11 TIPS ON HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN

VIDEOGAME

FROM 0 TO GAME DEV

Jonathan Sanchez

Copyright © 2015 by Jonathan Sanchez. All Rights Reserved.

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You can also get the free report “5 free tools for Game
Development” for additional tips and info.
Index
Preface
Tip #1: Choose a genre
Tip # 2: Go back to the basics
Tip #3: Set the scope
Tip #4: Choose your target platform
Tip #5: Choose an engine
Tip #6: Procrastination, your WORST enemy
Tip #7: Now to the graphics part!
Tip #8: Time to rock!
Tip #9: Documentation, manuals and tutorials are your best
friends
Tip #10: Playtest….. A lot!
Tip #11: Sell your game
Bonus: Enter Game Jams
Preface
Usually when you’re a gamer at some point of your life you asked yourself “How is it
like to make my own game?” or said “I’m going to make my own game! It will have X
amount of features and the player will have Y skills, and the story it’s going to be
awesome”. So you set your goal and start making all the cool features that your game
will have, start planning the armor, the enemies, the weapons, the story, and a lot of
things you think your game will have. But as you stop planning you get to your first bump
in the road of making your own game: You know nothing of how to execute it.
I’ve had the same problem 5 years ago when I started my game development career, and
after learning a lot and have succeeded in some things (and failed in a lot, lot more) I
compiled a list of what could really ease your way into game development.
When you had your encounter with videogames and then you considered doing one
perhaps someone told you that in order to make them you need to study computer
science and later on your career discovered that you could start earlier and that in
college they didn’t taught you to make games (unless you went to a game dev college of
course). And even though coding is really helpful to make good games, it is certain that
you can make games even if you are not a programmer. Now I’m not going to tell you
that it’s a walk in the park, but if you really have the passion for making games and you
put to practice (I really want to put an emphasis on this) these tips, you will be making
complete projects in no time (of course the time depends on the scope of the project that
we will cover later).
Now I give you 11 tips on how to make your own videogame, which will help you to
quickly overcome the hurdles that as a game developer I encountered in the past.
Tip #1: Choose a genre
When making a videogame this is the first thing that you need to have sorted out, you can
have an idea for a game, but that idea can fit into a different set of genres and you have
to choose the best way to bring it to life.
When choosing your genre you will have to make it coherent to the game world you
want to bring, you may not put a great narrative on a racing game (although it’s possible,
but you can choose a better genre to do it). This is the easiest part of the game
development process and maybe you may even have a genre selected beforehand, this
decision is totally on what you prefer, so if you want to put a heartwarming story in a
racing game or make an action packed game in the form of a point-and-click, go ahead!
So in case that you are not very familiar with all the genres that are available right now
I will give you a brief list:
- Action: This is the most basic of genres, and the games that are on this genre
are the ones whose their main focus is the action (I know I’m repetitive here) a
good example of these action games include Devil May Cry, God of War, Grand
Theft Auto, The Witcher series. But you shouldn’t confuse them with fighting or
combat.
- Adventure: Adventure games are the ones that take you on a journey with
emphasis on the freedom of exploration. The most basic examples include point
and click games, also Grand Theft Auto, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Mass
Effect, Final Fantasy or The Witcher series.
- Arcade: This genre usually applies to older games. Those are the games that
don’t have an expansive storyline other than the essentials, but with an effective
gameplay, where the main focus if to finish the game with the largest amount of
points. Metal Slug Series, Galaga, Pinball and The Simpsons Arcade among
many others.
- Beat ‘Em Up: Is a sub-class of the platformer, where instead of going
through the level you beat your way through it, with more than 4 opponents at
once. Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Fist of Jesus and The Simpsons Arcade are
examples of the genre.
- Shoot ‘Em Up: This genre is exactly like the “Beat ‘Em Up” but you shoot
your way through the levels. Saviors, Raiden III, Retro/Grade, Steredenn,
Hangeki and Cyberpunk 3776 are examples of this genre.
- Combat: This must not be confused with the Action or First Person Shooter
(FPS) games, combat games are the ones that have direct military-like
characteristics that create a hard-boiled experience. SOCOM and the Call of
 Duty Series are an example of this genre.
- Fighting: The fighting genre is the one where the player battles an opponent
to obtain certain result, such as the depletion of health. Even when sometimes
you can make a team, fighting games gameplay is usually a one versus one
experience.
- Flight: Its main focus is on flying usually in a realistic/semi-realistic
perspective. Pilotwings, Ace Combat, Skygunner, Star Fox are ones of the most
notable examples.
- FPS: The First Person Shooter is literally a genre where you have a view in
first person (that means that you don’t see the model/character you are playing
with) and shoot enemies with an arsenal of weapons. Wolfenstein, Halo, Doom,
Call of Duty Series are a few examples of this genre.
