Technology @beehaw.org sleepybisexual @beehaw.org 2 wk. ago

Beginner gamedev projects?

I wanna make some games but idk where to start. Thinking of gbstudio but the hardware limits would make making a card game hard, any other easy tools? Is there a gbstudio eqivament for 16-32 bit systems?

17 comments

I highly recommend Godot for a new developer. I made the switch from Unity and it's just been a pleasure to work with. I'm actually unlearned a bunch of patterns I had to use with Unity because Godot makes things even easier to access .

I don't know if it's got any kind of support for retro systems though
- The trtro systems is a convenience thing. I just need android supoort
  
  Ah, well you can definitely build for Android with it then. I haven't personally, but so far every other platform I've built for has just been a few clicks and away you go
Try this - https://develop.games/. It's ran by a streamer/developer called piratesoftware aka Thor. Lots of helpful info
- Thx :3
Maybe ask in !gamedev@programming.dev?
- Oki :3
  
  Just asked here cos I didn't know where, thx
  
  Lemmy community discovery isn't great, I like to use lemmyverse.net to search for communities across all instances
I wouldn't start with retro hardware, those systems have a lot of quirks and limitations that will make development much harder than it needs to be for your first projects. Instead I'd suggest using a modern toolkit like Gamemaker if you want to avoid programming, or an engine like Godot. Lots of good tutorials available for either.
- I can do that, but the idea being using a ROM was having it be easy to run.
  
  Could try gamemaker. My idea is an inscription demake
I taught myself some 2D game design and coding with Phaser. My idea was to recreate 80s arcade games like frogger and asteroids. It's great for that and my games run in the browser, pure Javascript.

https://phaser.io/

Just remember that making a game includes making artwork and sound and intro screens and more. It's a lot of work.
- Terminal games are where it's at, lol. In high school I've made connect4, battleship and a couple card games in C.
  
  Once I took a Mexican Train domino game code I made in C, ported it to Java, then added graphics that showed everything nicely, but clicking on anything just had it pass a number you would have typed to do the action in the terminal UI version.
  
  Yah, I have somebody's 2048 game in my terminal here and play that when I need to stop thinking thoughts for a second.
  
  OK, but pretend for a second that some of us are mere mortals. Is there a TUI game dev engine (?) we could learn to dev in fairly quickly? One that protects us from the pitfalls of the C language?
  
  Asking for myself...
many retro systems have implementations of a language called BASIC, which is about as easy as it sounds. it has some quirks that aren't transferable to newer languages and you won't be able to make anything nearly as sophisticated as retail games for the same hardware but if you find modern engines intimidating, it can be a good place to start

that said, +1 for godot if you want to learn a more modern tool. it's way simpler than it may seem at first and there is a huge wealth of beginner-friendly tutorials available online
This article might help you: https://farawaytimes.blogspot.com/2023/02/how-to-make-good-small-games.html?m=1

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