What’s a realistic first milestone for a complete beginner?

AleksDjarin said:
Would you go straight into code, use an engine, or start with visual/WYSIWYG-style tools to understand basic mechanics first?

You'll hear strong opinions favoring any of those options.

Personally i would start with something like raylib. I've never used it, but afaik it allows to start learning C coding without a need to use complex programming IDEs, and it allows to get up some simple gfx without a need to learn APIs like OpenGL or DirectX.
So you don't waste time on learning about details which don't have a real value, but are rather just a necessary evil eventually.

Another option i'd look at is Pico8 for similar advantages. But it uses the lua scripting language, which helps less when moving on to something else later.

I would not really recommend to start with a game engine right away, because then you only learn how to implement game logic, but not how a realtime application actually works.

But that's just me. You can always skip over some things to learn them later when / if needed.
It depends on if you want to learn programming quickly, or making a first game quickly.

The first path is to learn programming. Pick a programming language, find a tutorial and work through it. A tutorial with exercises may be preferable. Also write some simple games like ‘guess the number’ (computer picks a random number, you repeatedly give it the value that you think it is, and the computer answers ‘guess lower’, ‘guess higher’, or ‘you found it!’ (depending on how the picked number and your entered number compare.

Hangman is also quite suitable (guess the word by giving letters, 5 wrong letters is end of the game). If you want computer interaction, consider tictactoe or four at a row.

Everything so far is just the keyboard for entering your moves.

For a more actual game, don't start with your dream game, but do something easier, like basic tetris or space-invaders. All still 2D but having graphics and constantly moving forward in time instead of waiting for the user to press ‘enter’ has a huge impact on how you program the game. If you want to understand the mechanisms there, write it “from scratch”basically like in a GUI application, where you have the main loop that deals with events that occur. A game engine is also an option, but you step in higher then, since game engines handle a lot of the ground work for you. That is better if you want a playable game fast and worse if you want to understand a bit how engines work internally.

The independent second path is to get a clear vision of what your game is supposed to do. In general, beginners are very optimistic in estimating the amount of effort. So take the minimal viable product of that design at most as goal for a first version. Likely much preferable, take an even much smaller part as first goal. For example, something you think you can build in a few days. Then spend those days and see where how you are doing.

First of all thank you all for sharing your experience and thoughts

To make my perspective a bit clearer, I’ll share some background. The thing I believe matters is that I am not a dev of any kind As far as I am now 40yo my more then 20 years professional experience lies into business development, account management etc in B2B field with multinational companies. So again nothing really connects me with game dev.

Back to the main thing - I met an old friend of mine a while ago and he shared with me the project he is working on. I am not able to share the details but long story short it is kind of a game engine (not something revolutionary new I get it) but the thing that caught my attention wasn’t the tech itself, but the idea of how games created with it could be monetized. Obviously it only could work if a meaningful number of people are actually willing and able to create something using the tool. And now I am at the cross road: should I take a proposal and get involved in the project or not. It is not about the money I have no obligations to invest any or something but it is about the big amount of my personal time I will spend on it if I join. Before giving an answer to him I try to make my own research if it could work and be interesting at all. I’d really appreciate hearing perspectives from people who have experience or thoughts about

@AleksDjarin game engines are technical nightmares, I must say it would take you many years to start being useful as a programmer in such a project, even just at isolated tasks.

May I suggest you star with something most programmers neglect and is the source of much headache in projects?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_thinking

There are many opportunities to collaborate with non programmers in large and complex projects as gaming, even if you are not coding, understanding how the problems need to be “elaborated” can help a lot.

Like I said, this would be a good start.

@TooOld2rock-nRoll Thanks a lot for sharing

I am back again
Guess what! I decided to join the project

Still can't share much details but want to ask your opinion on one thing.

This platform/engine will offer to the small (could be not small actually it doesn't matter) dev teams or solo devs or even persons with no previous dev experience all the necessary tools, templates, documentation etc to create their own games. (it could be complex and good ones or small and bad ones doesn't matter either at the moment). IP of that games will be owned by the platform/engine in return of revshare % for the developer. And the platform has some connections/contracts/options to cover all the legal/marketing/licensing/support stuff, literally every issues for that game. Comparising with the main competitor (and probably the only one for the moment) we will have "options to make games earn the money almost all over the world" but not the limited number of countries.

And the last but not the least - that project is about creating games for online casinos and only for them. And this is probably the thing I am worrying much about. Because as I understand it is kind of controversial area within the game developers.

So what do you think is it something devilish and bad karma or job is job thing?

If it lets you acquire experience and practice in relevant fields for game dev, and if it's with a friend, sounds good to me. Nobody says you have to do this for the rest of your life. Gambling isn't great, but at least it is openly gambling, unlike lots of games that introduce covert gambling.