- MMO: Massively Multiplayer Online games are the ones where the online
gameplay is the main focus, and that players can interact with each other in a
real-time space. World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Tibia, The Elder Scrolls
Online, Day Z are some of the examples of this genre.
- MOBA: It stands for Massive Online Battle Arena, also known as real-time
strategy, it’s a genre in which you control a single character in one of two teams
(and as in the MMO, the online gameplay is the main focus). The objective is to
destroy the opposing team’s main structure. Dota 2, League of Legends, Smite,
Dead Island Epidemic and Heroes of the Storm are examples of this genre.
- Platformer: This genre includes a moving character in a 2D or 3D
environment to overcome impeding obstacles with physical movement. Donkey
Kong, Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, Little Big Plane are examples of
this genre.
- RPG: The Role Playing Game genre is base around concepts of the early
tabletop adventures. The player uses the application of mathematics to make their
main character stronger and it has a turn based combat system. Fallout, The Elder
Scrolls and Pokémon are examples of this genre.
There are a lot more of genres that I didn’t mention in this list but still are worth
mentioning and you also should consider when deciding the genre of your videogame
such as: Roguelike, rhythm, racing, metroidvania, third person Shooter, puzzle, Run ‘n
gun, sports and stealth.
Tip # 2: Go back to the basics
What I mean by this is that you take your game and think of the core mechanics, the
things that will make your game fun and test them. For example, let’s assume that you
are going to make an awesome first person shooter with RPG elements that focus
heavily on a mechanic that makes your characters suddenly change stats mid-play (Now
that would be interesting!), so first make sure that the stat changing feature will be fun
for the player, and now you ask yourself How can I test that? Well that’s easy, put in
pen and paper the mechanics and start to play, roll a dice to shuffle the stats and make
the rules of your game, then you can do the same with all the other aspects of your game.
Or if you are making a visual novel make sure that the role playing part of the game is
fun, write the choices and test them, write the different scenarios and endings and start
playing.
It’s really important to make sure that the core mechanics are fun and entertaining to the
player, because if you put “X” element first (graphics, story, you name it) and the fun
part at last, you’re going to end up with a boring game.
Tip #3: Set the scope
Now this is where it starts to get a little more complicated, just because you have an
awesome idea for a game that doesn’t mean that all the features and mechanics that you
have in mind will go into the final game, this is the part where you will have to really
measure your skills and start working on the things you can do and in the time and
budget you have (or you set yourself).
The first part of setting your scope will be on the time, let’s assume that you want to go
down the indie developer path, so you have to put a timeline to get your game out on the
market (a lot of times that timeline set by time you have until the money dries up, sadly
been there before), and for that I recommend that you check when the blockbuster titles
will go out (so maybe you should not launch on November where the big budgeted titles
will come out). The second part will be to set the budget scope, which means checking
how much money you have to spend on the game and also how much you will need to
live until you release your game. The third part will be a skill scope and I think this is
the most important because it will set the other two scopes and will give you a good
understanding on the time you will need to finish your game with the skills you have and
the budget (Do you have all the skills to make the game? Will you have to outsource
your art? Can you compose the soundtrack?). (If you are making games for a living you
will need to have those set, if not maybe the second scope it’s not that necessary, but it
is also applicable to set those scopes so with that you can get a better estimation and
finish your game and not dropping out before it’s finished).
Extra tip: Even if you happened to have all the skills needed to make the game (that
said, you can design, program, make art and music) I recommend that you form a team,
believe me I’ve been there. Each member team has to complement the others, at first I
went solo on game development, and even when I made some games, I noticed that as
soon as I work in a team the level of stress went down and also the quality of the games
went up. So don’t try to go solo, unless that’s the only option you have.
Tip #4: Choose your target platform
This really depends also on the type of game you are making (that’s why some mobile
ports don’t make it big on PC and consoles) if your target is mobile, make sure that the
gameplay experience is enjoyable for the player which translates to not having complex
touchscreen controls (so fighting games should be stripped down to much simpler
controls, like in Injustice Gods Among Us mobile version). If your target is console you
can make a much richer experience and can have a complex button layout, but also that
means that you should invest heavily on gameplay and mechanics so the player gets
value out of the purchase (because if you go through the hustle of certifying to release on
console you are expecting to make a profit out of it, right?). And there is another
platform that you should consider and it’s the web, and for that you have the freedom of
taking the best of both mobile and console worlds, you can make a simple game with
simple mechanics and you can add a great narrative, but you should have in mind that
the size limit is usually around 20 megabytes, so you should take that into consideration
when deciding which platform you want to target.
