Have you ever watched game development videos on YouTube and thought, “Wow, these developers are geniuses! I could never do that”? Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not true. You can create games just as well, if not better, than many of us. The best part? You don’t need a formal education to get started! Let me share my journey with you, and perhaps you’ll be inspired to embark on your own game development adventure.
Before diving into my story, let me introduce you to Core, a free game creation platform. Core allows you to build, publish, and play games without needing to code. It’s perfect for beginners, especially if you’re interested in creating 3D multiplayer games. With thousands of free high-quality sounds, art assets, and music, you can start creating immediately. Core even lets you use Lua to develop your own game engine logic. Once your game is ready, you can publish it instantly on the Core platform.
Core has received significant backing, including a $15 million investment from Epic, and offers a 50% revenue share with top creators. They recently announced a City Building Jam in partnership with Level 80, featuring a $25,000 prize pool. This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your skills and potentially earn some money. Core is free, so why not give it a try?
My journey began in 2008 when I was just 12 years old. A friend introduced me to Game Maker during a sleepover, sparking a passion that would last for years. Back then, resources were scarce, so I learned from a book called “The Game Maker’s Apprentice.” After a few chapters, I created my first game, “Fantic Moon,” featuring stick figures and ghosts. It was a quirky project, but I was proud of it.
Over the next year, I experimented with small projects, learning slowly through Game Maker’s drag-and-drop feature. Despite the slow progress, my passion kept me going. By the time I was 16, I decided to form my own studio, “Fearth,” and aimed to create complete and engaging games.
One pivotal moment was participating in a one-week game jam, where I recreated “Fantic Moon” as a Metroidvania. This experience taught me a lot and reignited my passion for game development. However, as I prepared for college and a career in graphic design, I temporarily set aside game development.
In college, I met a game developer who inspired me to return to game creation. I downloaded Game Maker Studio and started working on “Gorf,” a top-down Zelda-like game featuring a frog protagonist. This project marked a turning point, as I planned it thoroughly, developing characters and dialogue systems.
Later, I explored different game engines, moving away from Game Maker to try new things, including 3D development. This period of experimentation taught me a lot, and I found tutorials that made learning much easier.
Today, Fearth is still growing, and we’ve released several games, including “Calamari Madness,” “Rocket Pods,” and “Drop Dynasty.” You can find them on Steam. I’ve learned more in the past few years than in the entire 13 years before.
If you’re interested in game development, now is the perfect time to start. With abundant resources and tutorials available, you can become a skilled developer in just a few years. Remember, don’t compare yourself to others online. Everyone’s journey is unique, and social media often shows only the highlights.
Start your game development journey today and celebrate every small victory. Enjoy the process, and don’t worry about how long it will take. If you have questions or want to know more about my games, feel free to reach out. Also, check out Core and their exciting game jam opportunities. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a fantastic week!
Start by exploring the Core platform. Create an account and familiarize yourself with its features. Try building a simple 3D game using the drag-and-drop tools available. This will give you a hands-on understanding of game development without needing to code.
Join a game jam, such as the City Building Jam mentioned in the article. Collaborate with peers to create a game within a limited time frame. This will enhance your teamwork skills and provide a real-world experience of game development under pressure.
Choose a classic game you enjoy and try to recreate it using Core or another game engine. This exercise will help you understand game mechanics and design principles. Share your version with classmates for feedback and discussion.
Work on developing a unique game concept. Write a brief document outlining the game’s story, characters, and mechanics. Present your concept to the class and gather feedback to refine your idea further.
Since Core supports Lua scripting, take the time to learn the basics of Lua. Create simple scripts to add custom logic to your games. This will enhance your programming skills and allow you to create more complex and interactive games.
Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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Guess what? I have a problem with game development videos on YouTube. Wait, hold on, are you talking about me? It has nothing to do with the videos themselves, but it’s how most people watching them think that these game developers are super smart and that they can never do something quite like that. But I thought being an “easel” made you a better game developer. It’s just not true.
The truth is, you can make games just as well, or even better, than most of us here. And the best part is, you don’t even need to go to school to do it! Today, I’ll share my story on how I started making games, show you some of my early projects, and teach you how you can do it ten times faster. So get ready to start your game development adventure as we travel back in time to hear mine.
