How difficult is it to create games?

[Zinbiel]

Hello. I'm a new user. Absolute newbie. I just have a general question regarding the overall difficulty in creating a Sierra style pixelized game.

I've never attempted at creating a game before; in fact I have no experience.

What can I expect as far as difficulty in learning the ropes of creating an old style Sierra game?

My question is very broad. I just want some insight from more experienced developers on what I can expect to run into on my learning quest of AGS game development.

[Snarky]

Welcome!

This is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" question. I can tell you from experience that not making any games is a lot easier.

More seriously, for a Sierra-like AGS game you typically need:

-Graphics, usually including animation
-Music and sounds (though many developers get these from existing libraries)
-A story, usually told in part through dialogue and narration
-Puzzles
-Programming
-Planning and follow-through (often the hardest part for many aspiring creators)

Each of these things is a skill in itself, and if you have no experience with it there's going to be a learning curve. But at the same time, all of them are doable! Lots of AGS games were made by people teaching themselves how to do these things more or less from scratch. If you can write and draw to your own satisfaction and pick up basic programming without too much trouble, you might be ready to start making a simple AGS game within a few days—or it might take you longer. Every person is different.

Once you know the basics, a simple, small game with rough edges can be quite quick to put together. We used to have "Hour Game" and "One Room, One Week" (OROW) competitions, and the "Monthly AGS Game" (MAGS) competition is still running. But that requires you to know your abilities and limitations and not get lost in perfectionism.

On the other end of the spectrum, a full-length, commercial-quality AGS game typically takes years of full-time work to put together if you're a single developer or small team.

[Danvzare]

Hello. I'm a new user. Absolute newbie. I just have a general question regarding the overall difficulty in creating a Sierra style pixelized game.

I've never attempted at creating a game before; in fact I have no experience.

What can I expect as far as difficulty in learning the ropes of creating an old style Sierra game?

My question is very broad. I just want some insight from more experienced developers on what I can expect to run into on my learning quest of AGS game development.

Make a game is easy. Making a good game is hard.

But that's probably a bit too simplified.
If you're a complete beginner, then chances are, it's going to be quite difficult. Since first you have to learn how to program, which could take a year to truly master. And then of course you need to learn how to make the art, which once again could take a year to get yourself to a decent enough standard.
Although that's if you're working hard to learn these things every day. If you want to make your own music, then of course you'll need to learn that also, so add another year onto your learning.

Then of course there's the game design. Some people are naturals at game design, probably because they've spent their time analyzing the design of other games. But some people really struggle to design puzzles, and I see a LOT of people struggle to incorporate the puzzles into the story (most people can't get their head around it, and just have the two be completely separate). But that's something that you can only learn by doing. So by that point, you'll actually be making games.

I think making stories is a pretty simple endeavour (good stories obviously less so), but I've spoken with more than enough people to know that some people even struggle with that. (Surprisingly, it's usually because they can't get their head around making dialog for other characters that aren't based on themselves.)

So how difficult is it to create games?
Well, to rephrase what I said earlier. If you just want to create something, it's remarkably easy depending on the engine you're using. If you got Game Maker Studio, you'd probably have something that could be called a game, made within the day.
But if you want to make something that you're truly proud of. That's quite hard. Then again, that's true of anything, whether it's painting, writing, or animating. I wouldn't say making games is harder than any of those other things, despite it requiring multiple skills to create (the best part is, you can half-ass each part, and still have the whole be better overall).

Since you mentioned a Sierra pixelized game, I presume you're talking about the early AGI games, like the original King's Quest. If that's what you mean, I'd say it wouldn't be too difficult to make a game like one of those. The low-res artwork coupled with the terrible puzzle design and lack of music, sound, and story, should make it quite easy to recreate that style. If on the other hand you mean the later 256 colour SCI games like King's Quest V, then that will be very difficult to recreate the style of. Especially if you're a beginner.

[AndreasBlack]

This is a very personal answer (obviously). I've only finished one little demo game out of a larger one in the makings now for a couple of years, solo dev btw. But i'm gonna go over my little process in broad strokes, not sure that's what you want as an answer but heck here goes.