Also when choosing a platform, take on consideration the fees that you have to pay. For
example if you are going to publish your games on mobile the Amazon AppStore doesn’t
have a fee, but the Play Store has a one-time fee of $25 and the Apple AppStore has a
$99 yearly fee to publish your apps there (and they take 30% of your revenue). And if
you are going PC, Steam has a $100 entry fee to the Greenlight process, and take an
undisclosed revenue share from every game, other doesn’t charge to enter their store,
but all of them take some revenue share, and the same applies for consoles they don’t
have a fee but they take revenue and you have to be a stablished developer, and by that I
mean that you are seriously working on your game, have some advances and go through
the process of registering to distribute on their platform.
Tip #5: Choose an engine
Now that you chose your genre, have the gameplay and know where are you going to
distribute it, it’s time to actually make your game. Now there are a lot of ways to make
your own videogame, you could actually code everything yourself in C++ and DirectX
(but that would be a very long journey my friend, and you want to adjust your time
scope), but I really recommend using a game engine. You don’t have to reinvent the
wheel, a game engine will make your job as a developer easier (and I am by no means
saying that there will not be hard work involved).
Now I haven’t mentioned before anything about learning how to code or a particular
programming language, that’s because YOU MAY NOT EVEN NEED TO. Now there
are a lot of options to make your game without programming knowledge and also others
that you will need to have coding skills, and we will analyze them right now:
Stencyl:
- Overview: Stencyl is a 2D toolset that accelerates your workflow where you can make
a game without the need of coding experience; you just drag and drop the behavior
elements in a simple block-snapping interface.
- Target platforms: Flash, PC, Mac, Linux, iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android.
- Best for: Creating mobile/web games to sell on sites like Armored Games, Kongregate
and Newgrounds.
- Pricing: Free (for publishing to web), $99/yr. (Indie license for publishing to web &
desktop) and $199/yr. (Studio license for publishing to iOS, Android, Web & Desktop).
- Royalties: No royalties.
- Coding experience: Optional, you can use the block-snapping interface or you could
code on “Haxe”
- Games made with the engine: “Pixel” (AppStore), “Blip” (AppStore), “Zuki’s Quest”
(AppStore) among others.
Construct2:
- Overview: Is a powerful HTML5 2D game creator that allows anyone to build games
without the need to write code you just use a layout editor add the behaviors with an
intuitive event system and edit them with a drag and drop the elements of the game.
- Target platforms: Web, Windows Store, Chrome Web Store, Facebook, iOS, Android,
PC, Mac, Linux, Amazon Store, and Wii U.
- Best for: More complex 2D games, if you plan to target another platforms different
than web and if you don’t have any coding skills (since it’s more powerful than Stencyl
but easier to make a game with).
- Pricing: Free Edition (for Web and Windows Store but it is not for commercial use),
Personal Edition ($129.99 for all the platforms listed but can’t make more than $5k of
revenue) and Business License ($429.99 for all the platforms listed and can make
unlimited revenue).
- Royalties: No royalties.
- Coding experience: No coding experience needed.
- Games made with the engine: “The Next Penelope” (PC, Mac, Linux and Wii U),
“Airscape: Fall of Gravity” (PC, Mac and Linux), Cosmochoria (PC and Mac) among
others.
Game Maker Studio:
- Overview: It is a 2D game engine that caters to entry level game developers as also
seasoned game development, which allows you to create cross-platform games in no
time, even if you don’t have any coding experience. This is has a marketplace so you
can buy assets for your game (sprites, music, mechanics, etc.).
- Target platforms: PC, Mac, Linux, HTML5, Android, and iOS, Windows Phone 8,
Tizen, Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita and PS3.
- Best for: If you want to make a more robust 2D game without coding, and a faster
learning curve, this is your engine.
- Pricing: Standard (free for exporting to PC only), Professional ($89.99 for exporting
to PC, and Windows Phone, additional modules can be purchased separately) and
Master Collection ($559.99 for exporting to all platforms available).
- Royalties: No royalties.
- Coding experience: Optional, you can use the drag-and-drop tools for all the
mechanics or you can use the proprietary GML scripting language.
- Games made with the engine: Hotline Miami (PC), Stealth Bastard Deluxe (PC, Mac
Linux and iOS), Hyper Light Drifter (PC, Mac, Linux, Ps4, Vita and Wii U), Gunpoint
(PC), Nidghogg (PC), Spelunky (PC, Chrome) among many others.
Unity 3D:
- Overview: Unity is a powerful development platform for creating multiplatform 3D
and 2D games and interactive experiences (that means that it’s not limited to gaming
purposes). Unity has an extensive asset store where you can find everything from audio
to complete projects to make your game development experience easier. Also this is a
“build once, deploy anywhere” type of engine.