But first, let me introduce Core. Core is a free new game creation platform that lets you build, publish, and play games. If you’re new to making games, Core is a great way to start, especially if you want to quickly set up 3D multiplayer games. The best part is, no coding is needed! You can get started right away using thousands of free high-quality sounds, art assets, and even music.
Core also lets you create your own game engine logic using Lua. You can build games from scratch or remix and reimagine content shared by other creators. When you’re ready to publish, your game will go live instantly on the Core platform with just a little click. Core takes away all of the hassle that usually goes into making a game, like networking, which can be a huge pain.
In addition, Epic led an investment of $15 million in Core, and they have announced a 50% revenue share with top creators—that’s double the share of what Roblox currently has. Core also just announced their latest game jam in partnership with Level 80: the City Building Jam, with five diverse categories, dozens of winners, and a massive prize pool of $25,000. The premise is simple: recreate your favorite real-life city using Core. This jam is a great way to improve and show off your skills and to make some serious money. If you’re interested, the jam has already started. Core is free, so you might as well jump over there and give it a shot. Make sure to check the description for more information.
My story begins quite a long time ago, actually in 2008. For some of you, you may think I’m a “boomer” because you probably weren’t even born then, and that may be true. It was 13 years ago, and I was only 12 at the time. A really close friend of ours came over for a sleepover. I was super excited; we were going to play Star Wars Battlefront 2 and maybe some Sonic Adventure. But during the sleepover, he kept talking about this software called Game Maker. Little did I know that this was the start of a passion project I would continue for the next decade.
A month or two later, I got really curious about what the software was. In 2008, there weren’t a whole lot of online resources for learning Game Maker, so the best way to learn was through a book called “The Game Maker’s Apprentice.” It was a comprehensive guide on how to get started on your first project. I decided to sit down and try to read the book and see what would happen. After getting through a couple of chapters, I managed to learn enough to create my first game, which was called “Fantic Moon.” I don’t know why, but at the time, I was obsessed with stick people shooting ghosts. It was a weird one, but 12-year-old me thought it was brilliant. I made it and was super proud of what I created; it was my first game, and I even made the soundtrack.
After finishing my first official game, I spent the next year or so making little projects, experimenting, and just learning. Progress was pretty slow, and I wasn’t learning a whole lot because I was using Game Maker’s drag-and-drop feature, which isn’t actual scripting. But it didn’t even matter because I had the passion burning inside of me.
By the time I was 16 and 17, I started to get disinterested in games and moved away from the whole game studio idea, but I still had this passion deep down inside to make games. So I decided to form my own studio and called it “Fearth.” I created a website and thought this would be a new age of game development for us. I wanted to make good games that were complete and interesting. At this point, I had a computer with internet access, meaning I could look up and learn stuff without reading a book or Game Maker’s manual.
Here’s where I felt the turning point in my game development journey. I created a game called “Fantic Moon” for a one-week game jam. I tried to remake it over and over again, thinking it would be a perfect way to create a little Metroidvania. The contestants included my brother, who many know as “Brainios.” Creating “Fantic Moon” was a really fun experience, and I learned a lot from it. I made a couple of bosses and completed it in a week, which felt like a significant achievement.
I made a couple more titles during that period, but ultimately shelved them because I was getting ready to go to college and thinking about my career. I wanted to be a graphic designer, and that’s actually my job today. I’m very grateful for that period of investing in my design career, but it was sad because I went a couple of years without thinking about game development.
When college started, I moved to a new place and met different people. One day, I was hanging out with some classmates, and one of the guys was actually a game developer. It was really cool and inspiring to see someone who had published a game and made his own soundtrack. He encouraged me to get back into game development, and I was so inspired that I thought, “I need to do this.”
That week, I downloaded Game Maker Studio because I had previously been using Game Maker 7 and 8.1. I started to create a top-down Zelda-like game called “Gorf,” where you play as a frog and encounter rude slugs. It was a fun idea, and I really want to revisit it. This was one of my first games that I actually planned out; I thought about the strategy, wrote stuff down, and developed characters and dialogue systems. It felt great to think, “Wow, I’m an adult now; I can actually make better games.”
