I am a beginning programmer, I have an idea, and need some help.

I have an idea for a really amazing game, yet I am new to coding. Is there anybody out there willing to help? My idea is relatively simple, yet is quite complex as you get deeper into the game mechanics. The game would be called Frost, an open-world randomly generated survival game, where players begin with amnesia in a plane crash, somewhere in a snowy area. The game could have multiple settings such as “Forest”, or “Mountain”, etc., where they would have to survive in different environments. Something I know for sure is that I want NO HUD, with only three inventory spaces to carry items. A crafting system would be implemented and the overall goal of the game is to stay alive. A temperature system would be established along with a hunger, health, dehydration, and morale system. One goes to low, you die. Any suggestions on how to code all this would be greatly appreciated!!! PS: I would prefer the game to have AAA graphics.

Ok I speak like a beginner game studio director with already 68 Italian members in team with already few year of knowelage in game developing.

1st you cant do a AAA graphics game alone becouse you need to do a realy good low poly models (with programs like maya, 3ds max our blander) and make them feel high poly and photorealistic textured (for this you need to learn Zbrash our Mudbox for sculpting, Substance for texturing) then you need to learn all material basics and advanced knowelage to make feel all texture from your asset photo realisic. Then you need to learn to codding professionaly (if you got classic school C sharp our C++ knowelage is realy basic so you need to go more deep in codding), if you arent so deep in languages you need to learn blueprint and aniway if you want to make a complex game in low time and with low members team you need to make it in blueprint, becouse in C++ it take 10 more time to achive the same chalange and if you got bugs with C++ you become creazy to found it xD.

If you want to start learn codding with UE4 and undestand how it’s all work I suggest you to check official UE4 learning youtoube playlists https://www.youtube.com/user/UnrealDevelopmentKit/playlists?shelf_id=17&sort=dd&view=50 here you found all playlist about it. And to go deep you need to look the writen documentation that situated here Unreal Engine 4 Documentation | Unreal Engine Documentation

The best way to learn all if by folow pluralsighn online school lessons. In term of knowelage you need to learn:

  1. Art Direction (1st you need original concepts for characters, envirolment etc. Then you need some icons for menu and evry cind of interactiviry and after you got some 3D models to make textre for them)
  • Digital Painting
  • Concept Art
  • Graphic Design
  • Texturing
  1. 3D Art Design (When you gont concepts and icons you need 3D models, for environment and character. After you need to rig them to been able to animate, then you need to animate them, make few details with sculpting and make VFX system to create particle systems for dust, explosions, shot etc etc)
  • 3D Modelling Envirolment
  • 3D Modelling Character
  • 3D Rigging
  • 3D Animation
  • VFX Effects
  • Sculpting
  1. Game Design (After you gond your icons, your 3d models, and evrything else you need you can start use them on your game but 1st need to program logics and interactivity. Then make a world with evrithing you scripted and all other 3d models, VFX effects, animation ,sounds etc you got to make your game perfect)
  • Programming
  • Level Design
  • Audio Design
  1. Marketing (A game is nothing with a nice marketing so you need to make a web site, youtoube chanel, facebook page, twitter, istragram etc etc and start to make a marketing campain by making some amazing tutorials, trials and gameplays for your game)
  • Video Marketing
  • Social Marketing

For evry one of them you need to learn from 2 to 5 complicated programs to make a AAA game alone. Aniway if you know all thinks about game developing alon it take more that 1 year to make somethink decent (but only if you realy know everything), and for 1 person is realy difficult to learn all and I speak like a man who trying to learn all becouse i need to know all to be a director.

“I am a beginning programmer”, “an open-world randomly generated survival game”, “I would prefer the game to have AAA graphics”…

I’m not sure how many games you’ve already made but, if it is Your first one then - keep, it, simple.
Making a game is not a simple task. Try to make a clone of pac-man and You’ll see how many problems there might be.
Don’t try to bite too much at first time, because you’ll get hurt.

Hey Sir_Salmon,

To answer your question truthfully, absolutely yes there are people out there willing to help you. Convincing them to help you is possible and anyone who says otherwise are low achieving skeptics. Personally i’m a firm believer of being thrown to the wolves with regards to learning something. Get your hands dirty, keep a notebook of your progress read and learn. Sure your objective is complex but if you shoot for the moon you’ll land among the stars.