- Target platforms: On Unity you can develop in up to 22 different platforms, iOS,
Android, Windows Phone 8, Blackberry 10, Tizen, PC, Windows Store, Mac,
Linux/Steam OS, Web Player, WebGL, PS3, PS4, Morpheus, PS Vita, Xbox One, Xbox
360, Wii U, Android TV, Samsung SMART TV, Oculus Rift, Gear VR and Microsoft
HoloLens.
- Best for: 2D and 3D games with both simple and complex mechanics, for videogames
that you want to release on multiple platforms.
- Pricing: Personal Edition (Free for all platforms until you make $100,000 in
revenue/funding in the previous fiscal year) and Professional Edition ($75/month or a
one-time fee for $1500 for the current release cycle, that means that will only apply for
Unity 5 and as soon as the version 6 comes out you have to pay again if you want to
upgrade).
- Royalties: No royalties, but if you use the Personal Edition and make more than
$100,000 on a year you have to purchase the Professional Edition.
- Coding experience: You will need to know either C# or JavaScript (UnityScript) to
add behaviors and mechanics to your games, there is also the option to buy an asset
from the Asset Store that lets you create games without code, but that has an extra fee.
- Games made with the engine: Ori and the Blind Forest (Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC),
Kerbal Space Program (PC, Mac and Linux), Hitman Sniper (Android and iOS), Lara
Croft: Relic Run (Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8), Firewatch (PC, Mac and
Linux), Cuphead (PC, Mac, Linux and Xbox One), Monument Valley (Android and
iOS), Republique Remastered (PC and Mac), Crossy Road (Android and iOS),
Assassin’s Creed Identity (iOS) and many other games.
I’ll just add a quick note here: This is the engine that I personally use because of the
great documentation and the community behind it, and also it has some of the best
tutorials out there (that because of its wide adoption and the low fees), the game we are
making right now is being made in Unity Engine.
Unreal Engine 4:
- Overview: Is a complete suite of game development tools made by the guys behind
Fortnite, Jazz JackRabit and the Gears of War series. From 2D mobile games to console
and VR, Unreal Engine 4 gives you a full set of tools that you need to develop your own
videogame. It also has an asset store to accelerate your game development pipeline.
- Target platforms: iOS, Android, HTML5, Linux, Mac, Oculus Rift, PS4, SteamOS, PC
and Xbox One.
- Best for: Skilled developers that want to make highly polished games, also you can
make simple 2D games.
- Pricing: Free.
- Royalties: 5% royalties of your videogame when you make more than $3000 of
revenue.
- Coding experience: You need to know C++ in order to code in Unreal Engine 4, and
also you can use the “Blueprints” visual scripting system which enables function blocks
and property references in the editor to be wired together.
- Games made with the engine: Batman Arkham Series: Asylum, City, Knight (Xbox
360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, PC), Bioshock 1,2 & Infinite (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC), Eve:
Valkyrie (Virtual Reality), Gears of War: 1, 2, 3, Judgement (Xbox 360 and PS3),
Gears of War 4 (Xbox One and PS4), The Flame in the Flood (Xbox One), Mortal
Kombat X (Xbox One, PS4 and PC) among many, many others.
Now this is a game engine that is used widely on the AAA industry and some Indies, but
there is something awesome, there is a program called “Unreal Grants” where Epic
gives developer from $5k to $50k to develop your game as long as you are using UE4…
No strings attached.
Cryengine:
- Overview: Is an all-in-one game development solution with multi-award winning
graphics, state-of-the-art graphics, actually I think it’s the best engine when it comes to
graphics. Features of a CRYENGINE game can be produced, edited and played
immediately with the “What You See is What You Play” system.
- Target platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC, Linux, iOS and Android.
- Best for: Impressive looking 3D games.
- Pricing: $9.9/month subscription or a full license (for which you have to get in contact
with Crytek, the guys behind CryEngine).
- Royalties: No royalties.
- Coding experience: You need knowledge in C++ and Lua, C++ to make your own
custom behavior, and lua for low level programming such as multiplayer, entities, etc.
- Games made with the engine: Evolve (PS4, Xbox One and PC), Ryse Son of Rome
(Xbox One and PC), Crysis 3 (Xbox 360, PS3 and PC), Start Citizen (PC and Linux),
among others.
Let me remind you that in order to develop for consoles you will need to become a
certified developer. And there are a lot of other game engines which you can use but I
outlined the most popular and the ones that I found the most useful for you but there are
another that you can try if you want to: RPG Maker (used to make RPG games, and there
is an extension to make shooters and side scrollers) and Source2 engine (the one used to
make Dota2, Titanfall, Team Fortress2, Left 4 Dead, Portal).
