Recently I answered a question for Yahoo Answers. After it was finished I figured it would have a good home on my xanga also. Feel free to add your own comments or suggestions to how I can edit or add to it.
Alright someone else who is interested in making games. I will assume you are a beginner so I will list my recommendations in order of difficulty. I go to school for video game design and I've used many programs to make games. Contents:
1. Basic Level game making
2. Intermediate Level game making
3. General game making
4. General programs u should get to know
5. General Suggestions Basic level game making--- Game Maker: Game Maker is probably the best place to start. Its free to download and use as long as you want, but if you want the full version it only costs $20! GM is very easy to use. You can create your games with a drag drop and edit method. For example you want to make a pac man clone? Drag and drop a sprite (graphic) onto your level. And edit the options for the sprite telling it how it moves, reacts and things like that. Game Maker is by far one of the most simple game making programs you can get now. I use it all the time to prototype my games or even make simple games. When you know the ins and outs of GM you can get into Scripting. GM has the ability to run scripts that you write to give you even more control over how your games work. I only suggest game maker at the basic level because it is the most essential program for learning or developing games for beginners, and its powerful enough to be useful to the pros. Intermediate level Game Making---
So you have already chewed through Game Maker and you like the strong 2D, and simple 3D games you have made so far. But now you want to make some 3D games that rival some of the PC games that release today. Ok its time we get into programming. Blitz 3D or Dark Basic Professional: Blitz 3D and DBP are very powerful yet still easy to learn programming language. With blitz 3d or DBP you will do actual programming. You want a graphic to move you have to type in the code to make it move. You want to play a sound, you have to type in the code to do so. This is harder to use than game maker but it is way more powerful. Plus you can create any game that you see in existence now if you had the resources and time. If you learned Blitz 3D in and out, and also had a full development team you could make ANY PC game that is on the shelf now. Its hard though to find a game that was made in B3D or DBP that does resemble fear or far cry or something like that because usually the teams that use these programs are from 1 - 4 people in size. Ideal for the independent / hobbyist. If you want to see one of the most successful developers for Blitz 3d www.mdickie.com I have been going to his site for years checking out his new games. He does all of his own art, sound, programming, and game design. Kinda like what you seem to want to do. Advanced Game Making:
So you are really serious and you have games that actually will retail 3 to 4 million dollars? Alright then lets talk about advanced game making. I wont have big breakdowns on the programs used here I will just tell you what you should know to get into this area. If you still want to program for games, you will need to learn C++ and also some sort of graphics engine that runs with C++, such as OpenGL or DirectX. I would strongly suggest DirectX. Xbox live is huge right now and windows vista is about to launch. If you were going to start learning C++ i would def suggest getting a book or two on DirectX and also download the DirectX SDK (Software Development Kit) from www.microsoft.com Unreal 3 Engine: Epic games is still finishing up the Unreal 3 Engine and some companies already have their hands on the engine. The benefit of using an engine is you already have a program shell that has physics and graphic capabilities built into it. Your just changing the paint job. For game companies they have to make the choice between, pay money and use time to have the programmers make and test and initiate a brand new engine just for your game... OR license a Unreal 3 engine for like 1 or 2 million dollars, and start working on making the game as soon as the engine is installed. The same day you get unreal 3 your game designers can already have the main character walking around a demo environment to get a feel for how some of the games parts will play. General Programs to know: Adobe Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop is a must if you want to have any good graphics or textures for your game. Photoshop has so many features and plugins that make the creation of art assets for games simple and effective. I use photoshop every day and I still discover new tips and tricks from friends. 3D Studio Max or Maya: If you want to make 3d games, you will need a program that can create your 3d models. There are plenty of free or low budget modeling programs out there that will do the job too but if u have any interest in doing good work that you could possibly get paid for down the line I would suggest learning one of the two programs now. They will only make you do so when u get there anyway so... I personally like maya better than max, but the games industry is more max dominated i've noticed. The good thing is if you are good at either of them, you wont be a complete "noob" when you get on the other platform. Adobe Audition: Every game needs sound. Adobe Audition is great for editing and manipulating or cleaning up your sound files. I don't use it a lot for creating music but I use it all the time for my sound effects. Its pretty easy to learn if u have a few good tutorials. Fruity Loops: Now when ur making music, I would suggest checking out Fruity Loops. Fruity loops has a simple but in depth interface that doesn't take long to get used to. You can create royalty free music pretty fast. It also lets you convert your music into multiple file types depending on what your game requires. General Suggestions: Study Games: Game designers steal all the time. We have all played games and said "that is so ripped off from that game". Its true and its accepted. If you see something that works well in one game, nothing stops you from doing it in another game. For example, you can pick up and play pretty much any racing game because no matter the franchise the controls are pretty much the same. They know the player is used to playing this control setup so why change it? It will make them feel awkward initially. Lose your ego: It's known that game designers don't take criticism well because its their idea and they don't like a lot of outside input. If you are only making games for yourself then never ask anyone if they like your idea or not. If you want to make games for others, always ask what they think and value it higher than what you think. You will always know your game from the inside so you wont have problems with the controls or navigation or get stuck. Having someone test your game without leading them at all will show you many flaws in your design, which will only make your game better when u fix them. Learn the market: There are thousands of games that get released every year and 90% of them flop. If you make a game, make sure there is a reason for it. My game design teacher told me this once... "Why do we climb mount everest? because it was there. So why will I make this game? because it isn't!" Right now a big thing for independent developers is Xbox Live. IT doesn't take too much to make an Xbox live downloadable arcade game but the return on even the average games are amazing. So amazing that xbox live arcade games are already backed up by 2 years. So if you make a game now, and they accept it, you will be launched on xbox live in 2008. But thats only for new games, sequels will get higher precedence if the sales were strong. Love what you do: This is my last but most important suggestion. You have to love making games more than like making money. There are rich game makers, but they don't go into making games saying I'm doing this to be rich. Those types of thinkers will sacrifice good ideas, good people and use bad ethics when trying to produce and publish their games. The people who love making games, who have that fever or thirst to produce their ideas and that fire to push on through the hard times. They are the ones who make it through and become Immortalized in our very small industry. So who do you want to be? And how hard will you work to get there? | 
