作者：Tom Francis

你可能听过“制作游戏再简单不过了”这种说法。没错，但你该如何真正制作一款游戏？你该如何制作出“体面”的游戏？它的成本是多少？需要多长时间？你能把自己做的东西 卖出去吗？你需要掌握一种编程语言吗？

我不知道，但我确实知道许多独立游戏。它们当中有许多是用那些适用于初学者的工具和套件开发而成的。所以对于最热门的工具，我都会发现有名独立开发者已经使用该工具制 作了很棒的内容，并询问他们关于使用这些工具的感觉。

我还介绍了这些工具的成本，你出售使用这些工具开发的游戏时所享有的权利，以及它们所面向的开发平台。如果你有兴趣制作游戏，希望本文能够让你了解掌握这些工具所需的 时长，哪种工具适合你，以及如何开始。

目录

*Game Maker

*Unity

*Adventure Game Studio

*RPG Maker

*Flixel

*Unreal Development Kit

GameMaker

这是一款详尽的2D游戏开发套件。你可以用拖放界面创造规则，或者用它的脚本语言GML编写代码。

价格和授权：其有限版本是免费的，基础版本则是30英磅，团队版本是60英磅。你可以在无版税的情况下使用任意一种版本出售其制作的游戏。

面向平台：PC和Mac，iOS和Android版本分别要额外收取120英磅的费用，面向HTML5的费用是60英磅。

链接:http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio

教程：TIG forums tutorials

案例研究：《Spelunky》

开发者：Derek Yu

获取方式：免费获取

掌握Game Maker花了多长时间？

应该不会超过两周时间。它非常直观，并且网络上有大量教程和脚本。在TIGSource Forums中，我们编撰了一个教程列表，以便机灵的人加快上手速度。

哪种先备知识或技能派上了用场？

一些编程知识，以及熟悉基于C语言的技能会有所帮助，这样你就可以一开始就利用Game Maker的脚本语言GML。基本上优秀的Game Maker游戏都是使用这一方法开发而成。除此之 外，与制作像素美术相关的技能也很管用！在我看来，Game Maker非常适用于掌握多种技能的通才。

它的局限性？

Game Maker 8.1（我目前使用的版本）处理现代图像和音频时非常慢。它实际上更适合看起来像是90年代或者更早之前的游戏。但我不知道最新版本的Game Maker Studio是否存在 这种情况。

开发《Spelunky》用了多长时间？

我花了大约一年时间断断续续完成了《Spelunky》，可能比我最开始动工时预期的时间翻了一倍。但我还是没有料到它会获得欢迎。

有多少开发时间是快乐的？

我认这有90%的时候是快乐的，Game Maker对此功不可没。因为它很容易使用，你可以将多数时间用于制作美术和设计！这正是我最感兴趣的游戏开发层面。如果你更喜欢编程，你 可能会觉得Game Maker的局限性更令人抓狂。

你开发游戏的成本是多少？

除了Game Maker的12美元注册费之外（现在要30英磅），我在原版《Spelunky》中并没有投入多少钱。

总结

Game Maker是初学者最易于使用的工具之一，它也极具灵活性，几乎可以制作任何你能想到的2D游戏。而如果你想制作3D内容，或者冒险游戏或JRPG，那么最就选择其他工具。

Unity

这是制作3D游戏的通用开发套件。

价格和授权：初学者使用免费版本就够了，你也可以将其用于制作商业游戏，除非你通过其制作的游戏每年能够创收10万美元以上。其付费版本则拥有寻径、物理和图像技巧等高 级功能，售价924英磅。这两个版本都没有版税。

面向平台：PC、Mac和Linux，iOS和Android版本则分别售价246美元。

链接：http://unity3d.com/

教程：Infinite Ammo’s Unity tutorial

案例研究：AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – For the Awesome

开发者：Ichiro Lambe（Dejobaan Games）以及Alex Schwartz（Owlchemy Labs – Unity Version）

获取渠道：Steam

掌握Unity花了多长时间？

Alex：我想你是在问为游戏理念创建原型花了多长时间吧，例如制作一些可玩的“试验场”以查看游戏是否处于趋于趣味性的正轨。在Owlchemy Labs中，我们发现一个玩法原型制 作时间不可以超过7天，如果超过这个时间才能看出游戏是否有趣，我们就会推翻整个原型，因为这标志着我们走错路了。

除了这个7天规则外，我们还会遵从一个“1天原型=1个月润色”的规则，所以6天完成的原型需要6个月的工作才能形成真正、优化过的游戏。

哪种先备知识或技能派上了用场？

Ichiro：另一种3D引擎的知识，过硬的C#（或C++等）技能，向量代数，以及调查能力（例如通过谷歌找到快速点积函数文件）以及良好的沟通能力（“亲爱的Unity社区，能否帮 我用Y解决X问题？”）

它的局限性？

Alex：我认为只要有足够的时间，资金和精力，一切都不是问题。但说实话，我们还没有遇到阻碍我们实现创意目标的开发壁垒，令我们烦恼的通常只是较小的编辑器习惯。

你们认为开发游戏需要多长时间，实际上又花了多长时间？

Alex：我们原先预计约6个月的时间，在Owlchemy Labs这边只有两名全职开发者，以及Dejobaan那边的1至3名兼职人员。最后花了将近8.5个月时间，最后一个月的工作由于更新和 发布时机而延长至4个月左右。

