Indie Game Tools for the beginner

(or maybe veteran)

Overview

• Background on my history and indie games and why I am giving this talk

• Components of game making

• Peripheral of game making (marketing, business)

• Personal recommendations

A little bit about me

• I am Dan Williams, a human, and game enthusiast!

• I am on the Internet 36x7; apparently not everyone else is

• I’ve been programming as a hobby for ~22 years, reading about indie games for ~15

• I have never shipped a non-gamejam game, but now is the time!

What it looks like to start out

Fundamentals of most game development

• Design (will tackle last)

• Programming

• Art

• Audio

Programming

• So many choices depending on scope of game: platform, familiarity, work practices, team size, needs for game

• Most people start here

• Many people stop here

Programming

• Platform: PC/Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, independent like Java, HTML5

• Languages: C#, Java, HTML5, C++, Lua, GML, Python

• IDE’s: Visual Studio, Eclipse, Monodevelop, NetBeans, Unreal Editor, Game Maker, Clickteam Fusion, Construct 2, Unity (to an extent), Corona (for Lua)

• Wikipedia article on IDE’s and languages

• Recommendations later

Which one do I pick?

Which development environment to choose

• If you’re familiar, go with familiar (unless it’s shoehorned like pygame)

• Look to see which games are made with which tools (they usually are showcased)

• If you’re not familiar, go with what is supported by community (tutorials, samples, forums, stack overflow)

• Keep in mind gamedev goals (Sales? For friends? Experience? Portability? Speed?)

• Youtube general rule for results: xna and monogame 23k, lua 11k, objective c 31k, html5 game programming 99.7k, “javascript game programming” 108k, gamemaker 110k, “java game programming” 212k, unity 212k, unreal 89k

Beginner programming and tutorials

• Stencyl, Twine, Scratch, Kodu, Puzzlescript, Construct 2, Multimedia Fusion 2, Love (Lua)

• Codecademy, csharp-station.com, thenewboston (everything), khan academy (javascript), O’Reilly books, youtube!

Game art and ASSETS

The importance of art, audio and assets

• Every game has assets, most games have art

• Assets include:• Art (characters, environment, items, UI)

• Images, animations, rigging/models

• Sound clips (sound effects, voices)

• Background music

• Data collections (in programming)

Assets, when bundled, are content!

(Ominous music playing)

Sound effects of rocks breaking

Behavior pattern of boss

Movement behavior, art, physicality(even this little thing)

Fonts are assets too!

Environment tiles Animations of smoke

Control scheme, art, sound, physics for Samus

Items are data container assets

Game Art

• Choose style that works for you (value, speed, scope, distinction)

• “Programmer art” and whiteboxing

• Art creation can be daunting; better to iterate first to reduce scope/hopes

• Learn what’s already out there to stand out

• Constraints can be your friend too; pick palettes!

Game art tools and communities

• See if IDE’s have integrated art editing; saves on time, hurts on quality though

• GIMP, Pyxeledit, GraphicsGale, Pixelartr.com/piskelapp.com, Paletton.com, Photoshop, Paint.Net, spriter / spine, Pickle, AutoTileGen

• 3d: MayaLT(cheap?), Blender(free), Sketchup(free), probuilder(unity),

• Opengameart.org, deviantart.com, pixeljoint.com, cghub.com, polycount.com, gameartisans.org, wayofthepixel.net, tigsource, reddit

• Each community usually has tutorials section; also there is youtube!

Game audio

• The secret sauce

• Bad audio is incredibly unpleasant, good audio isn’t noticeable, great audio is sublime and impressive

• As varied as art

Audio tools and communities

• Bfxr.net, Musagi, Reaper, Audacity, Labchirp, media.io, FMOD (for indies making < $100k), Wwise (for indies with less than 200 sounds), ToneMatrix / AudioTool

• Paid: Protools, Cubase, FL Studio

• Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Freesound.org, many others

Resource sites for all types of tools

• Pixel Prospector

• Tigsource

• Ludum Dare tools (discounts and limited licenses)

Game Design

• Hard to quantify

• Start out by mimicking simple games (pong, space invaders, flappy bird); keep that scope DOWN!

• Metroidvanias are REALLY hard to make, roguelikes and platformers are really hard to make well, RPG’s take a TON of content

• Read Gamasutra, post mortems, Tigsource, Adriel Wallick’s blog

• “Learn to make games by making games” –Rami Ismail

Peripherals of game making (communities, marketing, business)

• You made a game. You are a billionaire. PARTY!!!

• Right?

• Nope!

Peripherals of game making (communities, marketing, business)

• You can’t get business if you don’t advertise!

• Others are out there to help

• Eventually, you will likely want reward for your hard work, and you’d like to devote yourself to your passion

Communities

• Boston is great!

• WIGBoston of course, Boston Indies, Playcrafting Boston, Boston Post Mortem, Indie Game Collective, Boston Unity Group, People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction, Game Maker’s Guild, MassDIGI, MIT

• Meetup.com has many listed, but not all. Also check Jason Wiser’s list at madwomb.com/tutorials/GamesBoston.html

• Tigsource, Reddit, Twitter, subject-related

Marketing and business tools

Marketing is not necessarily a bad word!

• A marketing strategy is more important than tools

• Community interaction is a form of marketing

• Project management and development, when public, can be marketing

• Blog posts can be marketing

• Even being friendly and engaging is marketing! You don’t have to break the bank being nice

Marketing and business tools (Marketing)

• TWITTER

• Presskit() and (Thank you, Rami!)

• Mailchimp (for sending out press releases and newsletters)

• Gamasutra (for writing blog posts)

• Screenshotsaturday (for posting images)

• Tigsource Devlogs (fire up that base!)

• RiteTag (to track hashtags and their effectiveness)

• You!

Marketing and business tools (Project Management)

• Project Gantt

• Google Docs

• Microsoft Project

• Trello

• JIRA ($10-20/mo for small projects)

Marketing and business tools (Distribution and storefronts)

• Steam, PSN, Xbox Live, Nintendo eShop

• DoDistribute()

• Itch.io

• Humble Store / Widget

• Desura

• GameJolt

• Newgrounds

• Kongregate

• IndieDB

Personal recommendations and tips

• GameMaker or MMF2 to start, maybe also Love or any Lua engine, then graduate to Unity and C# once you have programming down

• Read Gamasutra/GDC Vault, Tigsource Forums, Derek Yu, Leigh Alexander / Offworld, Adriel’s 1GAW, Rami Ismail, Paste Magazine, Tom Francis vids, JW and Bfod talk, John Walker’s Dos/Don’ts, FemFreq’s videos, AbleGamers

• Try to make a game at least every two weeks; tackle a new mechanic every time. “You get better at making games by making games”

• When planning a game, set up a task for EVERY asset and asset part; usually each one has art, audio, data, input. Use project management to track tasks.

Personal recommendations and tips

• Never compare yourself against Notch. Ever.

• Don’t even think of setting a timeline/scope until you’ve finished a game.

• Play games similar to ones you want to create. Research about those types. Learn your niche that way. Learn why you love what you love.

• Participate in Game Jams; fail heroically! Check indiegamejams.com, twitter.com/gamejamrobot and /manyjams

• Use resources like screenshot Saturday, Tigsource, and Twitter for marketing, but don’t overdo it. Read about journalists’ pet peeves, read about failures in gamedev

Good luck!

• Feel free to reach out to me

• @dantronlesotho

• dantronlesotho.itch.io