtle, you barely notice it, but you are thinking to yourself the whole time, “Wow this game looks great!”. Effects shouldn’t steal the show from the characters, instead they should just act as accents.

ART AND ANIMATION PROGRAMS

There are a lot of different programs and resources out there to help you find and make your own artwork. Here are some of the best. As always, if you can’t afford the pro apps, use the free ones until you decide you’d like to save up.

GIMPPRICE: FREE

LINK: WWW.GIMP.ORG GIMP is a great free program for image editing and a good program to use if you are getting started in games

SPRITER

PRICE: FREE

LINK: WWW.BRASHMONKEY.COM Spriter is a great program for retro game makers. It makes it easy to create animations in an appealing 2D game style. And best of all, it’s free!

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

LINKS:• http://www.adobe.com/products/ (Official adobe site)

• http://www.studica.com/Adobe (Student discount site)

Illustrator allows you to make vector graphics, which are key in web games and flash. If you are going in that direction then illustrator is highly recommended if you can afford it.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

PRICE: $650 NORMALLY, $348 FOR STUDENTS

LINKS:• http://www.adobe.com/products/ (Official adobe site)

20

• http://www.studica.com/Adobe (Student discount site)

Photoshop is where the phrased “photoshopped” came from, which implies it’s the industry standard for photo editing. Depending on the type of game you are making, this may or may not be useful to you: if you are doing a game with lots of detailed art and textures, Photoshop will help. But if you are making a flash or pixel game, probably not so much.

MAYA

PRICE: $8,282 NORMALLY, $212 FOR STUDENTS

LINKS:• www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-maya/overview (Official Autodesk site)

• www.studica.com/autodesk (Student discount site)

Maya is the industry standard for 3D modeling and animation if you are doing 3D games. Experience with this program is a definite plus on any resumes you might be making later on if you’re interested in a games industry job.

BLENDER

PRICE: FREE

LINKS: WWW.BLENDER.ORG If you can’t afford Maya, then Blender is a great open source program for 3D modeling you should consider checking out. I’ve used it in one of my game projects as a student and it worked great.

ART AND ANIMATION RESOURCES

There are a lot of really great sites and resources out there that can save you time while making the art for your game. Here are a few of the best

OPENGAMEART

LINK: WWW.OPENGAMEART.ORG Open Game Art is a great collection of royalty free game art for indie gamers to use in their titles. From tilesets to characters and units, boards and textures, it has everything. Be sure to obey the attribution and non-commercial licenses.

DA FONT

LINK: WWW.DAFONT.COM Da Font is a great site to find lots of free to use fonts for your game. When you are building your menu’s and your UI, try to find a font that fits the feel of your game.

ADOBE KULER

LINK: WWW.KULER.ADOBE.COM

21

This is a great free flash program that can help you find color matches for your games. Particularly important when you are trying to decide on the look and feel for your title.

22

INDIE GAME SPOTLIGHT: CANABALT

WRITTEN IN: FLASH

DISTRIBUTION: MOBILE DEVICES, KONGREGATE, PERSONAL WEBSITE

Created by Adam “Atomic” and his small independent company Semi-Secret Software, Canabalt is a single-button game that packs a lot of fun. Players run on the rooftops of a crumbling city, jumping over gaps and smashing through glass, trying to survive. The music, sounds, and atmosphere really contribute to Canabalt’s overall feeling – birds fly off of rooftops as you land, spaceships shake the ground as they fly by, and your character rolls when he makes a difficult jump. While it’s just in simple pixel art, the game is a great example, of how presentation can make a big difference.

Canabalt was a simple Flash game that soon became an iPhone app, and it has since been a big part of the influence of the “Runner” genre – games where players use simple controls to try and run as far as possible to reach a high score. But it started from humble beginnings, just as your games could. So ask yourself: In what way would you like to influence the direction of the games industry with your titles?

23

SECTION IV: THE SOUND OF TRIUMPH

Music is a huge part of the atmosphere of games, and sound is what really makes a game come to life. You’d be amazed how some of the most visceral experiences feel like nothing when the sound is muted, even on AAA console titles. On the other hand, haunting music and strong sound effects can turn a couple of pixels in your homemade game into an epic story of survival.

In this section we’ll cover some resources that you can go to in order to find sounds and music in your games. You essentially have three options:

1. Make the sounds and music yourself

2. Find free sounds and music, and make sure you obey the licensing requirements

3. Purchase sounds and music

In my own games I prefer the first two since they don’t cost any money. There is so much great free and non-commercial stuff for personal game projects out there that I have yet to find need for paid sounds.

Below we’ll cover all three options. Happy mixing!

