Hi, my name is Jeff and I’ve been very interested in creating/developing games for some time. I have no coding experience but will work my tail off to try and understand and learn.
My question is not for someone to design or code for me, but rather to steer me in the right direction. I have been watching the tutorials, reading the manual, and watching other YouTube videos. But sometimes the more you watch and read, the more disoriented you get.
I would like to develop a board game where certain tiles have certain consequences on the next move. For example if you roll the dice and move 5 spaces and land in water or in quicksand, your next move is based on where you currently are positioned. I want to be able to land on the space, but have it have different properties than the normal path. I have been reading about prefab tiles, layers, etc…
I know there are “wrong ways” to do things and better ways. If someone could just push me in the direction I should focus my efforts, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you in advance and I look forward to learning and developing.
Firstly, welcome! Don’t bother yourself with the fact that you have no experience… Believe it or not, not a single human being is born knowing how to develop games! So we’re all starting on equal ground in that respect.
It may just be a question of semantics, but you said you’ve been watching tutorials. Most here would agree that it’s important to follow along with and do the tutorials, not just watch. You don’t learn by watching, you learn by doing. Common practices are to follow along with a tutorial, building the project along with them (for example, Roll-A-Ball). Then either start over, this time not watching the videos but doing it from memory, or just stick with the project you already built and figure out how to add “extra credit” features that you aren’t explicitly told how to do.
Side note: If you haven’t done the Official Tutorials, these are what you need to be doing.
Luckily, your game idea isn’t super crazy and overly ambitious. So it might make for a great first “real” project! But first you’ll want to put it on hold for just a bit, and focus on fundamentals. Once you feel like you have those pretty well down (you won’t be an expert by any measure yet, and that’s fine. You just need to be comfortable with the basics, and know how to find things you don’t know how to do yet (hint: the official documentation/manual) you can get started on your project.
Don’t worry about “the right way” yet. Make fully functioning prototypes. Then rip them apart and rebuild them better. Then make them prettier. Then rebuild them again, and then make them prettier again. I find this to be a great way to evaluate what you’ve done previously and compare it against your present knowledge level.
Just dig in and get started. When you get stuck, feel free to ask for help. But also try to figure out the answer yourself using the resources I provided above. You’ll actually learn stuff that way, instead of just getting the answer for one issue.
Schneider,
Thanks for the quick reply. I actually have been practicing along with the tutorials, but after the rolling ball tutorial I started to focus on tutorials, like dice rolling, that were more focused on my project. I think that’s where I strayed from the correct path. You’re absolutely correct, I should have practiced all of the tutorials to pick up and learn the basics first before diving into my project. I have been reading the manual, and find it very well laid out.
Thank you for saying that my project sounds like a good first “real” project. It’s actually a very scaled back simplistic version of what I would like to do. Gotta swim in the shallow end before I try to cross the Atlantic.
Again, thanks for the help. I’m sure it won’t be the last time you hear from me.
Totally understandable. You’re excited, and want to get to work, not waste time doing stupid practice things! Don’t get me wrong, anything you learn is helping you advance, and you may actually soon get to the point where you’ll find it easier learning stuff when it applies to things you know you’ll need to do for your game. It may even be beneficial to do this to keep your excitement level up. Just remember to back up a bit when you find yourself getting stuck or overwhelmed.
This is absolutely the right idea. You may even find you have to scale it back even more. And then maybe scale it back again! At this stage… hell, at any stage, it’s better to do that and finish a game than to keep high ambitions and never finish. I… I know this from experience, as I have 30 unfinished projects on my machine…
Not a problem, and I sincerely hope it’s not the last we hear from you! Some day you’ll know so much about this stuff you’ll be coming back to the Getting Started forum to help others who are just beginning their journey!
