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Offline Arma

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What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« on: January 14, 2012, 10:35:48 AM »
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I'm very curious about this and would like to try making a video game but I'm a zero on the subject. I'm refining my ideas right now for two different games, one would be a shoot them up and the other an adventure game.

I want to star with the shooter, I don't want anything fancy for now I just need the name of the easiest to use programs to make 2D games, if any, and I'll make progress from there.
For now I want to get familiar with this and find the software more comfortable for my use, hope someone can give some guidance.

Offline Aridale

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2012, 11:26:59 AM »
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well since your a beginner Id recommend Construct2 from http://www.scirra.com/ over GameMaker. Atleast until you know a bit more about the process of makin and testin and are rdy to try somethin more complex like actual programming with scripting in GameMaker (or anything else)

Offline Inccubus

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2012, 02:06:02 PM »
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I have to agree, Aridale. Game Maker's basic DnD set up is very limited so it's not really worth it if you're not going to script everything instead.

Another thing I'd recommend is learning some basic programming techniques. I'm talking really old school Pascal/C/C++ stuff. Oh, and stay the hell away from that visual studio crap. It's overly complex for a beginner and completely different from the kind of scripting done in GM and similar SDKs. Once you've got a handle on the very basics, then I recommend reading the Game Maker help file to get a bit more advanced in your scripting.

Some other tools you'll obviously want to have a good grip on is simple art programs such as Graphics Gale, Corel Painter (one of my favorites), and even good old MS Paint.

If you can do music on your own then I recommend FamiTracker for old school sounds and go to OC remix for more help on that since I'm not a music guy... or ask Jorge.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2012, 02:09:22 PM by Inccubus »
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Offline Arma

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2012, 02:22:47 PM »
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Ok I'll start from there, thank you both!

Offline C Belmont

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2012, 03:55:33 PM »
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Some other tools you might find handy are Pro Motion 6 and Pixothello which unlike Graphics Gale have features for creating seamless tilesets pretty easily although I haven't really played with either program myself very much yet.

Offline Inccubus

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2012, 09:26:29 PM »
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I was trying to remember pixothello, but couldn't. There are one or two others like it two.
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Offline TheouAegis

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2012, 12:32:43 PM »
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\Another thing I'd recommend is learning some basic programming techniques. I'm talking really old school Pascal/C/C++ stuff.

You make me feel even older, now.  :'(
After reading that first sentence, I was expecting you to tell him to learn BASIC. I started learning that when I was 8 or 9. I programmed my C64 to play O Holy Night and was so proud of myself.
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Offline Inccubus

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2012, 01:02:54 PM »
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You make me feel even older, now.  :'(
After reading that first sentence, I was expecting you to tell him to learn BASIC. I started learning that when I was 8 or 9. I programmed my C64 to play O Holy Night and was so proud of myself.

Hahahahaha! I thought to to skip over BASIC since it's so ancient and doesn't teach you anything you can't learn in C. When I took my first programming course in college (this was around the time C# first came out.) they said I had to start with BASIC and I was like, who the F*CK uses that anymore? That was about 13 years ago now. :P
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Offline Arma

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2012, 02:05:32 PM »
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I'm pretty accustomed to Corel Photo Paint 9, is that program good for these stuff or it's better to try something else?

I never tried to do pixel art but this version of Corel is pretty interesting for making textures using Julia set explorer

Offline Inccubus

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2012, 02:43:14 PM »
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I like using a combination of NeoPaint, Corel Painter 9, and GM's built-in graphics program.
I like NeoPaint because it has all the basics and is user friendly. Doesn't make drawing a circle, for example, a convoluted, illogical nightmare like some of the "advanced" art programs. I like corel because it has really kick-ass gradient fill tools which are great for some nifty visual effects. And I like GM's graphic's program because it has a bunch of cool effects you can do that I've never seen in other art programs.
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Offline Jorge D. Fuentes

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2012, 03:03:01 PM »
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I use Corel Painter IX for portraits and stuff.
For small sprites and some tiles, I use Paint Shop Pro 7.
I'm looking into other tools.  Animation Shop does a decent job at onionskinning and letting me see simple animations, but I'm sure there's better stuff out there.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 03:15:38 PM by Jorge D. Fuentes »
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Offline Arma

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2012, 03:23:52 PM »
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I just remembered something, sometime ago I uploaded a drawing to my Deviant Art and one of my friends there told me it would look nice in pixels and she recommended me a program called Paint.NET, she said this program has a tool that allows to easily draw pixel lines over a drawing. Maybe this program would be useful to make sprites, I couldn't try it back then though, because it requires Windows XP SP3 or higher to work and my computer is an old tin can my brother gave me, I think it's SP2 lol.
Someone else could use it though so it doesn't hurt to mention it.

The closest I made to pixel art so far are some fonts and a couple of attemps to draw lines over drawings, I assume I can make sprites that way?

these are the latest fonts I made, I still have to do the capital letters but I'm so lazy I don't even remember why I was doing these lol
since I already have them I hope to be able to use them in the game




Offline Inccubus

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2012, 07:02:30 PM »
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2 things. I've heard of Paint.NET, but I didn't like it much. you know you can upgrade to SP3 for free, right?
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Offline Aridale

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2012, 09:10:49 PM »
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paint.net isnt bad. Its pretty decent for a free paint program. Ive used it quite a bit. Pixlr has a pretty good online image editor too. Entirely in the web browser

Offline Arma

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Re: What are the essential video game making tools for a beginner?
« Reply #14 on: January 17, 2012, 12:07:07 PM »
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2 things. I've heard of Paint.NET, but I didn't like it much. you know you can upgrade to SP3 for free, right?

No, actually I didn't know that :p
Pixlr looks interesting, I don't even have to install it in my pc

One more thing, does anyone knows about programming for Android?. If it's hard and stuff?
it seems it's possible to run emulators on android devices but it's neccessary to do something I think it was called "rooting" or something similar. Since all the games I tried so far in my tablet suck it would be cool to be able to make my own.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2012, 12:15:03 PM by Arma »

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