Confessions of a Serial Mapper

This question was brought up recently between a conversation between myself and a friend.  How hard is it to produce a computer game?  I sat there and wondered for a second and ended up coming back with this rather useless, yet nonetheless deep response.  “It can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.”  Looking back at the time, that answer was completly useless and so here I am to return with a more detailed answer.

Producing a computer game can range from the incredibly challenging to the surprisingly easy.  It is really down to what software you use, what type of game you want to make, what scale of game you want to make and how you want the game to look.

Game Maker

The easiest way to produce a game would be to use something simple, like Game Maker, an easy to use sprite based game making program.  Flowcharts are used in place of actual programming and everything is neatly organised by the program itself.  The beauty of Game Maker is how you do no need to learn programming, you don’t need to be able to produce brilliant pieces of art and you don’t need to have any experience at making games.  Just jump in and go.  (I have been using Game Maker recently to try and produce a small game, but is currently on hiatus.)

Flash

Flash based games are something I have never had the time to use, but from what I understand using Flash is actually quite simple and can produce some truly addictive games.  The best part of Flash is that people can play the games in their web browser, no need to download anything extra, just go to the website and play.  I would like to get around to learning how to make games in Flash, but thanks to prior commitments and projects, that will have to wait.

Mod Production (Source)

Moving up a level from Game Maker would be to make a mod or map for an already existing game, now depending on what game it is (3D or 2D) will dictate how difficult it is to produce a game for it.  By building off an already existent game engine, such as Source, you already have all the tools and resources (such as textures and models) at your disposal.  The Source SDK will also create the mod for you, so all you need to do is to add things like maps and some limited amount of programming (just editing some lines really).

Source is a nice example of how you can have different mod scales.  If you can make maps, then you can make a semi-original mod.  However, if you can pull a team together, each with different skills (such as texture art, modelling, sound) then you can simply add these in to the framework already made by the utility program in the Source SDK.  You can have completely original content, or use that which Valve used in the game HL2 seeing as they are kind enough to let you use their assets.

Sum Up

Game Maker, a 2D sprite based game design program, allows you to produce a variety of game styles and will produce the independent .exe file needed so that other people can play the game straight away.  Compared to using the Source engine, which would need the player to already have HL2 installed on their computer seeing as a mod is all you could produce.  (you could buy a license for the Source engine, but I doubt you have a million or so to burn).

So to answer my original question, making a game is relatively easy, but if you want to produce a bigger game, make a game 3D, make the game have online capabilities, have high quality surround sound etc.  Then you need to be willing to invest more time.  The more you want your game to do, the more time you will need to invest to build up skills and to pull together a team to actually make the idea a reality.  It all boils down to this.

The more complex your ideas are for the game, the longer and more challenging it will be to produce.