What program is used to make games ?

[Offbrand.Human]

Hello all im thinking about getting this to create my first game, however correct me if im wrong but this program just allows you to create assets for the game like animation, characters, environment, not UI, Hitbox's and the i guess programming aspect of it, for those of you all making a game or who have dabbled what program do you use ? I'm willing to learn just need some steps in the right direction, i have RPG maker VX but not sure thats what i wanna go for.

[jagholin]

Yes Aseprite is just a graphics program(like photoshop, but more geared towards pixel style graphics). You need a game engine for all the cool stuff.

[jagholin]

As the first game engine I think you might want to choose either Godot(open source, free) or Unity (closed source, more advanced). Both require some programming knowledge and use either GDScript(Godot's own programming language) or C# respectively.

Both of these engines have quite a steep learning curve. If you are just starting and don't mind to use something that is much easier to learn(but harder to make something impressive in), I can recommend Love as a first stepping stone ( https://love2d.org/ ). That said, there are some games that use Love2d. like Balatro

[Offbrand.Human]

Originally posted by jagholin:

As the first game engine I think you might want to choose either Godot(open source, free) or Unity (closed source, more advanced). Both require some programming knowledge and use either GDScript(Godot's own programming language) or C# respectively.

Both of these engines have quite a steep learning curve. If you are just starting and don't mind to use something that is much easier to learn(but harder to make something impressive in), I can recommend Love as a first stepping stone ( https://love2d.org/ ). That said, there are some games that use Love2d. like Balatro

i heard really good things about Godot especially since its open source, i might give that a try but seems like i got alot to lookup and learn

[なかの31]

The idea of making your first game is broad, but depending on what you plan on doing, maybe the choice is not as complicated.

If you want to make simple rpg games, you can go for RPG Maker VX. That way you only need to bother about basic rpg stuffs, and not need to work on many other aspects, like interface and game system.

If you want to have more freedom when developing your game, or want to develop other kinds of game, you can go for Godot.
Once you get how the nodes system, what they do and how GDScript works, you'll literally be flying all your way through developing your game.

You'll only have a bit more extra work because you'll need to work on other aspects of the game, like interface and game logic, but gladly the engine helps easing a lot that process, so it's not as taxative as writing everything your game needs (yep, I know by experience).

[jagholin]

If you choose Godot, here a couple more tips:

1. When searching for 3rd party guides/tutorials, keep in mind that there have been some major breaking changes between Godot 3 and Godot 4(which is the current version). Code and guides written for Godot 3 will not work with Godot 4, and while in many cases it is possible to adjust them for the new version, I will still recommend to skip anything that is not made for Godot 4.

2. Start small and slow. Godot(and other engines) are complex pieces of software that have to do many things at once. Your first projects have to be small so that you don't run into the wall of having to learn too many new things at once.

3. https://gdquest.itch.io/learn-godot-gdscript is a good introduction to GDScript.

[Meow]

pygame-ce

[spookster]

i'm gonna throw fantasy consoles for development beginners in the ring:

there is pico-8[www.lexaloffle.com] and picotron[www.lexaloffle.com] by lexaloffle games, those need to be paid.

and there is tic-80[tic80.com] which is free (with paid pro, although you can build the pro version yourself from github source, if you don't want to spend any money for it).

[tv]

Why not give Game Maker Studio 2 a try?