If you draft a good quality game design document, you now have your foundation for where to start your game as well as getting the right kind of support not the negative self defeating kind. Personally I would fund this if you showed me a solid Game Design Document and Proposal Document and I’m sure others will too. Those people who can’t contribute financially can contribute with help for the project. There are literally tons of people on the forums who will do work just for the experience or royalties. You may have to step down from the job title of programmer to designer which really shouldn’t matter because your end goal is the game, right? Or you absolutely can build the game entirely on your own and if anyone wants to challenge that take a good look at Minecraft. Single guy, simple mechanics and AAA quality.

If your gonna argue that minecraft is not AAA, you need to understand the meaning of AAA. AAA is an informal classification used for video games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. AAA game development is associated with high economic risk, with high levels of sales required to obtain profitability.

Hey Man, I know how it want to make a game but no help in sight. I was in the same position now I know how to code inside unreal engine and do much. Honestly, this was a ton of work up downs left and right like a adventure even tougher teaching my-self with no direction what so ever. I’ll tell you almost every website that claims they’ll teach you comp science in my opinion is a epic fail. If you have the time and dedication you’ll figure things out. If your determined you’ll make your game…

It’s not a walk in the park like they show those videos on youtube… I wouldn’t suggest them unless you had a comp sci degree

It’s simple it you know have all the correct tools to work in. What’s hard Is getting correct information or guidance.

Epic give you for free one of the most powerfull game engine that didn’t require advanced knowelage in comp sci, but givving a realy nice end result. And what you can learn in comp sci schools is less explanatory that alot of videos in youtoube becouse UE is changing evry month by adding some new features. Is true that some schools can teach you the comp sci realy good but you lost more that 3 years to take a degree and learn something that changing evry year.

Computer sci is a newest profession in the word and is evolving evry year. To be professional you need to learn how teach your self, via documentation and videos where is needed.

With a comp sci degree you learn 1 our 2 languages like C++, C#, Java etc etc but with UE4 Blueprint you dont need realy much to know this code in particolar now whene is come out the nativization of code. By making code via blueprint it take really less time and give you a better result because you can put i order evrething and see all in visual so you can found more easilly bugs and you no more make grammar errors becouse all grammar was contained automatically in blueprints. So you can make only logic mistakes.

I speak of a guy that loves video games,doing this is much more then a paycheck. I seem to relate to this person because I was in the same position. I’d heavily suggest on my skills and experience that schooling is needed. Unless you have a friend telling you about comp sci along the way which Is a huge field. I’d say “person” take it from somebody that has been in your shoes you practically need to know everything about comp sci to be good at this. I’m able to code and do my thing easily know because I studied and do far advanced things to reach triple A status. now “In my opinion reading documentation on a highly complex matter where on typp would break a entire program and won’t tell you where it’s at sometimes”. School man School.

Also to add Computer science isn’t always changing at all. That’s a saying I believe for people that haven’t really study use as a quote. Computer Science is always computer science And electrical engineering is always electrical engineering.

Since Minecraft was released indie it wasn’t informal AAA standards but when Microsoft spent $2.5 billion (essentially a development budget) for it. Oh yea it became a AAA game. Yea Microsoft spent $2.5 billion for a game that was pretty much already made but its the same as having a $2.5 billion budget to make the game. The end results would be the same. Networks like HBO have programming development budgets, if they buy a show that was already made and air it. It’s considered part of the budget.

Now you may or may not have the same knowledge and skill sets as Markus “Notch” Persson but you sure can learn right?

If I were you, I would make a game design document first. Then read up on procedural level design and get a copy of the Multiplayer Survival Game Template in Blueprints - UE Marketplace. Yea you didn’t make it yourself but everything you want to do in your game is right there for you to learn from and modify it to your liking. Use it to make a prototype to demonstrate to others what you can do. After that I’d post help wanted all over the internet to try and attract talent to your project. If money is an issue for hiring talent get a website where people can donate to the project. Get a kickstarter, fundme, facebook, twitter, deviantart, indieDB, twitch etc accounts going. Apply for an unreal grant. This company wants to see you succeed, I can’t say the same for the community however. If you need help ask. If someone puts you down and says you can’t do something they don’t know what it’s like to accomplish something they put their mind to and quit before they fail.

Wait is it:

“The best way to learn all if by folow pluralsighn online school lessons.”
or
“you need to learn how teach your self, via documentation and videos where is needed.”

Could you elaborate on these contrasting statements?

Also going off topic here… How are you the director of 68 Italian members and have no sense to use proper grammar? Who hired you and what does your resume look like? What do your office memos look like? Have you ever heard of the program Grammarly?

Oh and another thing “Computer sci is a newest profession in the word”
That’s not true unless you’re comparing it to the history of mankind! Where do you get your facts from? The first video game came out in 1958 almost 60 years ago.

