Hobbyists - How do you make it happen?

Make a sketch on paper, go to the engine and now the hardest part, test a thousand times until get good. Finalize your project, even if the game is ten minutes long or an hour, just finish something. Only through a lot of work that we improve. Start simple.

-Gleison

I had this idea for a game for a vary long time and never really thought i could make it myself. When i found out about C2 and tried it i figured i could make it happen if i really wanted to! So i just started messing around. I had it all in my mind and just let my creativity do the rest. Things fall into place when i work and new ideas arise.

Same here.

I started as a total profane in game development, and my very first creation is the one which i'm still workin on (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =331479068). Over time, i gradually learned new things, refined my skills, implemented new ideas, and here we are, in the middle of the alpha stage with a very complex project going on!

If you don't succed try try and try again

I start with a game design document. From there i just add simple sprites to try and get out the main ideas of the concept. If it's fun or I see potential in the game I keep going. If not I scratch that idea and keep moving.

With that being said, You have to fine your own pipeline and see what works for you. If you do any creative work now use that same pipeline and see if it translate to your game design process.

For learning, not much can compare with working with a team first.

Even if the team project falls apart due to life issues, you'll have learned quite a bit in the process, and the impetus from other team members to fulfill your obligations will be stronger than the motivation you'd have to learn alone.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but that's how a lot of people finally get that push to get over the beginner's hump. Then once you have the skill set, creating and executing your own vision will be much more achievable.

I had a lot of ideas for a long time, but never really had any tool to make them until i found Construct 2. I tried a couple of times to make projects with friends. But there's often too many hickups and bumps along the road working in a team (On your "spare time"). If i really do need help on something I will actually consider paying someone to do it, or ask help in that particular matter.

Many projects that you do on your spare time tends to become more of a burdon than a hobby if you involve too many people. Although, If you synchronise your vacations, sit together a couple of days/weekends/weeks working intensely and focused together towards the same goal, you can achieve a lot more than doing an hour here and there, depending on each other to fix certain things.

If you really need to work together with other people on something doing it focused and intensely over a shorter period works way better than stray work every now and then. Getting together over the weekend, Rent a cabin in the woods (preferably with as few distractions as possible), kiss your partner goodbye, and just go crazy.

For me when I'm working alone on something, i use the few hours after work every now and then for planning, inspiration, sketching, writing down ideas, and set a goal what I want to get done over the weekend. Then first thing Saturday morning I brew myself a nice cup of Java, and start work, until i'm too tired to continue, and the same thing on Sunday, if I don't have anything else booked.

At least that's what works for me.

For me the best thing is to jump straight into it. Of course I have some general ideas for how I want the game to be, but I usually just start from the beginning and go on from there. My challenge is that I keep going back and fix stuff, like the look of some sprites and the design of levels - this makes the process end up in stalemate and I lose the motivation. I also have several ideas for games at one time, and this makes it difficult to really focus on one game at a time..

I guess the process is different for everyone. I like to just head straight in there and see where the road takes me (and the game)

Work out the game using nothing more than pieces of paper and pencils or biros. Plenty of iterations are required as you progress because ideas evolve. And so you will need some kind of fencing to stop yourself evolving ever better ideas forever. Keep it simple and use simple graphics for the prototyping. Don't get hung up on the artwork until you have the game logic and mechanics sorted out. Build up the game and ensure all is rock solid and then start pruning back on the non essentials and then prune some more. Be like Michelangelo starting with a huge lump of carrara stone and start chiseling. Eventually you'll have a nice little game. And remember, amazing artwork will not save a crap game and an amazing game will only ever need simple but professional graphics: look at Don't Touch the Spikes as a lesson in simplicity of game concept and simplicity of visual style. It looks like you could have come up with that game one Sunday afternoon. But you didn't because you were sweating the details - right?

I make my (open sourced) game on paper first. the Carp-e Diem was planned in papers 6-7 months. Only then I started the coding (in Yii) of the game.

I started off by building the engine with generic building blocks as placeholders for the characters, enemies, and objects. That took about 3 months working in my limited spare time. Then I built the levels, once again with the generic building blocks. Yet again this took 3 months.

I was going at a pretty good pace, but then some life-related things came up and really slowed me down when I started the art. I began with the character design and sprites for everyone, protagonist and bad guys included. That took 4 months (Like I said, due to life related things) After that I went on to do the sprites and animations for anything cutscene related, which took about a month and a half. Finally, I am now onto the level environments. So far I'm a month and a half into that, and hoping to be done within the next month or so (But I'm always off on my predictions!!!). From there I will do Alpha testing, find someone to do music for the game, fix any programming errors, and put the finishing touches on the art.... kind of exhausting to think about really.

Make game development a daily habit and soon you will see results. If you find yourself losing focus quickly, create lists of every single thing you need to do for game development and the other elements (marketing, devblog, etc.). I personally use the program Todoist because of its clean interface and it's automatic syncing across all devices. The process of crossing off objectives is encouraging and builds motivation and morale. Work 30 minutes a day, then an hour, and slowly progress until not developing every day feels strange. Visualization is also a valuable concept to learn, not only for game dev but any task of effort worth doing. See yourself at the end of the project, imagine how you would feel being able to show people your completed game and the knowledge you will have garnered throughout the development process. Good luck and remember: you are a developer in the golden age of gaming. Never before has gaming had such an influence, both in sheer revenue numbers and cultural influence. Hundreds of new games are released each day, both large and small, and you can join the vibrant community of game developers with a little brainpower and dedication!

Nice thread, some useful information. Thank you to everyone who has posted. I am a newbie to game development and to construct 2. I have been around the app reskinning and app making scene for a few years. For me the process when reskinning would be more a case of visualization, how it looks in my head. Many a time I have spent weeks or months reskinning an app just to not like the end product so I would either start again, or ditch that project and move on to a new one. Im going to take some of the advice from this thread and start writing my ideas down and do a rough sketch of how i want things to look and act out.

Sign up for a contest, then throw yourself into dev every spare second of the day with the deadline looming. Works for me! Seriously, it's the only way I finish anything.

First I play a lot of video-games to get some ideas then once I have an idea I write a list of all the sprites I need to draw and make a calendar to schedule my project so I finish it in time. However be careful about playing videogames for too long or you won't get it started

Very interesting thread. Worth reading! Thank you guys for your feedback.

Well, my turn.

Huge fan of videogames of all kind (RPG, Platform, Strategy, and Driving mostly) since I am a child, I started working on my own 2D platform game back in 2009. Afraid of gaming development, I put it aside... Thinking it was impossible.

Anyway, 2 years ago, in January 2014 I became freelancer and came back to my idea of creating my own game. I now have almost 6 years of experience in the Web industry, and I feel more confident.

I try to work on my video game every time I get some free time. Sometimes 1 day or 2 days per week, sometimes juste a few hours, but I try to focus step by step. Quite slowly, yes, but efficiently.

What I found really helpful is to write or draw everything that comes in my mind. Any idea or concept, at any instant of my life, I write it down and come back to it later.

Sometimes you desperate. This is normal, we are human. We sometimes need to get down to come back higher. When I loose motivations, I try to focus on my goals, and when I get stuck somewhere, I put it aside and get it back later.

Being a indie dev is not that easy, but this is definetly a long but exciting journey!

Well, I hope you will find it useful.

This was just what's in my mind and what I wanted to say after reading all your interesting posts.