How to get started making games?

[Darien]

I eventally built up enough understanding to just try to throw something together and see if it worked, and saying "I wonder if I can do X with my existing knowledge". Sometimes I'd flick through the command list and see if there was anything that looked useful. And I built up from there.

Exactly how I work. I know what I want to do, and I try to do it with my existing knowledge, and, if that either fails or just seems harder than it should be, I poke around in the docs until I find what I need. A bit inefficient, perhaps, but it seems to get the job done. :-D

[Abel Toy]

Does anyone know of a good website/IRC dedicated to people helping others with game issues?

If you're working with FlashPunk, the FlashPunk community and the #flashpunkers channel at irc.afternet.org are really helpful! :D

[FuzzYspo0N]

Someone might have linked this already too http://flashgamedojo.com/

[deadeye]

I actually never properly launched that site as I've been too busy with other stuff to finish it up. However since you've outed it I guess it's now officially open. Will have to sort out some of the missing content I wanted to add this week.

I really like the message you have going on in your intro video, very inspirational.

Just one small thing, the description on the Construct page states that there are no plans to add new features. The first community release of Construct Classic actually had quite a few new features in it :). Just a heads up, I realize you wrote that some time ago.

Not sure what plans there might be for future releases though. There used to be a secret forum on the old board for community members who were developing stuff for Construct, but that board doesn't seem to have survived the recent changeover.

Edit:
To contribute, I found these video tutorials by Alec Holowka to be pretty useful when I started up in Unity3D:
http://infiniteammo.ca/blog/impromptu-u ... -tutorial/

If anyone is at all interested in getting into 3D then give them a gander.

[Jonas]

Construct is probably the best-designed tool I've worked with, but making really large games with it is unadvisable. There are still some deep-down bugs and a nasty memory leak. For smaller games, though, Construct is wonderful, and I greatly look forward to using Construct 2 someday.

[Evan]

If you are trying to make simple games, flash might be the way to go. http://www.kongregate.com/games/Unknown ... t-room-gdr
It is a really great full of developers that are more than happy to help people with questions or problems.

[Jack Sanders]

A couple words to anyone who comes into this topic looking to get started making games:


I highly recommend Flash as your starting game platform. Flash lets you make feature-rich games on the web, and it's accessible. Almost anyone can easily play your game when it's made with Flash.(except iPhone users! hurr hurr!) What this means is that your games are likely to get more attention early on, you'll probably get more feedback on your game because of that, which will help you immensely. You don't have this barrier of having to try to convince someone to download your game. They just play it.

That on top of Flash being an extremely easy tool to develop with. FlashPunk and Flixel make this even easier, and I'd urge anyone to try them out. With Flex you can make Flash games for free, too, without having to pay for the bulky Flash IDE or Flash Builder. The great things about FP and Flixel is that you don't have to worry so much about your game's inner engine, and all the nasty technical things. You can just go make your game!

And my last reason is that it's easy to get your work out there in the Flash game world. If it's easier to get your work out there people will, over time, begin to recognize your work and you'll start creating a brand for yourself. There's plenty of money to be made in Flash games, too, without the ridiculous and stressful requirements of making a console game. FlashGameLicense is a great place to start, but you could also just contact potential sponsors directly if you think they'd like your game.

The overall point here though, is still just to get your games out there and have people play them, and Flash is a great way to get started with that.

Now is a great time to make games, so don't hesitate to get started.

[Jonas]

Can anyone recommend a really good way to learn Flash/ActioScript from the ground up? A book or a series of tutorials perhaps - but something that doesn't assume prior programming knowledge?

[Stephen L (inactive)]

Nope. Bento smile's been learning flash stuff lately from scratch, maybe she can help (don't know if she's on here though).

[Terry]

Can anyone recommend a really good way to learn Flash/ActioScript from the ground up? A book or a series of tutorials perhaps - but something that doesn't assume prior programming knowledge?

It's tough to know where to get started :( A lot of people have had good luck with flixel, but I wasn't able to get anywhere with it. What worked for me eventually was just trying to get flash to behave like C++ and Allegro, which I was used to.

[Colapsydo]

Can anyone recommend a really good way to learn Flash/ActioScript from the ground up? A book or a series of tutorials perhaps - but something that doesn't assume prior programming knowledge?

Actually, I'm learning ActionScript3 without real programming knowledges. I think in the last 6 month I learn a lot (for a beginner) about AS3, but with no specialization about making games.

Just with the Adobe documentation and especially this document "Programming Action Script 3" which is quiet complete and understandable for beginners, you will be able to catch the basis.
It could also be a good thing to look for some introduction to Object Oriented Programming, since it helps a lot to get the best from ActionScript.

For french speakers (never found an English translation, sorry), I will definitively recommend "Pratique d'Actionscript 3". It starts with an introduction to OOP, then you will found more or less the same content as in "Programing Action Script 3", and it finish by an introduction to the use of ByteArray.

I'm not sure all these books are an easy way to start, but at least they give solid basis.

If I could digress a bit: for people interesting in OOP and Design Patterns, I just discover this book ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns. It's a real pleasure to read.

[Draknek]

FlashGameDojo is probably the closest thing to that (certainly in ambition) but I don't think there's a lot of structured tutorial content.

In general, both Flixel and FlashPunk seem to be very non-programmer-friendly -- I've heard stories of people with no prior programming experience making their first game with both engines. But more could be done to make it easier.

I think programmers coming to Flash from other languages are much better served starting with Flix-Punk than with using the Flash display list stuff.

[Evan]

Can anyone recommend a really good way to learn Flash/ActioScript from the ground up? A book or a series of tutorials perhaps - but something that doesn't assume prior programming knowledge?

Here's what I used: http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com ... utorial-1/
Keep in mind I had about a weeks worth of AS2 down and a little java and some Visual BASIC in my background.

[Jonas]

I've been working with Stencyl a lot lately. It's very nice, but the one thing I think is worth mentioning is that it seems to have strange issues with remembering stuff it shouldn't remember - sometimes the changes you make to a project aren't immediately effective in testing, leading you to believe that you've done something wrong. Restarting generally helps, but this can be a major pain in the arse.

[SnakeEater]

I actually help myself with GameMaker. It is really easy to understand, it has a wide community ready to support you, and it also has a simple programming language, GML,which is great if you suck at programming - like I do.