Ultimate Guide to Getting Started in Game Development

Published in

Geek Culture

10 min readApr 30, 2022

In this post, we’ll be: giving an overview of what a game developer is (and the different specializations and skills), going over what you can do to get started.

What is a Game Developer?

At the end of the day, a Game Developer is,“A person who solves the problem of how to make a game”.

Developers, whether they specialize in art, design, or code, are all tasked with resolving issues in the projects they work on. The most crucial thing to remember is that they must create a game in order to solve the “issue” (by this we mean design, develop, and distribute the project).

Game developers satisfy as well as build demand for their products. They must be able to adapt to their market and audience in order for others to recognize and value their work.

In general, it is preferable to specialize in order to ensure that you have that one thing you excel at so that teams value having you on their projects. However, if you intend to create and release your own projects, you must be willing to take on a variety of jobs (industry talk: wear many hats).

What skills do Game Developers Need?

This is very dependent on the type of employment the developer is looking for.

If you want to work for huge businesses like Blizzard, EA, or Ubisoft, you should concentrate in one particular skill area. If you want to work at a startup studio, you should focus on mastering one talent and adding a secondary skill to your resume.

It’s honestly best to just learn to produce games if you want to start your own company (games don’t require the best art or the most mind-blowing mechanics; it’s more important to focus on finishing the product and being distinctive).

Game Development Hard Skills

Art

Game Artists are the developers that create the project’s visual elements.

They produce the assets used by other developers to make levels and characters. They may also be responsible with designing user interface pieces or animating specific game elements.

There’s also the profession of Tech Artist, which is a cross between art and programming that necessitates visual design and software development experience in order to produce graphical programs for a game (games with abstract graphics most likely have a Tech Artist on their team).

Learning to make game art might imply a variety of things. To begin, you must decide whether to create 2D art, such as pixel art or vector sprites, or 3D art, such as low-poly or photorealistic imagery.

After you’ve decided between 2D and 3D, you should look for an art style that you like. Look through numerous independent games on Steam or itch.io to learn about diverse art styles. Once you’ve discovered your style, keep working until you can produce things that both you and others consider “excellent.” By now, you should have started putting together an online portfolio to send them to when they ask for a sample of your work. You can start learning how to generate art for a game-focused project by using this portfolio to start generating or finding game projects to work on.

Even if you want to be a Tech Artist, we recommend starting with classic 3D art and working your way up.

Summary:

– Choose Between 2D and 3D
– Find an art style (by referencing games)
– Practice, Practice, Practice
– Build a portfolio
– Find/Create a game project
– Make, Make, Make

Bonus Tip: As an artist, it’s critical to maintain a portfolio of all of your work so that you can readily display it to anyone who ask to view your greatest work.

Design

Even if you choose a different expertise, you will almost certainly learn different sorts of design because all specialities rely on design in some way.

The developers that keep the team on track with the project’s concept are known as game designers.

They create levels, produce documentation for game parts or mechanics, and ensure that the game runs smoothly at all times.

It’s critical to start developing video games before learning to create them. It’s really that simple. Doing (rather than writing down and discarding your thoughts) is the best way to learn. You can begin by understanding how to create Game Pillar Documents, or GDDs. Try creating documentation for your own idea after learning basic documentation and specifying the materials you’ll need for the game.

Once you’ve compiled a list of assets, you may begin creating the level you’ve imagined by downloading a game engine and locating the assets you’ll require (we suggest using Unity and grabbing assets from the Unity Asset Store). By designing levels, you can learn what it takes to thoroughly create a level in a game (organization, lighting, asset placement/variance, and so on). You might also use this time to learn some basic programming so that your levels have some interaction.

Showcase your work in your portfolio and try to recruit others by demonstrating levels you’ve created with prototype elements. Continue producing games from here, and don’t be afraid to expand your knowledge of art or programming (designers should try to get a basic understanding of all aspects of development).

Summary:

– Learn to make GDDs and Game Pillar Documents
– Make a GDD or Pillar Document for your own game
– List the assets you’ll need (models, UI, sounds, etc)
– Find free prototyping assets (such as in the Unity Asset Store)
– Build levels in a game engine
– Recruit developers of other disciplines onto your project
– FINISH your game
– Build more games | Constantly learn

Programming

Game programmers are critical to the development of a game’s functioning.

They program systems to get things up and running, as well as to assist designers in creating material more quickly. Game programmers commonly specialize in gameplay, artificial intelligence, or physics programming after studying core programming (there are also plenty more options).

Depending on whether the programmer intends to work for a major studio or not, they may never formally specialize and instead learn what they need to know.

Learning to program may appear difficult at first, but once you grasp the fundamental concepts, you’ll notice how simple it is. You might begin by searching for game programming lessons on YouTube (we recommend specifically learning to program for either GameMaker or Unity, as they have larger, more active communities, Unreal is also really popular). Concentrate on key concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, arrays/lists, and engine-specific functions.