有多少开发时间是快乐的，又有多少是不那么快乐的？

Alex：我过去不幸使用了一些很棘手的引擎。但使用Unity时多数时候很快乐。最令人不满的环节包括引进3D Game Studio的专有资产格式（找不到源资产），但在开发早期阶段我 们就解决了这个问题。

你开发游戏的成本，这些钱如何分配？

Ichiro：多数项目是通过盈利分成来完成的，所以开发/营销成本不超过2万美元。

如果从1-10来打分，你的游戏在经济收益上的表现如何？（假设5分代表“刚够我制作另一款游戏”，10分代表“超过我实际所需”）

Ichiro：时间会证明一切。我们多数收益来自最初版本发布的两年时间内。原版《Aaaaa! 》表现相当好，直到我们将其添加到Portal 2 Potato ARG。这里的得分可以达到11。

能否根据你过去的经验提供一些开发游戏之前的建议？

Ichiro：增加一个遍及整款游戏的杀手级机制，吸引原版游戏粉丝光顾续作。

总结

Unity是3D游戏易用性和通用性工具的最佳组合。它比Game Maker更复杂，但用于3D开发却很便捷。其免费版本非常慷慨，最近增加的Linux支持也令其成为可以面向所有桌面操作 系统制作游戏的菜鸟友好型开发工具之一。

Adventure Game Studio（以下简称AGS）

它是制作2D冒险游戏的通用开发套件。

价格和授权：免费，你可以出售用其开发的游戏，无版税。

面向平台：PC

链接：http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk

教程：Official AGS tutorial

案例研究：《Ben There Dan That》

开发者：Dan Marshall

获取渠道：Steam

掌握Adventure Game Studio需要多长时间？

AGS真的很棒，它抽象化了许多复杂的内容，你无需考虑那么，或者设置文本内容的问题。你可以在一个周末内用大量毅力和极少的编程知识制作出简单的框架，因为其多数操作就 是填表和在复选框上打勾。

如果你想制作与游戏有关的令人兴奋或有趣的东西，那么就你要掌握一些关于C语言的知识。这并不会太复杂，但它仍然是编程，需要某些人去适应它。

哪种先备知识或技能派上了用场？

你确实需要了解基本的C编程知识。虽然它替你完成了大部分工作（例如房间和角色），你还是需要告诉它们采取哪种行动，向哪前进。我想你可以用极少的知识完成这一操作，但 你还是要理解语法以及类似变量和if/else条件等基本知识。

它的局限性？

我像AGS最适合制作复杂古的90年代指向点击游戏。如果你想得到诸如淡入淡出，或者缩放摄像机等基本的视觉效果，可能就会很困难了。

它也仅支持Windows平台，还没有推出iPad或Linux版本。

也许你用Unity只需一周就能制作出与AGS游戏相当的内容，并获得多个平台支持和大量视觉效果。

你原先认为游戏需要多长开发时间，实际上又用了多长时间？

它的实际开发时间和我预计的差不多，两个月左右。《Ben There, Dan That! 》有意采用了一种仓促的风格。

有多少开发时间是快乐的，又有多少是不快乐的？

《Ben There, Dan That! 》从开始到结束基本上是笑声不断，很大部分是因为我并没有太严肃地对待它。99%的游戏设计是在酒馆完成的，其余多数内容是在慵懒的周末完成。这 是一款有趣而愚蠢的游戏，我想它唯一令人不快的地方就是编写所有对话——游戏中多数东西都有一种独特的反应，所以坐在那里绞尽脑汁地炮制对话确实是一桩苦差事。

开发游戏的成本是多少，这些钱如何分配？

我不认为自己在这款游戏上花了什么钱，我也不记得了。其预算接近于0。

它在经济收益上的表现如何，如果以1-10来打分？

哦，这很棘手。它本身可能只有3或4分。这款游戏原本为免费，但现在采用的是点播式付费方式，或者Steam平台续作上的Double Pack支付选项。我将这两者视为不变的一对。由 此来看，它得分应该是9。我总是能够花更多钱。

能否根据你过去的经验提供开始制作游戏之前的建议？

那就是把画面做好一点！

Ben坚持认为图像应该是有意做得这么糟糕的。从技术上说，这是个好主意，它让整个游戏具有《衰仔乐园》（卡通片）式的风格。实际上，我认为这会让乍一看游戏截图的人反感 。

总结

如果你所开发游戏的出色之处在于故事、角色或者幽默感，那么AGS就是一个完美的工具。如果你想制作全新的游戏机制，那么最好使用Game Maker。但如果你是一名作家或画家， 你想尽量少用代码来讲故事，那么AGS就是一个合适的选择。

RPG Maker

这是什么？是用于创造2D PRG的一个全面开发套件。包括一些推动你开始创造的图像。

价格和授权：旧版本是18英镑，最新版本是55英镑。你可以卖掉你所创造的，而不是支付版税。试用期是30天。

面向平台：PC

链接：http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/

教程：RPG Maker Web的教程

案例研究：《去月球》

开发者：Kan Gao（主管/设计师）

RPG Maker需要花多长时间去学习？

IQ范围在115至140范围间的人平均学习时间是6个月至17天，淡然这伴随着巨大的误差。

我认为即使未深入可选择的脚本，花几个月时间也足以掌握基本的技术内容了。这比大多数同类型的工具更有效，尽管这仍与拿起画笔才能画画的道理一样。引擎包含了一些基础 ，如任何人可以坐下并获得一个角色精灵去绕着一张带有基本战斗系统的地图奔跑；但为了创造你自己的系统和机制，你就需要包含像任何语言等程序逻辑，虽然是基于更简化的 语法。

