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独立开发者推荐的一些游戏制作工具(上)

发布时间:2014-02-18 17:26:09 Tags:,,

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?(请点击此处阅读本文下篇

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

Game-Maker(from pcgamer)

Game-Maker(from pcgamer)

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》

Spelunky(from pcgamer)

Spelunky(from pcgamer)

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

Unity(from pcgamer)

Unity(from pcgamer)

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

Aaaa-3(from pcgamer)

Aaaa-3(from pcgamer)

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)

Adventure-Game-Studio(from pcgamer)

Adventure-Game-Studio(from pcgamer)

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》

Ben-There-Dan-That(from pcgamer)

Ben-There-Dan-That(from pcgamer)

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。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

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.(source:pcgamer


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