In this beginner’s guide to game development, we highlight the key steps, software and resources needed to create your very first video game.
At dBs Institute, we teach our students how to become creative professionals within the world of video games through both our Access to HE Games Development diploma and our BA (Hons) Game Art degree.
You may not be at the stage where formalised education is the route for you, but maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of making your own game. It’s a common aspiration amongst gamers, but one that can be intimidating when you have no experience.
This beginner’s guide to game development is all about removing that intimidation factor. We’ll help you choose the perfect game engine for your idea, discuss the best ways to craft your game’s mechanics, artwork and sound, share some tips on finding collaborators, and some of the best resources out there to help you along the way.
Game development is the act of creating a video game. The process requires the use of multiple disciplines within art, design, writing, animation, audio and programming.
Game development can be undertaken by a team of 1 to a team of 1,000+, depending on the scope and content of the game.
Being a multidisciplinary field, getting into game development requires time, patience and practise. There are several pieces of software that you will need to learn, along with building a basic understanding of several skill sets that you may have little to no experience in.
A blank canvas is much harder to fill when you’re unsure what to create, so before you start looking into the software you need, it’s important to decide what the concept of your game will be. Things to consider include:
There’s nothing stopping you from creating your own version of an existing game. In fact, it’s a great way to teach yourself the fundamentals, which will help massively when you move to original ideas.
Regardless of whether you’re recreating an existing game or making something original, keep it simple! It’s great to be ambitious and have lots of ideas, but when you’re trying game development for the first time, you’ll soon realise that what seems like a very rudimentary feature takes a lot of time.
Look at the concept of your game and reduce it down to its most basic form. For example, a 2D platformer with a suite of skills to aid traversal across various different levels can be reduced to a vertical rectangular block (your character) that can move left, right and up. By keeping your early forays into game development manageable, you’ll naturally build your skills while keeping the project realistic and avoiding becoming overwhelmed at the scope of what you’re trying to achieve.
A game engine is the software that you use to build your game. You may be familiar with the more prominent engines like Unity and Unreal Engine. There are also game studios with their own proprietary engine like Decima (Guerilla Games), Anvil (Ubisoft) and Frostbite (EA).
Unity and Unreal are commonly favoured by developers of all sizes, thanks to their sophisticated tools, wealth of tutorial content, and prevalence within the games industry. Both support the use of visual scripting - Blueprints in Unreal is especially useful for beginners - which removes the need for any programming experience in favour of an intuitive drag-and-drop creator. It should be noted that visual scripting can only achieve so much, and more complex games will require programming.
While Unity and Unreal are perfectly good choices - and free to use - we wanted to recommend three different game engines that are commonly used by beginner’s to game development.
|
Game Engine |
Key Features |
Platform(s) |
| Perfect for 2D games No programming knowledge needed Lots of tutorial content Active community across multiple channels |
Windows macOS Linux |
|
| Make 2D and 3D games Drag-and-drop visual scripting Basic programming required for more complex games Lots of tutorial content and free assets Active community across multiple channels |
Windows macOS Linux Android iOS |
|
| Supports 2D, 3D and multiplayer game creation Intuitive ‘Event’ system instead of coding Abundance of tutorial content, free assets and game templates (some free, some paid) Active community across multiple channels |
Windows macOS Linux Android iOS Web Browser |
Photo credit: Stina Rådestig, The Whitlock Hotel
Now that we’ve looked at the game engines available, it’s time to explore the software that will give your game its identity. The key components can be broken down into the art style, the animation and the music/sound.
Crafting the visual identity of your game will be informed by your concept or the style of the game you’re recreating. Traditionally, adding art assets would be one of the final stages in the game development process. That being said, when you’re working on a very small scale, being able to test your game with the visual aesthetic in place can be really helpful.
In the past, we highlighted the top five softwares used by game artists, but these come with a steep learning curve and a cost. If you’d like to have a go at designing your own art assets, software such as GIMP, PyxelEdit and Blender are a great starting point.
