Game Development 101

Since we all live in 21^st century there’s no point in asking the question “are you a gamer?” from a person because everybody who reads this article already is. Whether it is a desktop, mobile or console doesn’t matter. Have you ever had an idea for your own game and ignored it because you don’t have enough tech knowledge to implement it? If “Yes” is the answer this article is for you. To easily develop a game, you need a game engine. Game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and deployment of video games. It provides functionalities like 2d/3d graphics rendering, physics engine, collision detection & etc.  These days there are so many game engines such as Unity, UnrealEngine, Corona, CryEngine, GameMaker which needs somewhat knowledge in a certain programming language. So, I’m going to present some engines that need none to low tech expertise to create a simple game.

Scratch; well this is not necessarily a game engine, it’s a visual programming language. Which developed by MIT media lab and mainly used by students to grasp the basic concepts of programming theories. Scratch is implemented by using Squeak and ActionScript. But don’t worry, to create games you won’t need any of the knowledge, you just have to drag and drop the conditions and complete your script. If you have ever played the 90’s games that made using macromedia flash, you can create similar but better games using scratch. Using some tools provided by MIT you can export this apps to .EXE format to run on windows devices or .jar to java enabled devices.

RPG Maker MV; are you a Japanese anime fan and at the same time love to play games that is made in Japan? If so, RPG maker is the tool for you. RPG stands for Role-Playing Game and it became popular as a genre of gaming in early 90’s. If you know how to mouse-click and use  if-else statements properly, you can easily create a game using RPG maker MV. Although RPG maker uses Ruby as its scripting language, a new user does not need to be aware about how to code in Ruby. Well the hard part is creating designs and characters, which is also made easier by the inbuilt plugins that allows user to create their dream character. And also, there are tons of free plugins to serve almost of your needs in the official forums. If you are seriously into RPG game developing, RPG maker supports JavaScript to make more immersive games.  Finally, the cool part is you can deploy the games you create into Windows, Android & iOS devices easily using the inbuilt functions.

Above mentioned game engines are the most user friendly for a user that doesn’t have a programming background. If you want to move onto more serious things like first person shooter games, Unity game engine is a great start. Which needs some C# programming knowledge. As for the homework do a quick google search about “Corona” game engine, that uses a programming language called “Lua”. 

Article By: Nimesha Kalinga