How long does it take you to make a game?

[sentient]

Hi all,

I'm curious how long it takes you to make a game from scratch, including all the assets, art, and everything else, it doesn't have to be just using GMS/specific image software.

Do you do it alone? or with help?

Reason for asking is that Google is great and gives me an idea, but it's difficult to gauge the scale of the game people create. I'm just wondering what the average time/size of game ratios are. Would a game with a good average of 2 hours of gameplay result in approximately 500 people hours of work to create, for example.

If you need more specifics, ask away. I'm happy to learn/understand as much as possible before I consider committing to a project confidently.

[MinorThreat]

I was a d student in highschool and didn't go to college, I just started learning gamemaker about 1 year ago and I'm about half way finished making a somewhat ambitious rogue-lite with seven upgradable stats, random levels, permanent upgrades and randomized guns. You can do it! :) By the way I've only been working on this current project for about 6 months.
http://creeksidecreepinvasion.tumblr.com/

[sentient]

Originally posted by MinorThreat:

I was a d student in highschool and didn't go to college, I just started learning gamemaker about 1 year ago and I'm about half way finished making a somewhat ambitious rogue-lite with seven upgradable stats, random levels, permanent upgrades and randomized guns. You can do it! :) By the way I've only been working on this current project for about 6 months.
http://creeksidecreepinvasion.tumblr.com/

Nice! looks good!

Was that on your own? and in your spare time?

[MinorThreat]

I've been spending a lot of late hours on it. My wife has helped with about 1/3 of the art.

[sitebender]

It depends what you want from your game. It can take an hour or it can take years. You can build a shack or a mansion. For that matter you can build a model of a mansion to make things quicker.

As for 500 man hours it depends on the genre and how many frills or polish you want to put in. You can make an entire 2 hour game in 500 hours. Other times you can spend 2,500 hours into a game that's not even 2 hours when you speed run it.

I like using help. Musicians and artists are better than I am. However, that costs money then you fall into outside issues. If you go the multi person route eventually you need to be a company.... which is another task and financial expense.

I can make an imperfect Breakout in an hour, even Flappy Bird in an hour or reasonable facsimile. Both for 1 hour game jams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILN3hC7hkA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LXBq7d4nns

This game has 48 hours into it over 2 or 3 weeks (from scratch including art).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=696647421

I keep track of my hours and usually start programming at the 1 hour, 15 minute, 30 minute or 45 minute mark. Its easier that way.

[SuperSkyPhoenix03]

The art time depends on how much detail you put on it, if it's a bunch of cubes, then 4 seconds per cube and so on. The physics I made for my RPG took me about 5 to 10 minutes to do collisions with the blocks and movement. Over time, I made this prototype in about 20 minutes(12 days ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nr6QgzzM0 However after about 12 days of tweaking, about 4 hours a day, I made that into this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLA4Jn--EXM Be sure to take your time and work on it(nobody likes my older games, because I would spend three days on them and call it a game(some even one day). So to make a full two hour RPG It would take about two - three months for the basic RPG. If your making a pixel perfect one extremely short level performer with cubes. Though I don't know witch kind of game you are making, so I can help you more.

[Blind]

If I'm not being a dinkle it takes me just a week to get a complete simple game done (or a weekend for a prototype) - NATURALLY, polish and expansion could take much longer.

[sentient]

Thanks all! That's some great stuff and much appreciated!

I understand it's hard to quantify the time to make a completed game, and there are a lot of variables to consider. But what you have answered so far is hugely helpful.

I suppose I have the need to justify whether spending a large amount of time on a game would be a viable venture to undertake as a probably/mostly solo mission.

If all I'm going to come out with is PacMan in a year, I would just keep it as a hobby to learn programming. But if it was realistic enough to plough a solid year into something, and come out the otherside with a decently polished game, I would definitely go for it. Although, I also understand, my idea of a decently polished game may vary greatly to another person, at least there should be some common ground to make an informed judgement from I'm hoping.

Edit:
I am unsure as to the type/complexity of the game yet, this is another reason for the question. I have some ideas and possible genres to look at, but I am staying flexible at the moment and seeing how viable it would be to even begin creating something as complex as a full game.

Dream = RPG type, with the depth and gameplay time that entails. Although unlikely so far.
Minimum = Complex story driven game with heavier user interaction and player driven events/outcomes.

Or somewhere inbetween, or less. I'm trying to keep an open mind at the moment.

[ryguy76]

I would start with a simple Pong or Breakout clone if I were you. That's what I did for my first game and I'm about halfways through my second. It will teach you the steps involved in making a game from the ground up,and how a game is put together without too much time or money invested. The variant of Breakout I made (Paddleball) which you can find on the workshop took about three weeks for me to build. It took me about a year to learn different parts of the engine and figure things out. I learned a lot watching related tutorials on youtube. I also have a learning disability so it took me longer than it would probably take most people. My point here, If you're willing to apply yourself and don't mind too much trial and error, YOU CAN make a game!

[SuperSkyPhoenix03]

Originally posted by ≼ƧƹƞƮ℩ƹƝƬ≽:

Thanks all! That's some great stuff and much appreciated!

I understand it's hard to quantify the time to make a completed game, and there are a lot of variables to consider. But what you have answered so far is hugely helpful.

I suppose I have the need to justify whether spending a large amount of time on a game would be a viable venture to undertake as a probably/mostly solo mission.

If all I'm going to come out with is PacMan in a year, I would just keep it as a hobby to learn programming. But if it was realistic enough to plough a solid year into something, and come out the otherside with a decently polished game, I would definitely go for it. Although, I also understand, my idea of a decently polished game may vary greatly to another person, at least there should be some common ground to make an informed judgement from I'm hoping.

Edit:
I am unsure as to the type/complexity of the game yet, this is another reason for the question. I have some ideas and possible genres to look at, but I am staying flexible at the moment and seeing how viable it would be to even begin creating something as complex as a full game.

Dream = RPG type, with the depth and gameplay time that entails. Although unlikely so far.
Minimum = Complex story driven game with heavier user interaction and player driven events/outcomes.

Or somewhere inbetween, or less. I'm trying to keep an open mind at the moment.

Rpg movements 10 minutes with spritework of the blocks and player movements, plus depth on a 640x480 scale(Source + tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqYS-4_oSRw ) 15 minutes for leveling on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPnMRmYS3Ck (source and tutorial) Enimes part one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXQnKh_Uhsc 10 minutes. More sprite editing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cBzuBzrCIw

sword swining 10 minutes 30 seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl23Ut8v4FE

[SuperSkyPhoenix03]

Part 2 : 15 minutes : killing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFkWr9EXWhI

20 minutes text box/dialogue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1hT-nzIds4 And that a great big rpg for you, it's on a 640 by 480 screen size, you can change that though.
On a 640 by 480 scale, it would take about 80 minutes.