It’s also to keep in mind that when choosing an engine you lose at some point the ability
to customize your game at a 100% (Unity for example, doesn’t give you full access to
their source code, so you will have to work with the constraints that the engine has), and
other even if they give you the ability to customize them it will be a hard task to do it.
Tip #6: Procrastination, your WORST enemy
Ok now you are set to start making your own game, but there is something else that you
must have in count THIS IS WHERE THE EASY PART ENDS! And what I mean by
that is that we are always excited about the idea we are going to bring to life but when it
comes to execution and as soon as you start to stumble into problems in the development
of your game, well, you got to the part where most of the people that quit on game
development drop the ball.
And it is totally understandable, it’s not that fun to be stuck for hours on a bug in the
code, or having problems with your framerate and loading screens (oh boy! That used to
be my problem), you have time constraints, or don’t have the budget to finish that
awesome game you want to put in front of the players; and that added that you decided
to choose an engine that relies heavily on code to actually make games and of course it
has a slow learning curve, and even if you manage to make a functional prototype is not
good enough, so you decide to stop making games and just play them again.
Well before telling you anything else, I will go out and say that making games it’s not an
easy task, it requires that you really commit to learn, fail, iterate, fail again, ask for help,
fail one more time, and by then maybe you will have something good to show and
playtest.
Now this can be avoided, just take a look of the things that helped me go through the
process:
- Go back to your game design and start by taking a look at all the features,
characters and mechanics and check if everything is stripped down to its
simplest form, make that big feature into small chunks and then start planning
tasks to make them happen.
- When your problem is budget I have an easy solution for you, if you are not
an artist as myself and it’s not on your possibilities to form a multidisciplinary
team always rely on the asset store where you can get assets, models, music, tile
sets and even entire projects for a very reasonable price and sometimes for free.
And now, money it’s not that much of a problem.
- If you are having a lot of problem with a bug, you can invest in a good
debugger and testing tools (i.e.: Visual Studio and Visual Studio Tools for Unity.
Which are the ones that I use), or you can take a more cost effective option: go
deep into the forums, and wikis of the engine. I learned a lot and manage to solve
some issues with the help of Unity Answers, and the Unity Forums (remember
that I am using Unity3D to make my games). And of course never forget to
check the official tutorials, since they help you a lot.
- Time is going to be an issue unless you decide to go game developer full
time, so for that you can start making a schedule to set the hours you will be
spending developing your game. And I would add using “Scrum” to manage your
project to make those hours really worthwhile.
- It is going to happen to you, this has happened to me a lot of times during the
development process, I stop and say “This game is not good enough/perfect, so
it’s not ready to see the light”. And let me tell you that this can be a great
problem if not addressed immediately. So let’s start by saying that your game is
NEVER GOING TO BE PERFECT OR FINISHED, it will be flawed, maybe
it’s not how you envisioned it in the first place; and of course that it’s never
going to be totally finished, there is always something that you could add to your
game. But the more you take on letting your game be on the hand of the gamers
and get feedback (good and bad), the more likely is that you are going to drop
your project.
Tip #7: Now to the graphics part!
Ok, now that you are making your game (that requires that you write code or not) and
you are not an artist, or you are an artist that either doesn’t know anything about game
development or you want to make your work as quick and effortless as possible, I got
you covered! Let me tell you the basic things you need to know so you don’t hit the wall
(so hard) when it comes to game art:
Animation: There is a way that you can make animations for your game and the most
common would be a sprite sheet that has all the frames of the animation (and that’s the
way they did it for most of your favorite games in the past) or you can use a software
made specially to make animations like Puppet2D or Spriter, but that only works for
2D. For 3D animation you first need a modeling program that can add the bones to your
3D model such as Maya, 3DMax, Houdini, Blender (which is free by the way), Make
Human (which made simple humanoid models, and it’s also free) among others, and
import them to your game engine and start making the animations there.
Backgrounds: Ok that is a no brainer, but I include it since it seem to be a problem
among the new developers and artist, this is a problem that is often made while making
2D games (in 3D it’s not much of a problem) has to be made independent to the props,
the background should not contain the non-interactive part of the game and it should
leave any props even if the player has no interaction with them. The first time I asked
for a background for my game it came with all the props in the background as one
image, and I’m going to explain why that was a problem.
Props: Now by this I mean the tables, doors, items, windows, chairs and anything you
can imagine that it’s not the player or the background, and this must be placed apart
even if the player interact with them. If you can interact is obvious since the will need to
be physics implemented in them, but if not you have to put them separately since you
may try to use them on different layers, that means that you can put a table and the
background and the player can walk between then since they are separate objects and
are not in the same layer.