You can start cloning other games once you’ve mastered basic programming in your preferred engine/editor. Except for sharing with friends and family, we don’t suggest distributing copied games.

Make your own game once you’ve developed Pong, Breakout, Snake, Tetris, and Space Invaders (or similar easy games). Instead of attempting to create something large, keep your scope limited and concentrate on completing the game.

Once you’ve finished your own game, upload it to a portfolio website along with the other projects you’ve worked on previously (make videos of the clones and focus on playable versions of your own game). You can start exploring for game projects to join now that you have a portfolio to direct others to (or make your own). To get experience, concentrate on completing projects and remember to advertise your work.

Summary:
– Use Youtube to watch GameMaker , Unreal , or Unity tutorials
– Learn Core concepts (variables, loops, conditionals, arrays/lists, etc)
– Clone simple games
– Make your own simple game
– Create a portfolio using your finished game and clones
– Join projects or start teams and work on your own projects

Marketing

Every game creator should be able to market their product. Knowing how to promote your game will help you talk about it, know what to emphasize when promoting it, and sell it to more gamers. Because the DVNC team works at the corporate level, it doesn’t have much expertise with game marketing; however, smaller studios can always benefit from having someone on the team who knows how to promote game-related content.

It takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to promote. Prepare to spend a significant amount of time reading articles on how to market, what type of material to promote, community management, and a variety of other topics.

To begin, create a personal account on one major social media platform (such as Twitter or Instagram) and one game development-specific website (like gamedev.net or IndieDB). Focus on understanding how to use the application and obtaining the largest audience possible on the social networking site (try different post types such as links, images, videos, etc). On the game development site, try to form your own community around something or join one that has already been established.

Once you’ve figured out how to utilize both sites, you may look for a game development team to join (which should be simple given you’ll already be a member of a game development site). Offer to promote their material and assist with community management. Try to find another team if they don’t see the value of having a marketer on their team (there are thousands of teams online). Stick with the same team until their game is launched, and keep track of the various marketing strategies you employ and their effectiveness.

After your first team’s game is out, you may either create a website to develop a portfolio and include that first project as a case study, or you can locate another team and repeat the process while attempting to improve your effectiveness. You’ll find it easier to find paid jobs if you have projects in your portfolio.

Summary:
-Make an account on a major social site (Twitter, Instagram, Reddit)
-Make an account on a game development site (gamedev.net or IndieDB)
-Learn to use both websites to build a following (read articles!)
-Find a game project, and offer to promote their game
-Work with them until the game is released
-Build a portfolio website
-Find more projects

How do I get started?

We’d want to issue a warning before you begin your game creation journey.

You will have times when you feel as if no one believes in you and you want to give up. It’s critical to remember WHY YOU WANT TO MAKE GAMES at these times. Keep creating, smiling, and believing in yourself, and you’ll eventually meet individuals who appreciate your work (joining forums is an important part of staying motivated).

Specialize

It’s time to choose your specialization now that you know what the various skill sets in game development are. This shouldn’t be a difficult decision because, in the end, you should do what you enjoy. However, it’s critical that you choose the correct specialization so that you can concentrate on mastering a certain skill set and increasing your value to teams.

Consider it like choosing a class in a video game or filling a specific function in a group. If you switch classes, you’ll have to start over at level 1 (and wait until you’re level 10–20 to be useful to a group), but if you stick with it, you’ll be performing dungeons in a few months, and then 20-man raids in a few years (maybe even months).

Learn

Once you know what you want/need to learn, it’s as simple as going out and practicing it. If you read the long descriptions of the skills above, you should already have a general idea on how to go about learning the associated skills.

You can spend as much time as you like reading articles and watching tutorials, but you’ll eventually have to learn to create on your own. Starting to produce (art, programming, designs, etc.) early will help you figure out what skills you need to master (it may sound a little like inception, but learning game development is actually about figuring out what skills you don’t know about so you can learn them).

Promote and Socialize

Always use social media and your website to promote your work. You’ll be able to show more people what you’re capable of if you promote your work. Having an online presence can help you join teams and get hired for jobs (but keep your personal information to a minimum [name, email, and website should suffice unless it’s a job offer]).

Along with advertising yourself, networking with other game developers will provide you with employment and project leads. Participating in game jams, discovering development forums, and giving comments and compliments to other devs on social media are all excellent methods to get your name out there and establish yourself as a game developer that knows X.

Create

Make sure you don’t get too caught up in marketing your previous work. You should continually strive to improve your work quality and speed up the production of “excellent” work. One of the best methods to ensure that your talents continue to improve is to create on a regular basis. By completing projects, you will have good examples of your work and will be able to demonstrate your progress through your portfolio site and social media page.

It can be difficult to stay motivated and intrigued, but you can overcome this by surrounding yourself with other creators. If you ever get weary of producing, consider joining a casual development team or taking part in a community challenge. You’ll naturally want to keep developing if you have other creators to encourage and motivate you.