Hey you! Over there, playing your games, dreaming about games. Did you know that you can make games, right in the comfort of your own home? It's true!
There are even free* tools to help you do it!
Maybe you want to start slow, maybe something 2D, maybe something that doesn't require mucking about with meshes and textures and stuff? How about something used to make one of the best games of 2013 (Gunpoint) that also happens to be the focus of a new tutorial series for beginners from Tom Francis, the creator of one of the best games of 2013 (also Gunpoint)
![S3iAEg1.png]()
GameMaker Studio has also been used to make Hotline Miami, Nidhogg, Spelunky, and of course, Cook, Serve, Delicious! It is super flexible, fairly easy to learn, and also free (though the free version can only be used to make executable files, you need to buy the Pro version for $99 to be able to export to HTML5/Android/iOS/Mac/etc)
Tom Francis' tutorials start here:
![image]()
Maybe you want to make a 3D game with lasers and pirates and whatever? That's probably a bit ambitious to start, but you can damn well try!
![logo.jpg]()
Unity is a free 3D game engine with a bunch of available tutorials that can easily compile games that will work on basically anything, including in-browser. Unity is pretty great, but does require some programming knowledge up front and can be a bit much for first timers.
This is a dumb little thing I made in Unity a while back. WASD to move, click to fire, Q to mark one of the boxes as a target (there's no feedback to show it's marked, just trust me), hold E to make the projectiles seek the targeted box.
It also has its own asset store so if you are butts at art (like me) and have some extra cash (unlike me) you can buy all sorts of models, textures, animations, music, whatever all ready to import into your game.
Maybe you don't want graphics at all, maybe you just want to tell an interactive story, like a choose your own adventure book-game-thing?
Still not sure what to do, or none of those options really got your attention? Do you have more questions, or want suggestions on how to create your own game art, resources on game design, tips on distributing your finished masterpiece?
Do you want to learn all of this in the form of a Twine (see above) game, and in doing so see my entire OP up to this point put to shame by something much cleaner and more comprehensive? (seriously I was kind of tempted to just link this and move on but that felt lazy)
Check out the Sorting Hat courtesy of one Zoe Quinn
so lets make some games SE++
let's make some magic
There are even free* tools to help you do it!
Maybe you want to start slow, maybe something 2D, maybe something that doesn't require mucking about with meshes and textures and stuff? How about something used to make one of the best games of 2013 (Gunpoint) that also happens to be the focus of a new tutorial series for beginners from Tom Francis, the creator of one of the best games of 2013 (also Gunpoint)
Spoiler:
GameMaker Studio has also been used to make Hotline Miami, Nidhogg, Spelunky, and of course, Cook, Serve, Delicious! It is super flexible, fairly easy to learn, and also free (though the free version can only be used to make executable files, you need to buy the Pro version for $99 to be able to export to HTML5/Android/iOS/Mac/etc)
also you should probably note in the OP that $99 for Game Maker only lets you export to Mac as well and TEST on Android. Exporting to any mobile platform costs $299.99 per platform.
Tom Francis' tutorials start here:
Maybe you want to make a 3D game with lasers and pirates and whatever? That's probably a bit ambitious to start, but you can damn well try!
Spoiler:
Unity is a free 3D game engine with a bunch of available tutorials that can easily compile games that will work on basically anything, including in-browser. Unity is pretty great, but does require some programming knowledge up front and can be a bit much for first timers.
This is a dumb little thing I made in Unity a while back. WASD to move, click to fire, Q to mark one of the boxes as a target (there's no feedback to show it's marked, just trust me), hold E to make the projectiles seek the targeted box.
It also has its own asset store so if you are butts at art (like me) and have some extra cash (unlike me) you can buy all sorts of models, textures, animations, music, whatever all ready to import into your game.
Maybe you don't want graphics at all, maybe you just want to tell an interactive story, like a choose your own adventure book-game-thing?
Spoiler:
Still not sure what to do, or none of those options really got your attention? Do you have more questions, or want suggestions on how to create your own game art, resources on game design, tips on distributing your finished masterpiece?
Do you want to learn all of this in the form of a Twine (see above) game, and in doing so see my entire OP up to this point put to shame by something much cleaner and more comprehensive? (seriously I was kind of tempted to just link this and move on but that felt lazy)
Check out the Sorting Hat courtesy of one Zoe Quinn
so lets make some games SE++
let's make some magic