Porter's World

Becoming A Game Developer

Becoming a game developer is hard work, really hard work. There are however a few advantages to becoming a game developer that other careers in the world just can’t offer. In order to become a lawyer, you have to go to school, lots of school. In order to become a doctor, you have to do the same. To become a game developer however, you just have to be passionate, have an internet connection, and have the occasional motivation boost.

In the previous chapters of becoming a game developer, I spoke of what abilities will help you excel as a game designer, as well as gave some tips on how to analyze games to further yourself as a game developer. By now you may be wondering what it takes to actually get the job, to actually enter the industry and get a paycheck for your hard work. Sure you can make games, but how do you sell them? How do you get hired? When it comes to flash games, you’re good to go from the start. Unlike other careers, you don’t need credentials, you simply need to know how to make games, and do it well. Anyone in the world can start creating games in flash, selling them, and earning some very nice cash. It takes a lot of work, and I mean a lot, but it is within every single person’s grasp to do so if they choose. I started by making games for fun, but I soon found out that I could get paid for what I was doing. Bottom line is this, you don’t need a college degree, you don’t need to find a boss to hire you, you can self teach yourself and become your own boss overnight.

As I said, I began creating and selling games when I was 18 years old, back in the days of living in my first apartment away from home. One of the greatest things about entering the flash game industry is that you can do it at any age. You can be 13 years old, have a passion for games, take the time out to teach yourself, and instantly hop into making games. You won’t succeed with your first game, at least not on the level you would like to, but practice really does make perfect, especially in the flash gaming industry. I really do wish I had been into this when I was younger, I can’t imagine how evolved my skills would be had I started doing this at the age of 14 or so. Granted I was messing around with flash 4, getting an understanding of the time line and flash IDE, but I never actually touched code until much later. If you’re a younger reader and interested, don’t get discouraged, keep trying and I assure you time and patience will bring you to a very nice place once you get things down. In fact, if you’re a younger reader, I encourage you to start your career early, even if just as a hobby. One of the hardest things I find in trying to make this a full time job, is the inconsistency of pay. Start while you’re living at home, or at the very least get a few thousand dollars to sit on before you go and pour yourself into the job, it may take longer to pay off than you anticipate.

Alright, so you don’t need credentials, your age doesn’t really matter, so how do you actually get started? Adobe Flash is a rather expensive product itself, a great tool, but a bit expensive. I suggest using FlashDevelop if the price of Flash it too high, it’s an amazing program that is better suited for your programming needs than flash itself, not meant for animating, but that can be done in other programs. If you read up on the FlashDevelop page, you’ll find instructions for downloading Flex and other programs in order to compile your projects, in the end, creating a completely free set up. Once compiled, you can either play the swf in the browser, or you can download the flash debug player. All in all, that’s about all you’ll need to get started.

There you have it, you’re ready to start programming games. You don’t need to be any specific age, you don’t need a $600 program, and you don’t need to go to school and earn a fancy degree in order to secure your position. You will need determination, more common sense than the average human seems to carry these days, and a lot of free time, but if you’re reading this I have confidence that you can pass the above prerequisites. Enjoying your job and becoming financially stable doesn’t come easy in this world, and most of the time your caught within the system of going to college and following the rest of the cycle. In the flash industry the opportunity is up to you, you choose how far to go. If you really want this to be your future, get to work and make it a reality, it really is entirely up to you.

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

It's Never Really Finished

One of the most common mistakes I’ve seen in the flash game industry by other developers, is that too many of them feel their games are done far before this is a reality. Such things result in a flooding of insufficient quality games on FlashGameLicense.com, and it also creates a lot of let down for those who are new to the industry when they don’t get much attention. The simple fact is, most “finished games” aren’t truly done, or have plenty of room for improvement that shouldn’t just be saved for a sequel, after all, a sequel can’t exist if the first game never takes off in the first place.

This thought occurred to me this morning when I woke up at the usual time of post 12 PM. I did my routine morning check of newgrounds, kongregate and then FGL. I checked out my topic in the general forum titled “Finished Games With No Luck? Come Here!” which was started by myself to get some of completed games off of FGL that were lacking attention. Many of the games on this list are quality games, they have what it takes to survive in the industry, but they lack the polish needed to properly grab a sponsors eyes. This is what brings me to my main though, as developers, we need to understand that our games are never really done, there is absolutely always room for improvement.

The hardest part in my opinion about game design, is that our (the developer) views on our own games are flawed. We can’t see them for what they truly are, we can’t know for sure if our game is as fun as we think. This is why we need to always expect that our games aren’t done, we need to constantly step out of developer mode, look at the game as an average user as best we can, then increase the production value of our games in every way we see possible, no matter how big or small. If you find yourself clipping an edge 1 out of 10 times while doing a certain jump in a platformer, fix it, chances are 3 out of 10 average users will hit it if you’re hitting 1 in 10 times. Small things like that really get to users and lower their vision on your game as a whole.

An example of extreme refining that I’ve found myself doing lately is map editing. In Epic Shadow Entertainments newest upcoming game Tower of Greed, I’ve created 64 maps for that wonderful beast of a tower. I cannot possibly stress how many times I’ve edited those maps. From appearance issues to finding a jump ever so slightly annoying, I’ve spent hours upon hours just editing maps thought to already be completed. Where I’m not able to share with you how much I’ve done this and truly get my point across, perhaps Andrew can share how many times I’ve sent him a minor update over MSN, go ahead, ask him about it haha. Anyway, this is just one section of the game, just maps. Many developers “finish” a portion of their games and never touch it again, I’ve spent hours upon hours just on our maps, Andrew has refined our engine, fixed up graphics numerous times from scratch and we’ve added additions that were never in the original outline of the game. The bottom line is this, and it can’t be stressed enough, you’re game is never truly done. If you’re still not convinced, think of the last time you saw the most attractive guy/girl you’ve ever seen, is that the most attractive person ever? I doubt it, there’s always room for improvement.

After reading this, you may be asking, “When am I ready to sell my game then?”, the answer is simple, as soon as you truly feel it’s in great condition and sponsors as well as other developers start recognizing it as a real piece of work. There is a point in which you need to decide if it’s worth it to you to spend more time on the game or not, but if it hasn’t sold yet, and you’ve already put in 20-40 hours, you might as well spend a few more getting it in the proper condition for the wild.