CREATING AND FINDING MUSIC

NEWGROUNDS AUDIO

LINK: HTTP://WWW.NEWGROUNDS.COM/AUDIO/ PRICE: FREE, WITH ATTRIBUTION

The Newgrounds Audio vault is a great source of music from both professional and amateur artists all over the world. You’ll find great tracks uploaded every day and a huge repository of old tracks to browse through. If you are looking for a big band tune to go with your side scroller, or an epic string choir to accompany your Zelda-style adventure, this site is for you.

The only thing to remember here is to obey the license requirements. They typically will say something like this:

Attribution: You must give credit to the artist.

Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes unless you make specific arrangements with the artist.

Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this image, you may distribute the resulting creation only under a license identical to this one.

You want to make sure you give these talented music artists your thanks by following the rules they set, so to make sure you are complying, just put a link to the site and the name of the artist somewhere in your game. Typically this can go in a big list in a “Credits” section of your title.

24

GARAGE BAND

PRICE: FREE WITH MAC

If you want to make your own music, then there are a few common programs that allow for easy mixing of different sound loops. Garage Band is the default mixing program that comes on Apple’s Mac computers, and it’s fairly robust, more than enough for putting together some great tunes for your titles. It also comes

If you don’t have a Mac however, and you still want to mix your own music, then you’ll have to find some other options, such as…

ACID

PRICE: $64LINK: HTTP://WWW.SONYCREATIVESOFTWARE.COM/ACIDSOFTWARE Acid is a program that lets you create and edit your own music. Although paid, the program is a great resource for music makers looking to get their hands dirty and start mixing their own tracks. It comes with a massive library of music loops that you can mix and match to create songs for your game title, whether it’s title music, a melody to accompany an enchanted forest, or a quick victory diddy.

CREATING AND FINDING SOUND EFFECTS

SAMPLE SWAP

Price: Free, with Attribution

Link: http://sampleswap.org/

Sample Swap is a fantastic website for finding recorded sound effects for you to use in your game. Need the sound of water splash? How about breaking boards, an explosion, or maybe a door opening? Sample Swap is the place to go. You can search for specific terms or just browse until you find what you need.

As with all the other sites that offer free content, be sure to check the attribution licenses so that you are following the rules set by the creators.

BFXRPrice: Free

Link: http://www.bfxr.net/

This is a really fun, maybe even “funny” sound program that you can use to create your own effects. You can mix and match different synthesized sounds to make a lot of classic effects that you need in games, such as jump, die/take damage, power up, and grabbing coins. You can even click buttons to have them be randomly generated, which I think is pretty cool. You can mix and match and then export the sounds.

25

It’s interesting that our concepts of what something like “picking up a coin in a game” should sound like are so well defined that someone could create a computer to make the sounds.

AUDACITY

Price: Free

Link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is open source software that is perfect for mixing and editing sounds. It allows you to open sound files and edit them, such as cutting or shrinking, changing pitch, or adding effects such as echo. Used in conjunction with Sample Swap, Audacity is perfect for helping you get to the perfect sound effects for your game. You can download an audio file from sample swap and then tweak it to get it just right. Love that sound of falling rocks you found, but it just goes on too long? Pop it into Audacity and cut it down to your heart’s content.

Note that for some legal reason, the mp3 license does not come with the core Audacity package. So if you want to edit or make mp3’s from audacity, you’ll need to search around a bit to find the license to download and install.

CREATING SOUNDSCAPES

Now that you know where to go and how to do it, how does one go about deciding what sounds and music are right for their game?

At some point in your game development process, you’ll want to start thinking about sound and music, and my suggestion to answer this question is to think about how you want your game to feel. Do you want it to be relaxing? Terrifying? Sound like the spring breeze on a cool day? Sound like an old 80’s 8-bit cartridge title? Picking the feeling that you are trying to evoke is the first step in getting your sounds and music together. Once you do that, then there are a plethora of resources available to you to help you find or create your own sounds and music to put into your game.

Overall you should strive to be consistent. If the feeling that you want is a peaceful calm breeze, then your sound effects should be peaceful, such as a slight wind, birds chirping, soft piano or harp. If you want your game to feel tense and action packed, then go with some grunge metal, lots of drums, sounds of crowds or punches with high impact. Making a consistent experience and having all the sounds feel like they match each other goes a long way to making the world of a game come to life.

So listen closely, because your players will be!

26

INDIE GAME SPOTLIGHT: MINECRAFT

WRITTEN IN: JAVA

DISTRIBUTION: PERSONAL WEBSITE, PAYPAL

As the most successful indie game of all time, Minecraft has become a cultural phenomenon in only a few years. With millions of copies purchased, its own annual MineCon convention, and fans all over the world, Minecraft is a source of inspiration for many game makers, big and small.