I worked on “Gorf” for a couple of months, and then I got the random urge to make an MMO. Many of you have heard that story, and if you want to hear more, make sure to check out my video on how I made “Fantasy World and Wizards.” I made them in Construct 2 and started to play around with different engines. This is when I finally moved away from Game Maker. I still love it, but I wanted to try something different and get my feet wet with different engines and eventually 3D.
This was a fun season of rediscovering my love for game development, and I learned so much from experimenting. At this point, I could actually watch tutorials that made game development a hundred times easier.
Now, fast forward to where we are currently: Fearth is still growing as a studio. We’ve put out a couple of games, including “Calamari Madness,” “Rocket Pods,” and “Drop Dynasty.” You can wishlist them on Steam. If I’m being honest, I feel like I’ve learned more in the past two or three years than I did in the whole 13 years altogether.
Here’s the great news: if you want to be a game developer, it’s easier than ever! I don’t care if you’ve never touched code in your life, or if you’re terrible at art. Game development is incredibly accessible now because of the resources available and all the amazing people creating tutorials and services that make it easy to make games. I truly believe you can shave off time and become a fantastic game developer in a couple of years if you just watch these videos, learn a programming language, and get comfortable with a game engine.
The biggest takeaway is: you can’t compare yourself to everyone on the internet. It’s easy to get discouraged when you look at talented people and think, “How come I’m not there yet?” You have no idea what they did to get there in the first place. Social media can trick us into believing that everyone is perfect at something, while we feel inadequate.
I want to encourage you: if you want to be a game developer, start today! Will you get better? Of course! But you have to enjoy every little victory. As cliché as it sounds, you have to enjoy the journey because it will take some time. If you sit around thinking about how long it will take, you’re not going to get any closer. So get started today!
If you have any questions about my game development adventure or if there are any games you’d like to see more about, make sure to leave a comment down below. Also, a huge shoutout to my supporters on Patreon—you make these types of videos possible, and I appreciate you so much.
If you haven’t already, please check out Core. They’re doing fantastic stuff, and this game jam is pretty exciting! Thank you so much for watching this video. Make sure to like and subscribe, and I hope you have a wonderful week. I’ll catch you next time for another game development adventure!
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This version maintains the essence of the original transcript while removing any informal language and ensuring clarity.
Game Development – The process of designing, creating, and releasing a game, often involving programming, art, and storytelling. – Game development requires a deep understanding of both programming and creative design to create engaging experiences for players.
Core – The central or most essential part of a computer’s processor, responsible for executing instructions. – Optimizing your code to run efficiently on a multi-core processor can significantly improve performance.
Coding – The act of writing instructions for a computer to execute, typically in a programming language. – Coding in Python can be a great way to learn programming concepts due to its readability and simplicity.
Lua – A lightweight, high-level programming language commonly used for scripting in game development. – Many game developers use Lua for scripting because of its simplicity and flexibility.
Game Maker – A software platform that allows users to create video games without extensive programming knowledge. – Using Game Maker, students can quickly prototype their game ideas and bring them to life.
3D – Referring to three-dimensional graphics or environments in computer applications, often used in games and simulations. – Learning to model in 3D can open up new possibilities for creating immersive game worlds.
Tutorials – Step-by-step guides or lessons designed to teach specific skills or concepts, often used in learning programming or software tools. – Online tutorials can be a valuable resource for mastering new programming languages or tools.
Resources – Materials or tools available for use in learning or creating, such as libraries, frameworks, or documentation. – Accessing the right resources can greatly enhance your ability to solve complex coding problems.
Projects – Assignments or tasks undertaken to apply skills and knowledge, often involving the creation of software or applications. – Working on projects is a crucial part of learning to code, as it allows you to apply theoretical knowledge in practical scenarios.
Passion – A strong enthusiasm or interest in a particular subject or activity, often driving individuals to excel in their field. – Having a passion for coding can motivate you to overcome challenges and continuously improve your skills.