它也具有编程能力，能够为此打开更多扇门。我们能够使用它创造类似但却需要花费更长时间的内容，这与传统编程具有更密切的联系。

哪些先验知识或技能能够带来帮助？

在技术方面，程序设计经验（游戏邦注：使用基于Ruby的脚本系统的引擎）以及一般的逻辑都是有帮助的。

另外，每一种创造技能迟早都会派上用场—-实际上引擎具有更加活跃的社区，这是让人激动的，因为这也意味着能够交换更多资源而继续发展。如果你拥有像绘画和编曲等资源能 够进行贡献，那么你不仅能够拥有游戏的这些元素，同时还能用自己的服务去交换其他人在其它元素中所作出的贡献。这就像是“火人祭”（游戏邦注：一年一度在美国内华达州 黑石沙漠举办的活动）一样，但却没有那么多“沙子”。

你不能用它做些什么？

随着2D内容的发展，关于程序能力这里并不存在太多限制。你可以创造一套全新的系统，并创造一款像《Fleuret Blanc》的古怪冒险游戏，或运行于一个完整的引擎并创造出像《 U.S.G.》等内容。

然而，有时候这种方法并不能有效（从开发和计算角度来看）地创造出某些关于替代引擎和编程语言等内容。对于我来说现在所存在的主要技术限制是不能移植到Mac和Linux上， 但我相信在未来这种情况将会发生改变。

你认为游戏创造需要花多长时间，而实际上它又花了多长时间？

21个月。我们从2010年2月份开始，并在2011年11月1日发行游戏。但其最初“预期”的发行日期是2010年4月。说句实话，游戏最初只会持续30分钟左右，但是之后我意识到自己拥 有这种想法是件愚蠢的事。

有多少开发时间是让你愉快的，又有多少开发时间是让你郁闷的？

虽然并不是整个过程都像在草地上跳跃那般愉快，但我确实很满足。这里存在的许多积极元素是各种任务能够缓解千篇一律的“工作”；每天我们都能够轻松地在不同事情间转换 着，不管是音乐，对话或修补像素图像，并有一些出色的人才在旁边协助。

而让人郁闷的部分主要是源于个人而非工作事宜。鉴于项目的福分将一些糟糕的事情变成是富有意义且有成效的内容，而其诅咒则会在整个发展过程中降落在它们身上。但不管怎 样，创造游戏仍具有87.3%的有趣体验。

如果你能够给予过去还未开始创造游戏的自己一个建议，你会说些什么？

基于较小的片段去规划进程，然后基于两倍时间去扩展它们，如此你便能够持续地遵循下去。同样的，明天的获胜彩票号码是08，21，59，37。

结论

RPG Maker非常适用于特别的游戏：带有回合制战斗和自上而下探索的日式RPG。你可以逃离模版，就像《去月球》所做的那样，但当你越发远离它，你在使用Game Maker时便越有 意义。

Flixel

这是什么？创造能够为你处理许多棘手部分的Flash游戏的起点，就像实体和存档。

价格和授权：免费的，你可以卖掉自己所创造的内容，没有版税

游戏创造目标：任何带有Flash的网页浏览器

链接：http://flixel.org/

教程：创造一个基本的平台游戏

案例研究：《屋顶狂奔》

开发者：Adam Saltsman

学习Flixel需要多长时间？

对于我来说，这是一个很难进行客观回答的问题—-并不是因为巨大的市场潜能，而是因为我很难去想象不知道如何使用它的情况，因为这都是通过我个人的感觉所创造出来的。我 想如果你从未有过编码经验，然后选择它并决定去创造一款从未了解过的街机游戏，你可能需要花1，2周时间去熟悉它并运行它。而真正让flixel运行起来至少需要更多周的时间 ，但最终你会发现其实也不存在多少需要学习的内容。

哪些先验知识或技能能够带来帮助？

我想最有帮助的应该是C-style程序设计经验或者一些面向对象的程序设计体验。但是它们都不是必要的元素，只是通过这些实践能够了解Flixel。如果你拥有这些经验，那么你便 只需要1或2天时间便能够掌握Flixel。

你不能用它做些什么？

创造3D游戏是不可能的。这也不适合一些Flash游戏领域部分—-那里不存在关于电影片段的嵌入式支持，例如使用可变焦距摄像机效果创造大关卡于现在是可能的，但在程序库设 计中却不是计划好的。Flixel非常适合具有相对固定视角以及幻灯软片风格图像资产的游戏。

你认为游戏创造需要花多长时间，而实际上它又花了多长时间？

这真的非常了不起。从机制上来看这是一款简单的游戏，这里不存在许多可钻进去的兔子洞。整个过程中最不有趣的一部分便是花几个小时为了使用一些免费的声音作为素材而沉 浸于半成功的网页研究。

你需要花多少钱进行开发，这些钱是否能够推动着你持续下去？

大概是200美元，但这是通向Phoenix的费用。回想起来这真的很重要，但我当时却并未意识到。通常情况下我会花许多钱在声音上，但那时候我却因为个人游戏而用掉了所有战争 基金，所以我便只能充当录音师，而Danny Baranowsky出于人情免费为我写了音乐。幸亏《屋顶狂奔》表现不错，我才有能力偿还他的付出。

它在收益上的表现如何，从1至10的范围中做出选择。

其Flash版本应该是2。iOS版本可能是7或8。我们还创造了一个Android Humble Bundle，就其本身而言这是5。我不确定是否应该将其加起来或进行平均。而对所有的这些版本我所 给出的整体分数是5.2382。

如果你能够给予过去还未开始创造游戏的自己一个建议，你会说些什么？

其实我没有什么可说的，除了“继续向前并尽早付钱给Danny这些非常琐碎的事外。”只有上帝才知道之后会发生些什么，所以不要轻易去干预过去。

结论

Flash游戏仍然是将陌生人从听说你的游戏带向玩游戏的最可行的方法，而Flixel可能是做到这点的最佳方法。Flash并不适用于iOS设备上。我们需要知道的是Unity游戏能够运行 在带有Firefox插件的浏览器上或者Chrome上。而Game Maker可以创造无需插件便运行于现代浏览器上的HTML5游戏 .

