Matt Hackett - How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself: 10 steps, just you and a computer

How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself

by Matt Hackett

2022 Valadria

All rights reserved

v1.0.11

Dedicated to William F. Hackett

About the Author

Hello. Im Matt Hackett , also known as richtaur (/riktr/). Ive been playing video games my entire life. Somehow, to me, making them is even more fun and addictive than playing them. And even more challenging! Ive poured a whole lotta love into this book, but if you need some convincing, heres a little bit about me:

Ive been making hobby games for 30 years and working in the games industry for over a decade. My indie games have sold over 50,000 copies and the games I created for big companies have been played by tens of millions of players. For over 6 years, my friend and collaborator Geoff Blair and I spent hundreds of hours having in-depth discussions about game production on our podcast, Lostcast . In addition to dozens of hobby creations, the games Ive made all by myself include Indie Game Sim , a game about game development. How meta! Read more about me at richtaur.com

I love making video games. Lets get started on yours.

Chapter 1: You Are a Producer

Starting now, you are a producer .

A producer is responsible for completing a project. Your job is to ship a video game. To complete your task youll be gathering the concepts, tools, software, and assets necessary to make it happen. Then youll bring it all together.

Think of the video game you want to make as a puzzle. To make your game, you must find the pieces that best fit together to complete your vision. Sometimes you will make those pieces yourself and sometimes you wont. Either way, you are a producer and you will ship this game.

You are the force that will drive this project to the finish line. Your steady hand steers the ship safely to shore. Without you, the ship will drift out to sea, unfinished.

When something needs to be done, you either find a way to outsource it or roll up your sleeves and do it yourself. You are the fuel that powers the engine of your video game. The time you spend on your project pushes it forward, ever closer to the finish line.

You are a video game producer, responsible for shipping your video game. Welcome! Settle in and get comfortable in your new producer role.

Take Off Your Hat

Theres a commonly used concept of wearing a hat when youre doing a certain job. When programming a video game, youre wearing your programmer hat and writing some code. For game design, put on your game designer hat and design away.

Youre making a video game all by yourself, so youll need to wear many hats over time. The hats will come and go, but when youre not wearing any particular hat, only you remain: the producer of your video game.

If you have your heart set on eventually wearing certain hats, dont worry. Youll be able to hire yourself for those roles down the road. In fact, doing so can be an important part of having the drive to finish your video game (something well discuss more in Chapter 2: Scratch Your Itch ).

All By Yourself (But Not Really)

People dont really work completely alone. Making a video game all by yourself implies that nobody else is helping, but lets take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate the assistance we all enjoy.

This book was written on a modern computer. With its advanced operating system, elegant design, and hardware materials sourced from all over the world, it is a staggering feat of engineering. Its capabilities enable my work and without it, I couldnt be productive.

I also could not recreate it on my own from scratch. It comes from the work of others and I depend upon it to do mine.

Software engineers benefit from the code written and lessons learned by their predecessors decades ago. The software they worked so hard on would do nothing without the hardware to run it. Hardware engineers use best practices and methods learned by others in their field years and years earlier. Through dedication and hard work, technology improves over time and pushes us all forward.

Some developers have a desire to make everything from scratch. The idea of using a pre-built tool can feel like cheating in the process. This is understandable sometimes an external tool can seem like a black box , a mysterious and unknown quantity that feels uncomfortable to use.

Not invented here is a commonly used software term. It refers to the tendency for software developers to prefer creating their own tools over using external ones. Its a natural line of thought; people want to feel capable and in control. The thing is, some external software or assets will inevitably worm their way into your video game. So its best to get used to the idea.

Early in my career, I used to frown upon drag-and-drop game engines that preferred graphical user interfaces over writing source code by hand. At the time, moving away from source code felt like giving up control. Later I learned a simple truth that is more important to me than control:

Players dont care what technology was used to make the games they play.

You might find the technology interesting, but thats because youre a game producer, not your average gamer. Gamers just want good games.

The best tools are whatever tools (built by you or found elsewhere) that enable you to quickly and effectively complete the vision of your game. Nothing else is terribly relevant.

In addition to the accumulated knowledge and efforts of our peers, many of us are also lucky enough to have family, friends, and perhaps an online community to aid us in small ways. Our networks, however humble, will lend us their time, advise us, play our game, and give us feedback and support.

Youre producing a video game all by yourself ... but not really. Everybody who makes video games benefits from the aid of other peoples hard work and support. Recognize and credit the help you receive.

Wield the Web

Thanks to the Internet, its never been easier to make a video game. Those who know where to look will find open source libraries, free assets, public domain intellectual property, and completely finished tutorial games. The online game development world is full of fruit ripe for the plucking.