The game was created by Markus “Notch” Perrson, a java programmer who had made games for several years for game company King before deciding to strike it out on his own. Inspired by other indie titles like Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress, Notch sought to create a world that was as customizable as it was immersive. The result was the world of Minecraft that extends on forever and allows players to build anything they can imagine from castles to lakes, mountain villages to tree houses and underground caverns.

But don’t let its huge success fool you - Minecraft was built in Java, a free programming language that anyone can pick up from their home computer. It was distributed on Notch’s own website using paypal for payments, and was only much later released on other platforms such as Xbox 360 and iPad. So who knows? Your next title could be the next cultural phenomenon to hit the market!

27

SECTION V: GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT

RELEASING YOUR ART TO THE WORLD

Now that you’ve gotten the rundown on how to program, animate, and add sound to your game, the final part is to actually release it! This is the exciting part, the part where you finally get to find out how you’ve done. Have you created the next independent game hit? Or are there areas where you can still improve?

In this section we’ll cover methods of releasing your game to the masses, sites and communities to get involved in, and how to best deal with post-launch press and feedback.

Depending on the technology that you pick, certain avenues will be open or closed to you for releasing your game. Different platforms cater to different types of games and you should choose carefully to plan your releases.

That said, my advice is to always release on as many websites and platforms as you can so that you are getting your game in front of as many fans as possible! You’ve put a lot of hard work into your game, don’t let it go to waste by only putting it on one site!

Here are some of the platforms of choice:

FLASH GAMES

If you are making a Flash game, here are some great sites to make sure you sign up for:

KONGREGATE

LINK: WWW.KONGREGATE.COM Kongregate is a great site to release Flash games on, with a great rating system, weekly contests, and an API that you can hook into to add achievements to your game.

NEWGROUNDS

LINK: WWW.NEWGROUNDS.COM Newgrounds is another site that, like Kongregate, is full of fans and makers of games. A lot of the same benefits of Kongregate in contests, ratings, and so on. It has a little more alternative/mature vibe than Kong, but a good site nonetheless.

YOUR OWN WEBSITE

LINK: WWW.YOURNAMEHERE.COM Some developers choose to launch on their own website. You can get a domain name from sites like GoDaddy or 1and1 and throw something together in minutes.

PC GAMES

28

STEAM

LINK: WWW.STEAMPOWERED.COM Steam is the PC gaming juggernaut. With daily sales and thousands of titles, Steam is the place to be for independent PC games. Note however that this is for professional commercial titles only – not the place to share your weekend hackathon game.

CONSOLES

XBOX LIVE INDIE GAMES

Xbox Live Indie games is where many students and starting indie developers put their games. Microsoft has done a great job of courting independent game developers by setting up a marketplace to release indie games on. Everyone from students to enthusiasts can easily submit their games and immediately have them up to be played in the Xbox Live Indie games section. Who doesn’t dream of playing games on their home console TV like the games they grew up with? Check out this FAQ if you have questions on submitting.

OUYA

Ouya will soon be another avenue for players to release their indie games on. As a console designed specifically for indie games, it’s likely to be a really fun experience. Be sure to check it out!

MOBILE

APPLE APP STORE

Apple’s App Store is another home for many indies. Small indie groups like NimbleBit, makers of Tiny Tower and Nimble Quest, have had lots of success here. While there is very limited shelf space from the Top Charts, this is the place you’ll go if you develop a game for iDevices.

GOOGLE PLAY

LINK: HTTPS://PLAY.GOOGLE.COM/STORE Google has done a fine job of pulling together a nice little app store for the plethora of Android phone devices. You can also release apps here written in HTML5 for play on the computer.

29

COMPETITIONS AND CONTESTS

Once you’ve finished and released your game, there are a handful of competitions that you can submit your game to as well. This can be a lot of fun – you’ll get to meet lots of other great indie game developers as well!

INDEPENDENT GAMES FESTIVAL

LINK: WWW.IGF.COM This is the biggest festival, typically for more experienced game makers. The awards show is held every year as part of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. A lot of really inspiring entries, even if you don’t make it in.

INDIECADE

LINK: WWW.INDIECADE.COM IndieCae is another respectable indie game competition held each year down in LA. Since the whole event is around indie games, it has a fun grassroots feel to it.

LUDUM DARE

LINK: WWW.LUDUMDARE.COM/COMPO Ludum Dare is very different from the other competitions. A theme is released on Friday, and you have 48 hours to make a game around the theme. It is a fantastic learning experience and is highly recommended. It promises to be one the most fun weekends you’ll have!