Unreal Development Kit

这是什么？是用于在Unreal Engine 3中创造3D游戏的全面开发套件。

价格和授权：60英镑，在你首次获得的5万美元收益中是需要提交版税的，而之后将收取25%的版税。可以免费进行非商业使用。

游戏创造目标：几乎所有的平台，包括PC，Mac,iOS，Android，Xbox 360，PlayStation 3，Flash（网页），WiiU，PS Vita。

链接：http://www.unrealengine.com/udk/

教程：Epic Games官方教程

案例研究：《Waves》

开发者：Rob Hale

学习UDK需要多长时间？

UDK较为棘手，因为你并不只是面对一个引擎，而是面对一整个游戏框架。你总是基于Epic如何创造并塑造他们的游戏结构而进行创造，但这需要花费较长的时间去适应。

这一结果便意味着你将花费前几周时间去搞清楚所有的一切内容以及它是如何运行的。关于你想要做某事但是Epic却已经做好了这件事是再寻常不过了，但这还是取决于你去找到 它并明确如何使用它。这一学习过程可能需要持续好几年—-就像在使用该引擎十几年后，现在的我仍在寻找某些内容。

但你也可以在几个小时内便运行并创造出一些较简单的内容，并在几周内变得更有能力。

哪些先验知识或技能能够带来帮助？

之前的程序设计经验便非常有帮助，但你需要收起傲气并基于“不真实的方式”去实践。我便曾与许多想要在Unreal上重新编写每一行代码的资深程序员，因为他们觉得自己可以 做得更好，但每次结果却比之前的还糟糕。这是Epic的引擎，他们已经基于该引擎创造了十年的游戏，所以如果你觉得它看起来很奇怪或与自己想做的相矛盾，那么这背后必然存 在一定的原因。

此外，你可以在前进过程中不断学习。当我在01年开始创造游戏时，我在创造《骇客任务》的模组，但却几乎什么都不了解，我便是在工作过程中不断进行学习。

任何创造图像，声音，模式或程度的技能都是有帮助的，并且能够推动着你更快速地完成任务，但你需要使用引擎的所有内容都必须进行有效的记录，并且社区也是有益的。

你不能用它做些什么？

像《我的世界》中任何可能实时改变地形，和体素世界的内容。UDK是专门为一些分割成不同关卡的静态图像导向型世界所设计的，但这却是唯一困难的限制。脚本语言并不能快速 执行，所以任何包含了数千个对象的内容将移动并与其它框架进行互动。但存在某些方法能够帮助你接近巧妙的程序设计。

你认为游戏创造需要花多长时间，而实际上它又花了多长时间？

我认为《Waves》的创造需要花费几个月的时间，如果你问我在开发过程中，我花了多长时间致力于它，我会回答“几个月。”

这似乎与引擎没有多大关系，更主要是因为我不清楚自己正在创造什么。《Waves》从未拥有一个设计文件，并且总是作为不同机制的实验案例，保留有效的内容而删除无用的内容 。

我认为我正在反击自己的AAA级背景，即所有的一切都需要预先设计好，如果理念很糟糕，你通常都没有时间去思考如何完善它。最终，我共花了9个月时间致力于《Waves》，但因 为我每周并未花费40个小时于游戏中，所以整体的时间并不准确。

有多少开发时间是让人愉快的？

有几次致力于游戏时感觉是在面对家庭杂物。特别是完成用户界面和菜单是最摧残精神的部分，因为尽管为了让人们玩游戏你需要所有这些内容，但这并不会让你觉得自己是在创 造游戏。所有的独立游戏预告片都会呈现出菜单系统是因为开发者花费了好几周的时间于这些菜单中，因为其他人并不会在乎它们，所以至少要为其提供一些曝光的机会。

我想说的是如果你不喜欢解决问题并且每天都要面对一难以理解的内容，那就不要进入游戏开发中。最终你在项目中的大多数时间将是用于解决漏洞。

尽管我是在创造自己想创造的游戏，但是我到底有多想创造它呢，对于我来说这便是能在下午把我叫醒的工具。

你需要花多少钱进行开发，这些钱是否能够推动着你持续下去？

主要是生活费用和音乐制作费用。当我辞职并开始专职开发游戏时，我有6000英镑的储蓄，我将这些钱全部用于游戏开发。很幸运的是我无需为其他家属或房贷操心，我的父母允 许我搬到他们的客房，如此我便节省下一大笔钱去创造游戏，UDK只需要预先支付99美元，直到你准备好发行游戏前你将无需再支付任何费用，在此所有用于创造游戏的工具都是免 费的—-除非你真的需要Photoshop或Maya。

