Sup all. Can somone put together a sticky with links for newbies on how to get started ? maybe include an overview of the steps to making a game and any other relavent additional infomation.

Well it really depends on what type of game you want to make. First step is to choose your programming language. Second is to get all the needed tools for making your game. These days, it'll probably be a 3D game, so you'll want to get yourself a modeler that you'll make characters, objects, worlds, and other things in (as well as animate them). Next, you'll need some sort of 2D software, like Photoshop (although that would be overkill). An alternative to Photoshop would be GIMP, which is free. Here's a list of programs you'll probably find useful for making games:
Deled - modeler designed for world building - cost: free (pro version available)
Blender - modeler designed for anything, rivals things like 3dsMax, which cost about $3000 - cost: free
MilkShape - modeler designed for low-polygon modeling, great for starters - cost: $25
GIMP - 2D image manipulation, rivals Photoshop - cost: free

I'm not very good with making my own sound, so I just use stuff people published that is royalty free. Also, this is a good way of finding good textures in case you can't make good ones yourself. Anyways, those basic things should be enough to create awesome games. Now all you have to worry about is what programming language you will use. I'm guessing you're not familiar with any languages so far, so you should search for languages you can buy that are based off of BASIC and are made for game creation. Some great ones come to mind, such as BlitzMax, Torque Engine, DarkBASIC Pro, and others. The decision is up to you and will greatly affect what kind of games you'll make and how much work it'll take. The only way to get better is to code more, it wont come to you without work. Many of those engines claim it's easy to make games. Well, it's not, no matter what you're using (besides point-and-click little kiddie game makers), it's very difficult to make complete games.

Hopefully my post informed you a bit, although it is a bit late, I felt that you at least needed some basic information.

The simpilest thing is to pull a sylabus from the net.
Game Design is like film school in it's early stages right now.

http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~murray/Games/GamesTxts.html

These will have all sorts of nice free and legal links to very valueable information.

Next, think about games that you really admire. Who was the designer/s? The lead programers? Do they have a personal site? Do they Blog?
It's not gonna slow down for you so jump in and start following the news.

www.erasmatazz.com

The above is one of the guys that really had an influence on my intrest in how games tic internally.
Look for his PDF AoCGD (The Art of Computer Game Design).
It's required reading for many courses, including the gatech class above.

See if there is a project running curently to emulate a game you admire. Often the current source code will be released with the exe. See how they work the problems. Reverse engenear AMAP!

http://www.freecol.org/download.html

Finally I personally am an advocate of the old pen and paper games. IMHO a well written ruleset is a well written algorithem. At the idea stage it can sometimes be simpler to test principals of mechanics as pen and paper or board games first, before investing development effort on a "shaky" idea.

http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/

Hopefully this is what you have in mind!

Good luck! And bear in mind that if you treat your efforts like a part-time job, i.e. work the problems a little every day, even when you don't want too, and you work on a project that your passionate about, you can't REALLY fail.
Unless you hang a $ expectation on it!

Glad to add more if you'd like.


Go Kiwi!



Maou

Well, if you want to make games and you've never done it before, the first thing you have to decide is what you;re going to build it with. You could program it yourself, which would give you alot more freedom than if you went with an easier Game Creation Software. If you don't already know how to program, I would recommend using a game creation software for your first few games. Many exist that you can try. Among the most popular are RPG Maker and Game Maker.

And for when you get even more advanced, there's always Maya!
price tage is rather big though...
6995$ for the most expensive version, cheaper for students, I think.

This post has been edited by Csshih: Dec 24 2007, 07:11 AM

Some would argue that Blender is better than Maya, and it's free.

Yeah, I'm starting to try some 3D modelling with blender myself. If I can get any good at that, I'll probably also look at game-blender. Both are definitely at least worth a look, considering they're free.

Best resource for game development is www.gamedev.net. It has soooo many tutorials, topics, etc. on how to develop games and just do 3d programming. I do research in advanced 3d graphics and have used it just for advice on some of the topics i am researching and improving. I also have used to when i was developing a game in order to get help when i was stuck, find better planning techniques, etc. It is a great place to post for advanced questions in 3d gaming whether you are using OpenGL or DirectX (9 or 10). I highly recommend it.

Your one stop for game development softwares (mostly freewares) is
http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html,
Believe me you will take more than a day just to surf the list, download it and understand what each of them does.
      To get latest news, articles, tutorials on game development, visit
http://www.gamedev.net/  oops.... already posted above, but worth mentioning.
      Coming to developing games. Individuals are better off with small games. It really requires lot of work(even 2d).

My experience with Game Development:(I've not included links, search in go