@AleksDjarin hummmmmmm

That is the kind of ethics question that we will be here all day and night and nobody will be happy about the outcome.

Let us put the problem in clear terms, do you feel responsible for the developers that create games that cheat the players?

You are, after all, creating the means for that to happen and making money on top of it, even if that is not your intention.

AleksDjarin said:

And the last but not the least - that project is about creating games for online casinos and only for them. And this is probably the thing I am worrying much about. Because as I understand it is kind of controversial area within the game developers.

The goal matters tremendously, and you just changed it with that post.

The first post was the goal of making a game as a complete beginner. It's not a commercial product, and certainly not a product where gambling is involved.

The goals of a complete beginner is really to just make something fun with no particular aim. Whatever tools are easiest for the person, whatever type of game they think is fun for them, whatever assets they want because they're never going to release it to the public. The goal is to scratch whatever creative itch the person is experiencing, whether that is making a mod for Hogwarts Legacy or something in Roblox or Minecraft, or a game for the web, for their phone, or whatever else they're wanting to play with. It's the realm of toys and play.

A goal of working professionally in the industry is a more common goal we see on the site, someone who wants to learn what they need, gain the education, gain the needed experience, and finally get a job in a development role at a game studio. That wasn't what any of your posts went with, but we see here a lot.

Online casino games are a commercial venture. They have very specific market goals. They're also heavily regulated around the globe as they're often tied to organized crime, money laundering, tax evasion/fraud, embezzlement, match-fixing, bribery, and assorted other crime.

If you're looking at casino games, your first stop is with lawyers, not game developers.

The actual casino game used is almost inconsequential compared to the regulations, book-keeping, legal requirements around number generation, and data security. Many real-world casino games the game part is just a lazy lowball bid reskin that is hooked up to the highly secure database backend and hardware-based number generators. The flashing lights, spinning graphics, and noises are sent out to whatever lowest bid the company can get and aren't secure at all; it's hooked to a data backend that is heavily regulated, and typically requires validation with government agencies, and details depend on the location on the globe both of the company and the gamblers.

frob said:
The goal matters tremendously, and you just changed it with that post. The first post was the goal of making a game as a complete beginner. It's not a commercial product, and certainly not a product where gambling is involved. The goals of a complete beginner is really to just make something fun with no particular aim. Whatever tools are easiest for the person, whatever type of game they think is fun for them, whatever assets they want because they're never going to release it to the public. The goal is to scratch whatever creative itch the person is experiencing, whether that is making a mod for Hogwarts Legacy or something in Roblox or Minecraft, or a game for the web, for their phone, or whatever else they're wanting to play with. It's the realm of toys and play. A goal of working professionally in the industry is a more common goal we see on the site, someone who wants to learn what they need, gain the education, gain the needed experience, and finally get a job in a development role at a game studio. That wasn't what any of your posts went with, but we see here a lot.

Not exactly, from the very begining I was asking thoughts and opinions if I was a person who decided to make some small game. My intention was to put myself in that persons shooes trying to recreate his possible way from the thought of creation something to gettting to the platform I am talking about.

And I collected literally dozens of feedbacks from different persons. It helped me a lot to realise how it could work and that it is actually could work at all.

frob said:
Online casino games are a commercial venture. They have very specific market goals. They're also heavily regulated around the globe as they're often tied to organized crime, money laundering, tax evasion/fraud, embezzlement, match-fixing, bribery, and assorted other crime. If you're looking at casino games, your first stop is with lawyers, not game developers. The actual casino game used is almost inconsequential compared to the regulations, book-keeping, legal requirements around number generation, and data security. Many real-world casino games the game part is just a lazy lowball bid reskin that is hooked up to the highly secure database backend and hardware-based number generators. The flashing lights, spinning graphics, and noises are sent out to whatever lowest bid the company can get and aren't secure at all; it's hooked to a data backend that is heavily regulated, and typically requires validation with government agencies, and details depend on the location on the globe both of the company and the gamblers.

indeed they are. I am absolutely agree that it a super contoversial area but I am talking about legal one which is as you said heavily regulated. There are some markets and countries where it is legal, needed licensies, regular authorities audit and etc but still legal. And there are countries where it is not, and yes I am not about to do any ilegal stuff for sure.

speaking of moral imo allthat casino games are more honest than for example hundreds of pay2win mobile games.

Casino warns you that you can win and you can loose (more likely, because of the math)

But all that lootboxes, pay2win, expensive skins etc they just take your money. And they also oriented on children as the audience, and that is disgusting I think

So it is not some making the world better area for sure, but neither the evil one imo.