雇佣任何自由职业者都是一笔昂贵的费用，因为很少有人愿意为利润分成而工作。通常情况下最低的每小时工资率是15美元，并且他们要求在游戏赚钱前获得报酬。我唯一不能独 自完成的只有音乐，并且我知道自己想要为游戏添加一个出色的原声带，所以我只能咬紧牙关为此掏出腰包。幸运的是这一决定具有长期的回报。

它在收益上的表现如何，从1至10的范围中做出选择。

我认为它的表现是6。我有能力创造另外一款游戏，并且还有一些额外的钱能够支付一些自由职业者的工资，但如果我不能在一年内发行另外一款游戏，我便会摊上大麻烦。

如果你能够给予过去还未开始创造游戏的自己一个建议，你会说些什么？

不要给它取名“Waves”！没有人会记得这个名字，你很难在谷歌中找到它。

结论

如果你想要创造一款大型且闪耀的跨平台游戏，你便需要学习UDK。这比学习Unity难多了，你需要足够全能或者组建一个团队去创造某些看起来不错的内容。但如果你想要加入一 个已建立的开发商，这便是一个不错的体验，因为Unreal 3是主流游戏中最常出现的引擎。

相关拓展阅读：篇目1，篇目2（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

The Indies’ Guide to Game Making

Tom Francis

This article originally appeared in issue 246 of PC Gamer UK.

You might have heard that “It’s never been easier to make a game.” And it’s true. But how do you actually make one? What do you make it ‘in’? How much does it cost? How long does it take?

Can you sell what you make, and do you owe anyone any royalties? Do you need to learn a programming language?

I don’t know, but I do know a lot of indie games. And lots of them are made with tools and suites that claim to be beginner friendly. So for each of the most popular tools, I found an indie developer who had made something cool with it, and asked them what it’s like to work with.

I’ll also cover how much these tools cost, what your rights are when it comes to selling your work, and what platforms they can make games for. If you’ve ever been interested in making a game, hopefully this will give you an idea of how long it takes to pick up, which tool will suit you, and where to start.

Contents

Game Maker

Unity

Adventure Game Studio

RPG Maker

Flixel

Unreal Development Kit

Game Maker

The built-in sprite editor isn’t bad.

GameMaker

What is it? An all-inclusive development suite for 2D games. You can either create rules with a drag-and-drop interface, or write code in its scripting language, GML.

Price and licence: The limited version is free, basic version is £30, a version for teams is £60. You can sell the games you make with any of them, no royalties.

Makes games for: PC and Mac. iOS and Android versions are £120 extra each, HTML5 is £60.

Link:http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio

Tutorial:TIG forums tutorials

Spelunky

Consistent rules are simpler to code.

Case Study: Spelunky

Developer: Derek Yu

Get it:for free

How long does Game Maker take to learn?

It shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to get the hang of Game Maker. It’s very intuitive and there is a wealth of tutorials and scripts for it online. On TIGSource Forums we’ve compiled a list of tutorials that should get an intelligent person up to speed quickly.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

Some programming knowledge and familiarity with C-based languages would be helpful, so that you can take advantage of Game Maker’s scripting language GML right off the bat. No serious GM game is made without using it. On top of that, some skill with making pixel art couldn’t hurt! In my opinion, Game Maker really benefits generalists who want to do a bit of everything.

What can’t you do with it?

Game Maker 8.1 (the version I’m using) is too slow to handle modern graphics and audio. It is strictly for games that look like they came from the ’90s or earlier. But I don’t know if that’s still true of Game Maker Studio, the latest incarnation of GM.

Spelunky

Making levels tile-based saves a lot of time

How long did Spelunky take to make?

Spelunky took me about a year of on-and-off work to finish, which is maybe double what I guessed when I started working. But I also didn’t anticipate that the game would get as popular as it did.

How much of the development time was enjoyable?

I’d say it was 90% enjoyable and Game Maker played a big part in that. Given how easy it is to use, you can spend most of your time doing art and design! That’s the most fun aspect of game creation for me. If you enjoy programming more, you might find Game Maker’s limitations more frustrating.

How much did it cost you to develop?

I don’t think I spent any money on the original Spelunky, aside from the £12 registration fee for Game Maker (£30 these days).

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

I’d be afraid of messing with my past self too much, since things turned out well and I attribute part of that to my naiveté. Maybe I’d just send myself a cookie!

Conclusion

Game Maker is one of the easiest tools to use for an absolute beginner, and it’s flexible enough to make almost any 2D game you can think of. The only reason not to use it is if you want to make something in 3D, or you’re planning an adventure game or J-RPG. There are better options specifically for those.

Unity

Unity looks like a level editor, but does everything.

Unity

What is it? An all-inclusive development suite for making 3D games.

Price and licence: The free version has all you’ll need as a beginner, and is fine to use commercially unless you’re making more than $100,000 a year from your games. The pro version has fancy things like pathfinding, physics, and graphics tricks, and costs £924. No royalties for either version.

Makes games for: PC, Mac and Linux. iOS and Android versions are £246 each.

Link:http://unity3d.com/

Tutorial:Infinite Ammo’s Unity tutorial

Game Making feature Aaaa

Aaaaa! is a game about falling.

Case Study: AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – For the Awesome

Get it:from Steam

How long does Unity take to learn?

Alex: I’d guess you’re asking about how long it takes to prototype a game idea, i.e. make some kind of first playable ‘proving ground’ to figure out if your game is on the right track toward fun. At Owlchemy Labs, we found that a prototype of gameplay should take less than 7 days for us, and if it takes longer than that to find fun, we toss the whole prototype as it’s a good sign that we’re on the wrong path.