Again you’re going around giving false information to people who want help and not your ill-informed arrogance. I told you it’s unethical. So here’s a course you need to take to give advice Ethics: An Introduction (Online) | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and don’t worry I took into account your in Europe so I gave you the appropriate link.

"By making code via blueprint it take really less time and give you a better result because you can put i order evrething and see all in visual so you can found more easilly bugs and you no more make grammar errors becouse all grammar was contained automatically in blueprints. "

Ironic isn’t it?

I hate the fact that I’m trolling a troll here but buddy your only concern is racking up Karma points so you can get free stuff.

It’s a very old tale - “I want to make an AAA game, it’s mmorpg like epic fantasy” etc. If I’d have a penny for every topic like this I saw… :wink: But, I’m not innocent here, I was like this at the beginning too ^^"

But going back to the topic, yes - It is difficult to learn how to make games but in the other hand - there hasn’t been any better time to do this! When I started, the access to the Internet was very limited. I was learning programming from computer magazines, then I found a big book about C++ in a library, some colleagues were helping too. Then, the Internet revolution started but still most of the learning sources were scans of foreign magazines and books. My first games… oh boy, they were s**t :smiley: I made tens of games before my first commercial title.

Now with the access to the youtube, stack overflow, hundreds of blogs and forums… Now it’s opposite! There is too much of it and it is difficult to find the good one source of knowledge in the vast field of bad ones!

Speaking of computer science… I finished an University in computer science and it really didn’t help much. This topic is very broad and computer games are only a small part of it. Most of the stuff I know I’ve learnt from job.

So… how to learn how to make games? Watch tons of tutorials. Make small games, even clones of the old ones. Go on gamejams. Ask people on forums, but ask specific questions, not the “how to make AAA game in one night” :wink:

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. No clue who’s that for,. But I’d like to say as a person who’s been gaming since the nes and wanting to make video games since final fantasy 10. I had a passion for this stuff and would give anyone the correct answer. Grammer shouldn’t matter since we have multiple people from different countries using this engine, that’s why we have comprehension skills. Think about it that’s like disrespecting Kojima when he come to talk to people at E3… Me My-self will learn nippon language but that a different personal story. Furthermore I’m a person who’s literally been in this guys same shoes with no help out there what so ever. Been on Pluralsight which is horrible to learn computer science… been on lynda etc… etc… I’m telling you School is the best bet. My personal opinion is Code, and I believe a epic worker said that coding is more efficient. Anyway I think you should recognize my strong gaming history… and take my “advice”… Wow we get free stuff? I was just helping out awesome.

lol my apology, for exposing you to my anger.
I personally completely agree with you, what I disagree with is when another member goes around putting people down reducing their self-esteem. It’s counter-intuitive to discourage someone to believe that things are not possible, which is what frustrates me the most with arrogant members of this industry.

His opening statement:
“1st you cant do a AAA graphics game alone becouse”
is a textbook example put down.

Read my comment to this question. I proved that it is possible to produce an AAA game by yourself. If you argue that he had years of programming knowledge and such, well before he did get any of that knowledge the statement holds true regardless. The ones putting this young developer down are basing their answers on a bias opinion of him being a new programmer. Is what he wants to do possible, the answer which is based on proving the hypothesis is yes is it. I’m not saying that there is a magic make triple AAA game.

With regards to language on the other hand in order to comprehend what is being said grammar is important. I’m not a grammar natzi myself, I make mistakes from time to time and can’t spell to save my life but good non-verbal communication is based on the ability to express oneself through the proper use of words. Sometimes expressions cannot be conveyed or becoming confusing because of improper use of grammar. There have been court cases where someone has been royally screwed over because of an improper use of a comma. To illustrate:

To perform this task you will need to import the 3D model, texture and the mesh.
To perform this task you will need to import the 3D model, texture, and the mesh.

Both say the same thing but mean different things. You have to have respect for the language before using it is all I’m saying. Imagine speaking to someone in Japanese and not using san, sama, kun and chan. It’s considered disrespectful or rude in their culture.

Absolutely, and I apologize to all those who I may have offended directly and indirectly. I have a habit of aggressively sticking up for the little guy and sometimes I lose self-control. To be honest I see a lot of people asking questions and the wrong people answering them which discourages those people from asking in the future. You, on the other hand, I have to say are a positive member of this community and I look forward to success in your endeavors.

No biggie we’re all a community, I don’t like when people trying ruin their dreams either like that. Excuse my assertion’s, I also was in dismay none the less let’s make unreal good place for gamers…

I wish you success also. And Sumi-Masen If I’ve offended anyone.