Getting pre-made assets: Now this is a fast way to get models, props, backgrounds,
particle effects and for little to no price, so if you are on a tight budget this is a great
way to get your game done without breaking the bank. The downside is that since they
are already made assets there is little to no tweaking to fit your game, and there is a big
chance that you see the same assets on other game. Besides the engine proprietary asset
stores you can get pre-made assets from gamedevmarket.com and audiojungle.net
Royalty free art: These resources come handy when making games for the very first
time, and there are complete sets so you can the entire game have the same look and
feel, and even use them in commercial projects. But also you have to be aware of the
limitations of that, not all the royalty free assets are allow to be used in a commercial
use, some may ask to credit the author, so you have to be careful when selecting your
royalty free art if you intend to make a profit from it. One web page to look for royalty
free art is opengameart.com
Tip #8: Time to rock!
Now that you have everything in place, it’s time to add some music and audio to your
games. Now think of the gameplay, the graphics, the genre and the mechanics as the
body of your game, well now it’s the time to put the soul in it.
Most of the developers, especially when you are an indie (myself included) are not very
skilled in music and sound effects composition (if you happen to be skilled also on
music composition, kudos to you my friend), so the common thing you would say that
developers do is getting a composer on board, but that’s hardly the case. Most of the
developers outsource the soundtrack and sound effects (although it is more common to
see an in-house composer on AAA studios), but here’s the catch: it is sometimes not
very cheap. One time I asked for a quote for 2 1 minute length melodies to put on the
alpha release of a game and its teaser trailer, and they were willing to do the work for
$500 which had a 50% discount on the standard rate (and at that time I wasn’t able to
pay for it, since I had $0 on my wallet), so don’t get me wrong, I think the price was
right since the composer already worked on AAA games and the sounded incredibly
well, but at the time of adding things up I estimated that I needed at least 13 tracks, so it
was really out of my reach. And there are others that have a lower rate than that and are
actually pretty good, you just need to know the right person (I stopped looking to
outsource the audio because I got a composer into the studio).
One other thing that you can do (as in the game art) is to buy some pre-made audio
assets to put into your game (but again, since they are not personalized it may not fit too
well into your game) or you can get royalty free music and audio effects to put them into
your game. I happen to know a site that is great since it has a long list of royalty free
music (and in my opinion the music collection is pretty good) at incompetech.com
where the only thing you have to do to use it in commercial projects is to credit the
author.
But if you want to team with an independent composer and you don’t know where to
look for one, go to indieteamup.com where you can connect with other developers
around the world (programmers, designers, composers) and make new projects together
or work on one that is already in progress.
If you want also to outsource your soundtrack, sound effects, art or even code (assuming
you have the budget to do so) you can always go to online platforms where you can hire
freelancers, which you can pay them for project or hourly, I recommend upwork.com
(formerly oDesk), an elance.com
Tip #9: Documentation, manuals and tutorials
are your best friends
Let’s say you have already all the pieces of the puzzle together, that’s excellent, but in
the way of developing your game you got stuck because you have a bug in your code,
some imported audio drop the framerate, or the models/sprites you import happen to not
end up the way you made them. Well for all those problems you must rely on the
documentation, tutorials and manuals of said engine. And I would give you the most
common problems you will encounter and where to look for a solution.
If your problem is on a mechanic or the problem is a logical one (that means that the
game runs ok, but not on the way you wanted to) your go to solution is on the engine and
scripting reference. There you will find all the ways of coding your game, sometimes it
just a thing that the class you are using it’s not made for that particular type of behavior,
so the documentation will give you (with examples most of the time) the answer to make
it the way you want it.
Now let’s assume that your assets are not importing the way they should, that character
that on the modeling software looked and worked amazing it’s suddenly appearing and
disappearing as you move it (this concise example is here because it was a problem that
I used to have). So maybe it’s a coding problem so you will go into the documentation,
but some other times it’s a problem that you will solve with the engine manual (maybe
you imported the sprites in different resolution or sizes). The manual is also intended to
help you to use the engine in the proper way so you can make games the quickest way
possible.
You read through the manual, tried different ways to solve your problem by spending
hours checking the documentation and nothing worked, now it’s time to go straight to the
tutorials. Either in the form of text or video, they will help you to start using the engine,
to learn how to script (when you are not the type of person that learn through reading,
but instead of watching someone else do some examples) or solve a particular problem
you have. Since those tutorials are targeted to something specific (let’s say you need to
spawn 100 enemies as soon as you open the cabinet door) you will get a straightforward
answer to your problem, so in most cases this is the best way to solve a problem.