GETTING INVOLVED IN COMMUNITIES AND PUBLICATIONS

Another great thing about living in the time that we do is that there are many, many online forums, communities, and publications around games. It’s a lot of fun to release something and then see people talking about it and get feedback from your fans. For that reason, it’s a good idea to be familiar with some of the publications that cover the types of games you’ll be making, and also to get involved with the forums and communities around games.

We’ll cover both in this section – you’re probably already familiar with many of them.

TIGSOURCE

LINK: WWW.TIGSOURCE.COM TIGSource is, in many ways, the heart of the English-speaking indie game scene. The forums are very active and a great place to meet other game developers. They even have a section where you can post games that you’ve made for feedback. Just make sure that you are being polite – don’t spam all over the place to get people to play your game. Make friends and they will come!

INDIEGAMES.COM

LINK: WWW.INDIEGAMES.COM IndieGames.com is owned by the same people who host the Independent Games Festival each year. That being said, it’s a great source of coverage of the independent games scene with updates daily.

30

ROCK PAPER SHOTGUN

LINK: WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM Rock Paper Shotgun is one of the favorite indie game sites on the web that focuses mainly on PC gaming. There are weekly rundowns of releases as well as reviews of top independent as well as AAA titles.

JAYISGAMES

LINK: WWW.JAYISGAMES.COM JayIsGames has been around for a looooong time covering “casual games” for years. Now that independent gaming has blown up, it covers all kinds of Flash and casual titles with well-written reviews. If you make a popular flash or a nice downloadable casual game, expect it to show up here!

LISTEN TO YOUR PLAYERS

Pro game developers are always learning. Whenever anything is released, then they listen for feedback. Many sites and portals allow for great player and customer interaction – you can read reviews of your game, see 1-5 star ratings that people give, and notice how many plays, downloads, or purchases the game has. The key is to remember that if people don’t like your game for some reason, then it’s not something to get upset about, it’s an opportunity to learn. Listen to your players and what they are saying to you. Then, you can try to incorporate their feedback, or you can take it as a lesson and apply it to your next game.

When I was making some my first games, then I thought that the designs were impeccable. I was so pleased with how well the systems worked that I thought the game would be ranked very highly in the contest I entered. However when the results came in, I didn’t score very well at all. The reason? My artwork and overall presentation were not very good. So while I was a little upset for a day or so, eventually I got over it and took that feedback to heart. For my next project, then I decided to really put by back into the artwork to make it sing. And guess what? It was by far my most successful game.

I recommend you do the same. As you start to release your games, listen to your players, read the reviews, read what people write in forums, and then view it as an opportunity to learn and get even better for next time. This is the absolute best way to get better at making games.

31

INDIE GAME SPOTLIGHT: WIZORB

WRITTEN IN: XNADISTRIBUTION: XBOX LIVE INDIE GAMES, STEAM

Wizorb is a fantastic little twist on the old paddle genre, gams where you have a paddle that bounces balls around a screen. By layering on some great pixel art, old fashioned game mechanics, and a twist on RPG gameplay, Wizorb came together as a great title.

It was made by a small group of friends who formed a company called Tribute Games, and written in XNA, which is freely downloadable online.

32

SECTION VI: YOUR BRIGHT FUTURE

Now you truly have everything you need to make your own games, all that’s left is to get started!

But what can you do after you’ve made a game? It’s a great skill to have with lots of experience to give, and you definitely set yourself up for a bright future. Here are some options…

MAKING NEW GAMES

Of course, after making your first game, you can continue and start on another one! What did you want to do in your last title that you never got around to? Did you want to try making an action title that involves lots of physics? How about a title with auto-generated levels on the fly? I personally have a list of games that I’d like to make that I keep, and as I come up with ideas I slowly work through the list. And if you are continually making progress, it really does feel like your dreams coming true!

How about new technologies would you like to learn – Java? Maybe try something in Flash or something that uses server code? The possibilities are endless.

Actually using skills as you learn them is the best way to gain mastery. By having a goal in mind such as learning a new technique of language, you can view your game projects as fun lessons for yourself.

GET A TEAM

While making a game by yourself is a huge accomplishment, it’s also lots of fun to work together with a team. If you have friends or classmates who are interested in making games, then consider getting them to work on some of the parts of your next game! Who knows, you might turn into the next hit indie studio!

LEARN MORE ABOUT CAREERS IN GAMES

If you’re a student and are unsure what you’d like to do for a living one day, you now have a small taste of what it’s like to make games for a living! This is what thousands of people, from Nintendo to Blizzard to Zynga, myself included, do every day. There are many schools that provide degrees and opportunities for careers in games and lots of resources to get you there.

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a pro game developer, I’d like to invite you to check out my book on Amazon: Game Development Hero – Make Games, Get Job Offers, and Find Your Way in the Games Industry.

Best of luck!

33