In addition to that 7 day rule, we also follow a “one day of prototype == one month of polish”, so a 6-day prototype will take 6 months of full time work to build out as an actual, polished game.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

Ichiro: Knowledge of another 3D engine, Solid C# (or C++, etc) skills, vector algebra, the ability to research (“Google, help me find documentation on fast dot product functions.”) and communicate well (“Dear Unity Community, can you help me with X problem I’m having with Y?”)

What can’t you do with it?

Alex: I’m of the camp that anything is possible with sufficient time, money, and effort. Also WD40 and duct tape. But honestly, we haven’t hit development walls that prevented us from fulfilling our creative goals, and anything that annoys us is usually just a minor editor idiosyncrasy.

How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take?

Alex: We estimated around six months, with only two full-time developers on Owlchemy Labs’ end and one to three part-timers on Dejobaan’s end. It ended up being closer to 8.5 months, with the last month of work spanning the course of about 4 months, due to updates and launch timing.

How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant?

Alex: I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to work with some pretty nasty engines in the past. Thankfully the work within Unity was mostly pleasant. The most unpleasant part of the development of the game involved bringing in 3D Game Studio’s proprietary asset formats where a source asset was not available, but that was solved early on in development.

Game Making feature Aaaa

Unity is best for 3D games.

How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go on?

Ichiro: Most of the project was done via revenue share, so development/marketing costs were well under $20k.

How well has your game done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10? (Let’s say 5 is ‘just enough for me to make another game’, and 10 is ‘more than I could possibly need’)

Ichiro: Time will tell. Most of our revenue comes about over the course of two years after the initial push (when we do bundles and Steam sales and so forth). The original Aaaaa! was doing pretty well, until we added it to the Portal 2 Potato ARG. That dialled things up to 11.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

Ichiro: Add in one more killer mechanic that pervades the entire game and gets fans of the original to pick up the semi-sequel.

Conclusion

Unity is the best combination of approachable and versatile for 3D games. It’s more complex than Game Maker, but about as easy as it gets for 3D development. The free version is very generous, and the recent addition of Linux support makes it one of the only noob-friendly tools that can make games for all three desktop operating systems.

Adventure Game Studio

What is it? An all-inclusive development suite for making 2D adventure games.

Price and licence: Free, you can sell your work, no royalties.

Makes games for: PC

Link:http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk

Tutorial:Official AGS tutorial

Ben There Dan That

Adventure games require a lot of art…

Case Study: Ben There Dan That

Developer: Dan Marshall

Get it:from Steam

How long does Adventure Game Studio take to learn?

AGS is really good, in that it abstracts quite a lot of the complicated stuff for you and all just works. So you don’t have to think about pathfinding, or setting up text stuff. You can pretty much make the bare bones of something simple in a weekend with a lot of perseverance and very little programming knowledge, because it’s largely just filling in forms and ticking checkboxes.

If you want to do anything exciting or interesting with the game though, you’re going to have to learn some C. Nothing too complicated, but it’s all still programming and it’ll take some getting used to.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

You really need to understand the basics of C programming to get anything out of it. While the bulk is done for you, like rooms and characters, you still need to be able to tell them what to do and where to go. You can get by with very little knowledge of that, I expect, but you need to understand the syntax and basics like variables and if/else statements.

What can’t you do with it?

Lots, I’m afraid. AGS is great for making faux-1990s point and click games, but nothing else. If you want to even very basic visual effects like fading in- and-out, or zooming the camera, you’re going to have a rough time.

It’s also Windows only, so no iPad or Linux versions.

AGS is also kind of getting on a bit, now. You could probably make an AGS-equivalent in Unity in about a week, and get all the multi-platform benefits and visual boost with it.

Ben There Dan That

…but not much serious programming.

How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take?

I think it probably took about as long as I’d expected it would, a couple of months. But then, Ben There, Dan That! has a deliberately… uh, slapdash style.

How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant?

Ben There, Dan That! was pretty much a laugh from start to finish, largely because I wasn’t taking it seriously. 99% of the game design was done down the pub, and the vast majority of the rest of it was done over lazy weekends. It’s a funny, stupid game. I think maybe the only unpleasant bit was writing all the dialogue – there’s a unique reaction for most things in the game, and so sitting there churning out dialogue did start to become something of a chore.

How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go on?

Uh… I don’t think I spent anything on BTDT. I can’t really remember. The budget is so close to zero that for all intents and purposes it is zero.

How well has it done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10?

Ooh, tricky. On its own, probably a 3 or 4. BTDT was originally free (what was I thinking?) but it’s now Pay What You Want, or available as a Double Pack with the sequel on Steam. I kind of see the two as a constant pair, now. From that point of view, definitely a 9. I could always use more money.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

HEY! IDIOT DAN FROM THE PAST. Make the graphics nice!

Ben insisted that the graphics should be deliberately awful, and I went along with it. It was a sound idea, technically, it gives the whole thing a rogueish South Park charm. In reality, I think all it does is turn people off who take one look at the screenshots and move on.

Conclusion

Adventure Game Studio is perfect if the cool thing about the game in your head is its story, characters or humour. If you want to make all-new game mechanics, you’re better off with Game Maker. But if you’re a writer or artist and you want to tell a story with as little coding work as possible, this is where to start.

RPG Maker

What is it? An all-inclusive development suite primarily for making 2D RPGs. Includes some graphics sets to get you started.

Price and licence: ￡18 for the older version, ￡55 for the latest. You can sell what you make, no royalties. 30-day trial available.