In all cases and in any type of problem it doesn’t hurt to go to the official (and
sometimes unofficial) forums, wikis and answers platforms. You will encounter a
community willing to help you with any problem you may encounter in making your
videogame (sometimes they even give you the exact link of the scripting
reference/manual/tutorial that has the answer you need, so it’s a good choice also if you
don’t want to go through the hassle of digging into the documentation.
Tip #10: Playtest….. A lot!
At some point you will say that your game is ready to go (I won’t say it is finished
because let’s be honest, a game is never finished, there is always something you want to
add to the game), you build it and you are ready to sell it…. Now hold on! You are
missing something really important, the playtesting.
Before you put your game into the eyes of a mass audience you first need to test your
game to ensure that it’s not full of bugs. You may say “I already did the testing; I played
it a lot of times an now my game is bug free”, well let me tell you that is a really high
chance that you are wrong. And let me explain to you why I say this, since you know
how every little thing of your game works, you may miss some things that you found
obvious but if not tested the player well may not know how to use them (for example the
first level of your game, how to pick up items, how to get past the menu screen... yes this
kind of things really happen to game developers).
So now you may be thinking of testing your game but don’t know how to do it, since you
may not have a Q&A department (unless you have a great budget) you can start with the
easiest ways to get feedback for your videogame:
- Friends: This may be the obvious choice, and it’s actually the cheapest one,
you finish your game and tell your friends to play it so you can get that precious
feedback you need to make your game better. But there are a few problems that
arise from having your friends to playtest your game, the first being that they may
not give you an honest feedback (since maybe they don’t want to hurt your
feelings, and will say that your game is good) and other one that it’s more
harmful is that they may not be your target audience (since you are not making a
game for everyone, but for a particular number of people that enjoy the genre of
the game you are making). So I personally don’t recommend this option.

- Early Access: Now this is a way that enables developers to put a playable
build of the game in front of the players and gaining some funds to continue the
development, it’s a great idea in concept since you validate if the player really
wants the game you are developing. And it’s something that it is pretty common
on the PC, and now on console, but the downside is that not a lot of people will
pay for a game that it’s not even finished, and that sometimes will stay on early
access for an unlimited amount of time. So it comes down to the genre of your
game, for open world titles, RTS and such, early access may be a great idea, but
maybe for a game that heavily relies on narrative you may try another option.
- Demo: Now this was a common thing years ago, but now you don’t see a lot
of demos and that may be because a lot of times developers made a demo build
that it’s specially tailored for a certain event (call it E3, Gamescon, SDCC, etc.),
but the demo is ok when you want to test some of the game mechanics and how
they feel, and you can distribute them the same way that the next option.

- Alpha/Beta builds: This is when you put in hands of the players a playable
part of how your final release will look like, a lot of times this is in the form of
the first level of the game, or one mode of an online or RTS game. This can be a
good option if you combine it with a forum (a private one would be better)
where players can discuss and leave feedback so you can improve your game
and see where the players are having problems. This is the one I recommend, and
you can distribute it on your web page, on sites as GameJolt, itch.io and
indiegamestand to name a few (if you are thinking “I want people to test my game
on Steam”, you first have to pass the greenlight process which I will discuss on
the next chapter.
Tip #11: Sell your game
Ok, here I am assuming that you want to make some money out of your game and want
people from all over the world to play it (if it happens that you only want to make games
as a hobby, or for nonprofit you can skip this chapter if you want). Before telling you
how to sell your game there is something that I want to have in mind all the time (either
in selling games as in selling anything else): The ones that sell to everybody, end up
selling nobody! And by that I mean that you should narrow your target audience, you
can’t go around saying that your game is for “everyone that want’s to have a good time”
(believe me I heard that a lot of times), and I’m not saying that that shouldn’t be your
goal, but it may not be realistic because not everybody likes RPG or RTS games for
example, instead you need to focus on one specific type of gamer that you think that will
enjoy your game, and sell it to them.
There isn’t a magic formula that will make your game sale a million copies, but there
are some things that you should keep in mind so you game makes the most sales it can
get:
- Marketing: I put this at the very beginning because I hear a lot (although
now it’s not that common anymore) “I’m not a marketing person, and even if I
were, all I need it’s to make a good game, that’s it”. And nowadays that’s
something that is wrong, you need more than a good game, you need a way to put
it in front of as many people as you can, the game won’t market itself (how many
times have you seen an unannounced AAA game, the studio market the games
years prior the release) and all the effort you didn’t put at the beginning of your
marketing campaign, you will have to double it (in time and budget). You will
have to contact gaming blogs an sites, but you don’t just send a mail and wait for
the reviews to come by themselves, you have to build a Press Kit
(dopresskit.com/), when making the first approach do a prior investigation and
see if they cover the genre of your game, then send a personalized email to the
writer. And also it’s very important to have YouTubers to review your game.