“Within art for games you have different areas, Pixel Art and 3D modelling. Within 3D art you have different areas such as: Environment Art, Character Art and Hard surface modelling. Within Indie studios/ game jams you may be asked to do a variety of these whilst traditionally in a larger studio you would focus on one of this areas. Having general knowledge of each of these areas is ideal and then focusing on one to become the focus of your portfolio.” - Dylan Radford, Module Leader on BA (Hons) Game Art
Once again, treat animation like all other aspects of the development process and keep it simple. If we return to our platforming example, think about what animations are required for a game that has a vertical rectangular block that can move left and right and jump over obstacles. What movements need to be animated? Are there moving objects within the level?
Depending on which game engine you use, you should have a suite of in-built animation tools to work with, otherwise we recommend experimenting in Blender.
Making sounds for your game gives the player a new element of feedback when they play. Using our platforming example, you may want to create a sound for when your character jumps. The addition of music adds an extra layer to the experience, too.
Creating original sounds and music can be done in a multitude of ways. A smartphone is a perfectly good field recorder to capture sounds for your game. Software such as Audacity is a great way to edit those sounds, but if you want to go a little deeper, BandLab or Waveform are both free and fully-featured audio editing programs that can also be used to create original music.
With all that being said, you don’t actually have to create any bespoke art and audio assets if you don’t want to. There are an abundance of free assets available out there, which can be invaluable when you’re still a beginner and means you can focus on creating the core of the game.
At the start of your foray into game development, you will likely be figuring things out by yourself. Through a combination of experimentation, tutorials and advice from online communities, you’ll soon start to find your groove within game development. We recommend joining r/gamedev on Reddit and the Game Dev Network on Discord.
Once you reach a point where you’ve got a basic understanding of the key components of game development, and have perhaps started to find an area that you particularly enjoy, e.g. design, art, animation, programming, etc. we highly recommend getting involved in game jams.
If you’re unfamiliar, a game jam is an event where game enthusiasts come together either in-person or online to create a small video game based on a set theme within a set period of time, e.g. 72-hours.
“Game jams are an amazing way to get involved in game development. From beginners to specialists, everyone is welcome and can participate to some level. A game jam is about the experience and fun of making games, use it as a time to talk with others that share your passion, build connections and understand your own strengths and interests within game development.” - Max Taylor, National Lead for Games
Game jams are invaluable, providing you with a real-world framework where you can apply your knowledge and skills in a collaborative way. You will learn so much from the experience and it’s great proof to show that a fun and playable game can be created in a short amount of time.
Game jams are also a fantastic way to meet like-minded people on the same path as yourself, and can often pave the way to future collaborative projects.
You may reach a certain point where you feel like you’ve exhausted what you can learn from the internet and want to explore other options. Formalised education like a Level 3 diploma or an undergraduate degree can be a real boon to your development; offering a structured learning environment, access to the industry-standard tools and experienced tutors that can support you 1:1.
At dBs Institute, our Access to HE Games Development diploma is a great way for aspiring game developers to formalise their skill set before progressing into an undergraduate degree that allows you to focus on your specialism, such as our BA (Hons) Game Art degree.
Our Why Study page will give you more detailed information on each pathway as well as frequently asked questions to help inform your decision.
If you're interested in knowing about the career prospects and nature of some roles in the video game industry, you can read our Career Spotlight features on Game Artists and Game Programmers on our website where we cover all facets of the role, how you get into it and speak with three professionals in those respective fields.
We hope this beginner’s guide to game development has been useful and wish you the best of luck as you explore this incredibly exciting field. In addition to those we’ve already mentioned, we recommend bookmarking the following resources for when you need them.
dBs Tutorials
r/gamedev’s enormous resource list for all things game development
Game Engine / Programming Resources
Game Development YouTube Channels
Already feeling like formal education might be the route for you? Sign up to one of our upcoming open events to get a better feel for life as a student at dBs.