Makes games for: PC

Link:http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/

Tutorial:RPG Maker Web’s tutorial

Case Study: To the Moon

Developer: Kan Gao (Director/Designer)

Get it:from the official site

How long does RPG Maker take to learn?

6 months and 17 days for the average person between the IQ range of 115 – 140, with a catastrophically significant margin of error.

I think a few months should be enough to get the basic technical aspects down, without going into the optional scripting. It’s much quicker than most tools of its nature, though it’s still like having to work out just to hold a brush before you can start painting. The engine’s got the foundation covered, such that anyone could just sit down and get a character sprite to run around on a map with a basic battle system; but to create your own systems and mechanics involves programming logic just like any language, albeit with much more simplified syntax.

It does actually have programming capabilities, which opens more doors than there are windows. And to be able to use it as well as to create something like this (which was indeed created with RPG Maker) takes much longer, and is a lot more in touch with traditional programming.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

On the technical side, programming experience (the engine uses a scripting system based on Ruby) and a general grasp of logic.

Otherwise, every creative skill comes in handy – the engine actually has a rather active community, which is exciting because it also means that there’s a lot of bartering for resources going on. If you’ve something to contribute like drawing and composing music, then not only can you cover those aspects of your game, but also exchange your services for others’ contributions in other aspects as well. It’s like Burning Man, but with less sand.

What can’t you do with it?

As far as 2D stuff goes, there’s actually not much of a limitation as far as the program’s capability is concerned. You can create an entire set of new systems and make a quirky adventure game like Fleuret Blanc, or operate on the entire engine and create something like U.S.G..

However, it’s sometimes not very efficient (from both developing and computing perspectives) to make some of the things, relative to alternate engines and programming languages. The main technical restriction for me right now is the inability to port to Mac & Linux; but that might (and hopefully will) change in the future.

How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take?

21 months. We started in February 2010, and it was released on November 1st, 2011. But its initial ‘expected’ release date was April 2010. Though to be fair, the game was originally going to be just 30 minutes or so; but then I realized I was being an idiot.

How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant?

It wasn’t all prancing around a meadow, but I did purr a lot. A large positive factor was the variety of tasks to break down the monotony of “work”; it’s nice to switch between different sets of things to do every day, whether it’d be music, dialogues, or struggling to tinker with the pixel art that some wonderfully talented folks were helping me with.

The unpleasant part was mainly personal rather than work-related. Whereas the blessing of the project was turning crappy things into something meaningful and productive, its curse was being forced to dwell on them throughout its duration. But still, making the game was definitely an 87.3% enjoyable experience.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

Plan out the progress in small segments, then spread them out over twice the time so you can actually follow it sustainably. Also, tomorrow’s winning lottery number is 08 21 59 37.

Conclusion

RPG Maker is very well suited to a very particular kind of game: Japanese-style RPGs with turn-based combat and top-down exploration. You can certainly stray from that template, as To the Moon does, but the further away from it you go, the more sense it makes to use Game Maker instead.

Flixel

What is it? a starting point for making Flash games that handles a lot of the tricky bits for you, like physics and savegames

Price and licence: free, you can sell what you make, no royalties

Makes games for: any web browser with Flash

Link:http://flixel.org/

Tutorial:Making a basic platformer

Case Study: Canabalt

Developer: Adam Saltsman

Play it:free, on Adam’s site

How long does Flixel take to learn?

This is a really hard question for me to answer objectively – not because of the Great Marketing Potential but more because it’s really really hard for me to imagine not knowing how to use it, since it was all built out of my personal tastes, etc. I think if you picked it up and set out to make a like arcade game clone with no prior knowledge you could probably get it up and running in a week or two, without any prior coding experience. To really get flixel singing would take a few more weeks at least, but ultimately there is just not THAT much in it to learn, really.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

The most helpful thing would be C-style programming experience and/or some object-oriented programming experience. Neither are strictly necessary but Flixel is definitely informed by these practices and my experience with them. If you know that stuff then the learning time for Flixel is more like 1 or 2 days.

What can’t you do with it?

Making 3D games is more or less out of the question (outside of duplicating the raster math from really old fake 3D arcade games or something). It’s not ovie clips, for instance, and doing large levels with zooming camera effects is actually possible now but not really thoroughly intentional in the library’s design. Flixel is definitely strongest for games with a relatively fixed perspective and film-strip style art assets.

How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take?

Approximately 5 days, and approximately 5 days.

How much of the development time was enjoyable?

It was basically all completely awesome. Mechanically it is such a simple game, there weren’t many rabbit holes to go down. The least fun part of the process was a few hours sunk on semi-successfully searching the web for some free sounds to use as fodder for the things I couldn’t Foley.

How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go on?

Approximately $200, but that was for a plane ticket to Phoenix to attend a little game jam thing some friends were having. In retrospect, that was super important, but I didn’t realize that at the time. Usually I spend a lot of money on sound, but I’d pretty much used up all my war chest for personal games at that point in my life, so I did all the sound engineering myself, and Danny Baranowsky wrote the music for free as a personal favor. Thankfully Canabalt did well enough that I was able to repay him for his contribution!

How well has it done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10?

The Flash version was probably about a 2 or so. The iOS version is I think more like a 7 or 8 maybe. We did an Android Humble Bundle which was practically a 5 on its own. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to add those up or average them or what! I give it a 5.2382 overall score.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

That is the one thing I’ve ever made where I think I would have nothing at all to say. Except maybe “go ahead and pay Danny ahead of time, it will definitely all work out.” But then GOD who knows what would have happened? DON’T MEDDLE WITH THE PAST.