You can aim the most recognized ones, but don’t leave the small ones behind
(use all the help you can get), there are some YouTubers that won’t review your
game unless the game is on a particular platform (Steam for example), so maybe
you want to send a copy of your game a few months before you release it and not
just a few days before it hit the stores).
- Platforms: This part is as important as making your game, since it will
determine how many people see your game (that is because not all distribution
platforms has the same number of users) but here are some platforms where you
can put your game on sale:
Steam (PC, Mac & Linux): This is the platform that has over 125
million active users, this is the platform where you should target,
but as I mentioned in a previous chapter, you have to pay a one-
time fee of $100 and pass the greenlight process to actually sell
your game there.
Desura (PC, Mac & Linux): It’s a distribution platform for PC,
Mac and Linux, it has a decent library of games and active users,
it’s good to attract some customers, there has been some games that
first went live on Desura and gain fans so it was relatively easy to
enter Steam.
GOG (PC, Mac & Linux): A distribution platform made by the
guys behind “The Witcher” series CD Projekt, distribution
platform where you can get upfront royalties to put your final
polish on your game, but all the games on that platform are DRM
free (that means that anyone that has purchased a copy can share it
if they want, and it doesn’t require any activation).
Gamejolt (Web & PC): This is a platform especially made for
web and downloadable games, you have to put your games for free
but they will pay you for the times your game is
played/downloaded since the site has ads.
Itch.io (Web, PC, Mac & Linux): This is a great platform to start,
you can put your game for free and at the time they don’t take
royalties, you can price you can price your own game, make
promotions, even bundle your games and make a sale.
Origin (PC and Mac): This platform made by EA is a good
option to put your game at the same time as in other platforms, they
have a broad audience since it’s the only way to play games such
as Titanfall, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age Origins
and other EA games.
PSN (PS3, PS4 & PS Vita): This is the platform where everyone
that has a Sony console will go an purchase digital games, if you
want to distribute for this platform you have to apply on
http://us.playstation.com/develop/
IndieGameStand (PC, Mac and Linux): This is a great option
for the developer that doesn’t have a finished game, because it lets
you sell games on alpha and beta stages, and even can opt in for a
 sale that last for 4 days that it’s a “pay what you want” which can
be useful if you are trying to get your game on Steam and need
votes for the greenlight process, or when the sales are low..
Xbox Live (Xbox 360, Xbox One): Any Xbox owner can buy and
download digital games on their console on Xbox Live, but to
apply as an independent developer you have to apply on
http://www.xbox.com/en-us/Developers/id (they will have
support for Windows 10 as well, since they are integrating all their
platforms).
Nintendo eShop (Wii U and 3DS): The developers that want to
distribute on the Nintendo consoles will have to also register; you
can apply here https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/ and self-
publish your game. So if you want to develop for console, you
have to be a registered developer.

- Revenue Share: This something that is in all distribution platforms (except

for itch.io that right now has a 0% revenue share), but it’s common to see that
they take 30% of the sales you make, and Steam has an undisclosed amount of
revenue share. So have that in mind when putting your game on a distribution
channel.
- Bundles: This is a great option when your game sales are down, or when
you are trying to compensate the low sales of a product with the good ones of
other (that of course is if you have more than two games to offer), and some of
the sales goes to charity. But it’s not recommended to put your game in a bundle
at the very beginning of your sales, it’s best to wait until the games go down (the
same applies to the seasonal sales that the distribution platforms offers).
- Crowdfunding: You probably heard of this one, people looking for funds to
make their big and awesome project happen. And for gaming this is a great
option, with platforms such as Kickstarter that help developers to make their
game and validate on the way if the market really want your game. The only
downside of Kickstarter is that if the project goals are not met, you won’t get the
money. But another option is IndieGogo which is the same as Kickstarter but you
have the option of flexible funding, which means that even you don’t meet your
goal you can still get the funds the people that pledged give you. Another type of
crowdfunding is patreon, which allows creators to get monthly pledges (that can
start from $1) in exchange of your creations.
Bonus: Enter Game Jams
Now you know all the steps for making your first videogame, and the more games you
do the better they will be (if your first attempt isn’t that great, don’t worry, practice
makes perfection). Now it’s time to put your skills to test, by entering a Game Jam.
A Game Jam it’s an event (I won’t really say a competition) where they give a theme
and you must build a game around that in 48 – 52 hours, the only limit it’s your
creativity there have been a lot of great games that have come out of a game jam and
later have become full games.
So give it a try, you won’t regret it!

Still don’t know what tools to use? Download your free report “5 free tools for
game development”.

You can get in contact with me by following me on twitter @uso212. Hope to hear from
you and your awesome projects soon.