I have finished a lot of rooms with Puzzles and voiceacting (don't do voice) with certain help from friends and AI. It does take a lot of time and if you are not a coder you could probably double that time. Use F1 a lot inside of AGS. That's a solid advice i'd say! so it is really challenging at first. Also you have to "playtest" yourself since you have no budget, i suppose. Which also eats up a lot of time!

You have to find ways to streamline certain processes If you want to get serious. In Photoshop i've done like Mark Ferrari (Thimbleweed Park, Monkey Island Artist) said he's done, and that is to create custom Brushes with Dither patterns. It's not hard, youtube it!
Saves a lot of time instead of going pencil tool click click in various patterns manually. Which easily will take hours upon on hours of work! I've tried that, believe me!

To get a bit more of a "retro look" i'm guessing you're aiming for that. If you're new to pixelart get the EGA palette and start drawing. Then move onto more colours. It helps the brain to get used to pixel drawings. It did for me, anyways.

When it comes to sound FX's in Audacity i fixed new shortcuts to stuff like fade in/fade out, amplify volume, de-essing, etc stuff. Perhaps someone on this forum could program an AI to do that stuff for us, if you don't want to put in the repetitive hours!

Dialogs are what's hard. But also whats interesting, cause you don't want to talk forever about random jokes that doesn't have anything with the actual game puzzles to do. That's something i would say is a big turnoff for most players. Try to "get to the point", and try not to have long sentences on the screen. Look at other games and study what you like about them. That's what i do anyway..

Best of luck!

 

 

[Danvzare]

This is a very personal answer (obviously).

A very good answer that I agree wholeheartedly with. 
Especially the advice with leaning pixel art and keeping your dialog short and to the point.
To add to said advice about learning pixel art, if you're going in with zero artistic skills (we're talking stickmen), then I highly recommend getting out a pencil and paper, and copying other people's artwork via reference (not tracing). Drawing is like swimming, whistling, or riding a bicycle. You can't be shown how to do it, you just have to keep doing it until it clicks. And it's a skill that carries over to all forms.

Dialogs are what's hard.

I have a question. What is it about dialogs that you find difficult?
Maybe it's because I've spent the past ten years making at least one new webcomic every week (at one point I was making three different webcomics each week), but I find dialog really easy to do. Whether it's a one-off line for something as simple as using an incorrect item on something, to something as involved as a dialog tree.

[AndreasBlack]

I have a question. What is it about dialogs that you find difficult?
Maybe it's because I've spent the past ten years making at least one new webcomic every week (at one point I was making three different webcomics each week), but I find dialog really easy to do. Whether it's a one-off line for something as simple as using an incorrect item on something, to something as involved as a dialog tree.

Making it sound like a natural dialog, feels kinda hard to me, but then i look at funny games and i realise that i'm probably overthinking it! Also for me it's how much info you want to give away for puzzles. So it's not obvious what the player should do, yet perhaps a little clue or a "spark of an idea" get's into the player's head. Ah, Webcomics yeah that must help, i can imagine! As a kid i actually used to do small comics, looking back at them they were quite embarassing   

[Blondbraid]

I have a question. What is it about dialogs that you find difficult?
Maybe it's because I've spent the past ten years making at least one new webcomic every week (at one point I was making three different webcomics each week), but I find dialog really easy to do. Whether it's a one-off line for something as simple as using an incorrect item on something, to something as involved as a dialog tree.

Making it sound like a natural dialog, feels kinda hard to me, but then i look at funny games and i realise that i'm probably overthinking it! Also for me it's how much info you want to give away for puzzles. So it's not obvious what the player should do, yet perhaps a little clue or a "spark of an idea" get's into the player's head. Ah, Webcomics yeah that must help, i can imagine! As a kid i actually used to do small comics, looking back at them they were quite embarassing   

Personally, writing dialogue is all about trying to find a character's "voice" for me, as in trying to get a feel for how they think and express themselves, as well as knowing when something feels out of character. For example, somebody saying:

"Ewww, that's stinky!"

or saying;

"What a foul stench!"

both express the same thing, but one sounds more direct and childish, and the other more older and formal, and I think many beginner storytellers miss out on using the language itself to paint a character rather than just relying on outright telling the audience what their personality is.

But then again, for me, just getting the energy to start a project is the biggest hurdle for me nowadays.