Conclusion

Flash games are still one of the most accessible ways for a stranger to go from hearing about your game to playing it, and Flixel is likely the best way to make one. Flash doesn’t work on iOS devices, though. It’s worth knowing that Unity games can run in a browser with a plugin for Firefox, or natively in Chrome. And Game Maker can make HTML5 games, which run in modern browsers without plugins.

Contents

Game Maker

Unity

Adventure Game Studio

RPG Maker

Flixel

Unreal Development Kit

Unreal Development Kit

What is it? An all-inclusive development suite for making 3D games in the Unreal Engine 3.

Price and licence: ￡60, no royalties on your first $50,000 in revenue, 25% royalty afterwards. Free for non-commercial use.

Makes games for: Almost everything – PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Flash (web), WiiU, PS Vita.

Link:http://www.unrealengine.com/udk/

Tutorial:Epic Games official tutorial

Case Study: Waves

Developer: Rob Hale

How long does UDK take to learn?

UDK is tricky because you aren’t just getting an engine but an entire game framework. You’re always building on top of how Epic like to make and structure their games, and this can take a long time to get used to.

The result of this means you’ll spend the first few weeks finding out where everything is and how it works. It’s almost always the case that if you want to do something then Epic have already done it, and it’ll be in the code somewhere, but it’s down to you to find it and figure out how to use it. That learning process will continue for years – I’m still finding stuff after working with the engine for over ten years now.

But you can be up and running and making something simple very quickly maybe within just a couple of hours and be relatively competent in a few weeks.

What prior knowledge or skills are helpful?

Any previous programming experience is very helpful, but be prepared to swallow your pride and do things the “Unreal Way”. I’ve worked with a lot of very experienced programmers who wanted to rewrite every line of code in Unreal because they felt they could do it better, and every time the result was worse than how they started. This is Epic’s engine and they’ve been making games with it for over a decade, so if it seems odd or counter to how you would do it, there is always a good reason behind it.

Other than that, you can pretty much learn as you go. When I started in games back in ’01, I was modding Deus Ex and knew absolutely nothing, and I’ve taught myself everything I know along the way.

Any skills in making art, sounds, models or programming are going to be helpful and will get you working quicker but everything you need to use the engine is documented really well (far better than when I started) and the community is very helpful.

What can’t you do with it?

Anything that involves changing the terrain in real time, and voxel worlds like minecraft. UDK is designed for very pretty static art-led worlds divided into levels, but that’s pretty much the only hard limitation. The scripting language isn’t very fast to execute, so anything involving thousands of objects moving around and interacting with each other every frame is also out. But there are ways you can get close to that with clever programming.

How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take?

I thought Waves would take a couple of months to make originally, and if you asked me during development how long I thought I had left to work on it, I would always say “A couple of months”.

That’s got far less to do with the engine, though, and far more to do with my not having a firm idea on what I was making. Waves never had a design document, and was always a case of experimenting with different mechanics, and keeping what worked and ditching what didn’t.

I think I was pushing back against my AAA background, where everything needs to be designed up front, and if an idea sucked, you often had no time to figure out how to improve it. Ultimately I worked on Waves for about 9 months in total, but I wasn’t doing 40 hour weeks or anything, so the total time completely eludes me.

How much of the development time was enjoyable?

There were a few times when working on the game was a chore. Specifically getting the user interface and menus done was the most soul crushing part, because while you need all that stuff in order for people to play the game, it doesn’t feel like you’re working on the game. All of those indie game trailers that show the menu system exist because the developer spent weeks on those menus and by god they’re going to get some of the limelight because nobody else cares
about them.

I will say that if you don’t enjoy solving problems and being faced with mysteries on a daily basis, then don’t get into games development. The majority of the time at the end of a project is spent debugging, and that tends to be a case of 8 hours of headbanging frustration and swearing followed by a huge Dopamine surge and dancing for 3 minutes when you finally solve the problem

Ultimately though I was making a game I wanted to make, how I wanted to make it, and for me that’s the reason I get up in the afternoon.

How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go on?

Living expenses and music. I had about ￡6k saved up when I quit my job and went full time, and I spent every penny of that finishing the game. I was lucky in that I had no dependents or mortgage to worry, about and my parents let me move into their spare room so I could save money while I got the game out. UDK only has an upfront fee of $99, but you don’t need to pay anything until you’re ready to release, and all of the tools to make a game are available for
free – unless you really need Photoshop or Maya.

Hiring in any freelancers is always expensive, because there are very few that will work for a profit share. Generally the minimum hourly rate is around $15, those hours add up really quickly, and they need to be paid before the game is making any money. The only thing I couldn’t do myself was the music, and I knew I wanted a good original soundtrack for the game, so I bit the bullet and paid for it. Fortunately that gamble paid off in the long run.

How well has it done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10?

I’d rate it as a 6. I can afford to make another game and I even have a little bit extra so I can pay some freelancers, but if I don’t get another game released inside of a year then I’ll be in trouble.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be?

Don’t call it Waves! Nobody remembers the name and you can’t find it on Google.

Conclusion

UDK is the thing to learn if you ultimately want to be making big, shiny, multi-platform games. It’s harder to learn than Unity, and you’ll need to be very versatile or form a team to make something that looks good. But it’s also great experience if you want to join an established developer, since Unreal 3 is the most commonly used engine in mainstream games.

Contents

Game Maker

Unity

Adventure Game Studio

RPG Maker

Flixel

Unreal Development Kit