Game Project (Where to start & Advice appreciated)

[Jushineei]

Hello my name is Jushineei and i will try to create me own Game!

The idea i have is fairly simple and i would like to ask for some advice.
The idea is to create a game with multiple game types.
For example:"A game with a Visual Novel idea combined with a RPG-Maker idea and also a side-scroller game all implemented in one."
The best i can describe my idea is to make it a freedom idea.
I think most of it will be done with custom coding and i would like to ask for some advice on where to start.
Which coding language to code a game like this in. where to find coding tutorials etc.
Also maybe some good references for drawing, terrain references and maybe even some good drawing tutorials for games.
If someone would like to give me some advice that would be greatly appreciated & i will keep this thread up-to-date!

PS: I also posted this thread on some other forums. (To avoid confussion)

- Jushineei

[musical74]

I'm a beta tester, not a programmer or a coder, but I can give you two pieces of advice.

1) Especially if this is your first project, it is unwise to have a grand idea but not know all the steps needed to make the game work. By that, I mean *don't bite off more than you can chew* in relations to programming and coding ability, if you are relatively new to it, don't take on a comprehensive program that you can't handle. There are some great tutorials for coding and programming out there, and if you want to have a visual novel with rpg elements, look at those and say *OK, how did they do that?* and get references for that.

2) Big one: Do NOT give exact dates for updates on when you plan on the next update. I've been a beta tester long enough to know that sometimes seemingly small errors can take forever to find and if it takes a week to find a very small coding mistake that will mess up your timetable. It's fine to give approximate timeframes, but make them reasonable. If you miss the deadline, explain why you missed it. MOST people will be forgiving if it's late because you needed to squash a game-breaking bug or because you were incredibly ill for a week.

[epoxymoron]

i'm also kind of a beta tester.

trying making a few small, games nothing fancy, try different ideas out and see if you want to expand them into bigger better games. hell you might even find you want to get into a different hobby

know before you get into it, there will always be demanding people, it's best to just tell the public, you won't respond to rude people at the very beginning, and don't respond the them. there have been a few projects that got abandoned because the people bugging the creator/team for updates
just put out a blanket statement, it'll be done when it's done

if you find you do like making games as a hobby, keep doing it until you stop enjoying it, nothing worse than playing a game that was halfassed because the guy making it is only making it to get their next round pledges, and if you abandon the project, tell everyone if you are doing a patreon, don't just disappear, that's fucking shady as fuck


what ever you do decide to make, i'll probably do a run through the demo you put out

[Elerneron]

I suggest starting with an easy platform, and like the others before me, scaling down the scope of your first project. I recommend Twine v1.4.2 with the SugarCube Header v2.x, because it is free, and you can be making a simple text game in minutes with no coding knowledge, but it can be expanded immensely. Making a VN project with Twine for example just requires a little HTML and CSS knowledge for example (as well as images of course); but if you learn JavaScript it opens things up tremendously. They also have an active and supportive community (the creator of the SugarCube Header is very active in helping people out for instance). You can already do a LOT with just SugarCube, though making the combined system you metioned would pretty much require JavaScript.

RPG Maker is also a relatively easy platform. And if you choose RPG Maker MV, it is also coded in JavaScript, so that would give you the know-how for both it and Twine. You could probably even combine them somehow . . . though I don't think anyone has looked into that.

If you're looking for something specifically designed for VNs then you probably want to look at Ren'Py for fast and easy implementation on a free platform with expandable abilities. It uses Python coding, so it will be different from the two above (and the previous incarnations of RPG Maker which are coded in Ruby).

(Edit: I recommend Twine 1 instead of Twine 2 because all of the features of Twine 1 do not yet exist in Twine 2. It is more limited because of the port to an online system.)

[Dead2112man]

If I am not wrong, and I know this is a common mistake, but shouldn't this be in the suggestion area for now?

Yep, just as I thought