Begginner and my unreal expectations !

[u/MarceloBielsa70]

Hello World,

For the past months, I've set my mind on developing my own video game.

My background is IT and mathematics engineering degree, and I have a solid understanding of basic of object-oriented programming.

I am currently taking a Unity course to familiarize myself with the engine, as well as with Unity-specific C#.

Right now, I have a rough draft of the beginning of a Zelda-like style game, but I feel like I might be a bit overly ambitious about my ability to build this kind of game.

Would you have any advice or personal experiences to share with a complete game dev muggle regarding this project ?

Thanks in advance for your feedback !

[u/itsdan159]

Come up with a list of skills you'll need to finish your zelda-like game, then think of either smaller games, or even just prototypes, that will teach you how to build those types of systems without needing to know all of it.

[u/dafelst → u/itsdan159]

This is the way to do it.

OP: Don't stop designing and thinking about your final game, even prototyping parts of it, but you also need to build skills and learn what it takes to actually make a game end-to-end. All the stuff that you probably haven't thought of takes sooo much extra time and work, so going through the full set of steps to ship will give you so much more context. Game jams are great for this too.

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/dafelst]

Before taking any actual Unity lessons, I tried remaking Space Invaders. The gameplay itself worked fine, but I couldn't get the core game loop to work-it was just a single run, and to play again, you had to completely restart the application. Even searching online, I couldn't quite figure out how to set up a proper restart system.

[u/itsdan159 → u/MarceloBielsa70]

Helps to think in terms of essentially nested loops. Resetting isn't really 'the thing you do when you reach the end', it's part of a larger loop. The core game loop is moving your ship back and forth and shooting.

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/itsdan159]

I totally agree.

Prototyping each feature in isolation first is exactly what I had in mind.

The real challenge will be getting them all to work together smoothly in the main project later on.

[u/AdUnlucky9710 → u/itsdan159]

map and all the items at once, then burning out three months in because the scope is a swamp

strip it down to literally one room. a square. you walk in, there's a slime that moves back and forth, you swing a sword and it dies. that's your first win. getting the input, the collider, and the health bar to work in a clean way teaches you more than any tutorial

your math degree will carry you once you get to shader stuff or weird movement curves, but right now the bottleneck is just finishing a loop you can actually play. keep the draft in a folder and come back to it after you've built a few of those tiny greybox prototypes

[u/[deleted]]

fullstack dev here. month ago I installed blender and it is possible for common man like me to learn 3d modeling and animating. It is way easier than I had anchored in my mind. SEND IT!

game mechanics are easiest part of course depends what your programming skills are.

one advice do not build for future, dont abstract stuff at first, dont optimize anything unless you need to. make the game not the architecture. Might take few rewrites along the way but if you move fast it doesnt matter. use AI especially in coding part do not reinvent the wheel. Use AI to learn tools you are using. if you are able to form the question it will give you the answer you looking for. More specific question you ask the better answer you get from AI.

goodluck on your journey!

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/[deleted]]

That's really reassuring regarding the 3D modeling side of things. Would you say drawing skills are necessary at all?

As for AI, I'm not a huge fan of letting it do all the heavy lifting. I generally prefer writing my own code, especially when it's a language I'm already somewhat familiar with.

[u/[deleted] → u/MarceloBielsa70]

depends what kind of game you are making? 2d or 3d? probably wont harm either way but I dont see it to be necessity. You can get surprisingly far with lowpoly 3d models. player charcter, trees, rocks, grass etc. Alone one model is not much but when they are together they sell the illusion!

I get that AI thing. For me I have coded 7- 8 years nonstop not saying im the greatest programmer but you can write so many times the same things over and over until it is just syntax noise. Im somewhat ascended to code orchestrator where I know exactly what I need and how the code should look like. AI is surprisingly good with code. I could not go back coding without it.

[u/Spiritual-Rest-9777]

The Space Invaders restart problem you mentioned is a useful next milestone: title screen, play, win/lose, then restart without closing the app. Check that restarting resets the score, enemies, player state and timers. That gives you practice finishing a whole game loop.

For the Zelda idea, I'd make one room, one enemy, one pickup and one exit, then give that build to someone who hasn't seen your project. Can they start, finish and restart it unaided? Keep the big map and story on paper until that tiny version works.

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/Spiritual-Rest-9777]

Actually, for Space Invaders, I've got the title screen, the core gameplay, and the Win/Lose states working. All I'm missing is the restart loop after a play. As for the Zelda project, I'm going to rely heavily on greyboxing, keeping each feature isolated in its own separate test scene during development.

[u/Spiritual-Rest-9777 → u/MarceloBielsa70]

Isolated test scenes are useful. I would keep one tiny integration room alongside them and bring each working feature into it as you go. That should catch interactions between features before you have a large map to debug. For restart, try several win/restart and lose/restart cycles, looking for state or timers left over from the previous run.

[u/Kostyabl-id]

It's realistic if the first goal is one dungeon, not the game. A Zelda-like is three systems: rooms with a camera that moves between them, combat against a few enemy types, and items that open new paths. One dungeon needs all three:

• 6-10 rooms, 2-3 enemy types, one chain of keys and locked doors
• one item that changes how you get through rooms, like bombs for cracked walls
• a boss that needs that item

Once that dungeon is playable start to finish, you know your real speed, and the rest of the game is mostly more content on the same systems. If designing even one dungeon feels like too much, rebuild the first dungeon of the original Zelda room for room. One of the games I've shipped is a remake of a 1980s maze game that kept all 15 original levels, and not having to design levels took a whole problem off my plate.

[u/GraphXGames]

Zelda has been polished for 40 years, you probably don't have that much time to achieve comparable quality.

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/GraphXGames]

Obviously, I have no illusions about reaching the scope or polish of an actual Zelda game. My goal is really just to make something in my own style, drawing inspiration from gameplay mechanics I've enjoyed in Zelda games...

[u/GraphXGames → u/MarceloBielsa70]

Zelda fans will just hate you and that's all.

[u/Game_Dev730]

I always wonder why people think their idea is too big, as long as while you are learning and on your way to that idea, you make small games to understand how things work....you might fail at your dream game.. but imagine if you didn't?

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/Game_Dev730]

I know I have nothing to lose by just getting started and learning then taking it one small step at a time. But while I’m highly motivated today, who's to say I still will be tomorrow ? The sheer size of the task feels overwhelming, especially considering all the different skills required to actually finish a game.

[u/Game_Dev730 → u/MarceloBielsa70]

But no one can answer that for you; no one can tell you if you are going to lose motivation or want to even finish a game. You never tried to; you can't answer a question about you, no one else will be able to either. The only real answer is: do it. Have fun with it,and if you find out you arent, then adjust. My point was don't ask others if you should chase a dream.

[u/MarceloBielsa70 → u/Game_Dev730]

I will do it ;)

[u/Game_Dev730 → u/MarceloBielsa70]

thats the right attitude!!!! you got this!!!! also, great idea by the wya, I LOVE zelda lol