TooOld2rock-nRoll said:
Let us put the problem in clear terms, do you feel responsible for the developers that create games that cheat the players? You are, after all, creating the means for that to happen and making money on top of it, even if that is not your intention

I am looking at it in that way:

1. It is legal. (not everywhere but I am talking only about the legal markets)
2. It is controversial but a lot of things are
3. It is highly regulated by the authorities, high taxation, high licenses fee etc. All of this how the modern capitalistic world works and how goverments gets money even for the medicine, social payments etc
4. People gamble for thousand of years. And if there is no legal and regulated market it defenitely would be the black and ilegal one. and creating games for the legal one is defenetely less evil than for the ilegal
5. About cheating- legal casinos should indicate the RTP numbers, so whrn person start play he should know the numbers that for example for every 100 usd casino returns to players only 97usd. It same with lottery tickets but not much people consider lotteries as some kind of cheating somehow.
6. as I said at the previous post I consider all the lootboxes, expensive skins and other subscriptions in games more cheating

7. And about “creating the means for that happen” thing I am disagree, if you are make a legal job it is ok. If you do something ilegal it is not. Cause it could be a kind of super moral dillema like are the persons who works on the weappon factories evil ones? How exactly? If there a war like some country invades the other one and the invaders employes at that factories they are war criminals or not? what about the employess in the country which was invaded? If you voted for Trump does it make you supporter of killing ordinary people by ICE? I can ask thousands of such kind of questions.

   We live into the broken world now for sure and tbh casinos game (legal ones) is not the high moral priority for me at that case

   I am not trying to convince anyone into something here. I do respect most points of view and different opinions. And it is free will of everyone to do something or not, use something or not, believe in something or not.

   So no offence to anyone were intended. I really apreciate us discussing that things in the good way and altitude

RmbRT said:
If it lets you acquire experience and practice in relevant fields for game dev, and if it's with a friend, sounds good to me. Nobody says you have to do this for the rest of your life. Gambling isn't great, but at least it is openly gambling, unlike lots of games that introduce covert gambling.

Thanks for your pov. I feel it pretty same way.

Because I will be interesting mostly to propose the new dev people just try the new area. It could be commercialy sucessful or not, it is all about the game quality. Because imo if someone is interested to make such games for living he will try to join the existed studios or to create his own one. And it would be a full time job. But the platform is more about to try and than decide if you want to continue or not and how much of your time and resources you are able to put in it

IMO, accountability lies with the one who gives the order, or the one who set up a system. As long as everyone follows the rules, at least. But still, when you have multiple options available, it is best to take the one available to you that you have the best conscience with.

AleksDjarin said:
1. It is legal.

Legal definitely does not mean moral and morality is not exactly ethics.

Like you said, lootboxes aimed at children with access to their parents credit cards are legal.

And there is very little of controversial about our conversation, unless you mean controversial as a matter of public opinion. I hope never to have such fate as being at the mercy of public opinion :D

Notice I'm not accusing you of anything, you are already aware of the conflict of interests, I'm just helping to make it obvious…

Number 7? Safe to say you are american?

Yes, to all.

There are the absolute ignorant, but for the apathetic silent majority, we are all responsible, yes.

TooOld2rock-nRoll said:
Notice I'm not accusing you of anything, you are already aware of the conflict of interests, I'm just helping to make it obvious…

Yes that's true. I am not considering it as 100% moral thing, but sometimes we should make our choises between the bad and the awful

TooOld2rock-nRoll said:
Number 7? Safe to say you are american?

I am not actually 🙂 just was watching news yesterday and the US politics are mostly known by everyone so just used it as example

But I don't believe in to collective resposobility. Not about that casino games we are discussing but in general for sure. Imo it isn't right to be responsible for something bad your country is doing just because you was born there and have the passport of it

But I don't believe in to collective resposobility. Not about that casino games we are discussing but in general for sure. Imo it isn't right to be responsible for something bad your country is doing just because you was born there and have the passport of it

Damn dude, we will stay here for a long time…………

Not just your country, the world.

We are all accountable for everything, all the time.

We are gaining from all kinds of goods and bads that keep the wheels turning, even if the hands that do it are not our own. No person exists in absolute isolation.

TooOld2rock-nRoll said:
amn dude, we will stay here for a long time…………

defenetely not, it is weekend soon and I am going to spend it with family but not discussing moral isueses 😉

TooOld2rock-nRoll said:
We are all accountable for everything, all the time. We are gaining from all kinds of goods and bads that keep the wheels turning, even if the hands that do it are not our own. No person exists in absolute isolation.

butterfly effect 🙂

ok then tell me how it does it work with children? from what age are they responsible for the crimes of adults?

This won't go anywhere. Fundamental discussions never convince anyone.

RmbRT said:
This won't go anywhere. Fundamental discussions never convince anyone.

sorry, just choose the wrong topic for such discussions. It is almost end of the working day at the place I live so I am just in the chatty mood now 🙂