GUIDE TO GAMEDEV

to agdg

by cris
February 2020
 INTRO

This is meant to be a guide, a sort of introduction to all those post in 4chan /agdg/ comunity that ask:
“How do I do X”, “How do I learn X”, which I'm kind of repeating the same advice over and over
again.
Honestly, this isn't meant to be a definitive guide, nor I believe I am the most skilled gamedev there,
nor I think I have the final truth into it.
However, I've been doing for fun this “GAMEDEV” stuff for near now 5 years and I've gathered a bit
of kwnoledge (again, I don't think I'm a top tier expert yet on this) so I think I could sincerely answer
that question.
I understand some people will proclaim that I'm not skilled enough or my results are mediocre at best,
however this guide isn't meant for skilled guys with some experiences, but to the complete begginer
and is meant to be that guide I wish to have when I started.
As such is more like a complete begginer introduction to the complete process, not just an indepth
guide to each one of the steps.
I do hope this guide serves to all the guys that are starting in gamedev and wish to have this passion
about the beautiful art that games are and maybe someone day we all make games that can be art, at
least that's my hope for myself and the medium.
I have a few words of warning, this is more like a note for all the crazy guys that love so much games
they want to make an entire game by themselves, alone. Do it, only if you believe you can become
anything you desire in life, don't just simply sort of want it, you want to really think about this gamedev
everyday, you should feel is what you want to do it. Also, you must love to learn new things, and
practice (the practice part is important). Also you must do it because you love it, not because games are
profitable. Sure, games makes millions and single indiedev guys can become rich, that happens. But the
reality is that they suceed after years after years of practice making games nobody gives a fuck, where
they couldn't even imagine someday a single game could give them the keys to heaven. So be a bit
humble and do it even if nobody will pay you, because you love games, and specially you love to make
them, and you have fun doing it. That's certainly the path to maybe one day making something special
people will want to give you money for.
There's centainly easier things you could do for money rather than making a freaking game by yourself.
So, if you're still here, and you love learning new things, you love art and you want to work really hard
for years without compensation, let's start our journey.

Feel free to send me some comment about this text to [email protected]

• What is Art?
◦ What really is art
◦ Types of art
▪ Fine Art
▪ Entertainment
▪ Real Art
• Why games matter and why games could be more than what they are now
• How to learn anything
• How to overcome feeling not good enough
• How to keep in a project and not procastinate
• Where to get inspiration for ideas
◦ Library
◦ TV / Film
◦ Other games
◦ Folklore
• Why and when to clone games (Fan games)
• CODE
◦ What is to code
◦ Learning a Language
◦ Basics of a CS education
• Proc gen games
◦ Roguelikes
◦ Thoughs about proc gen
◦ Mixed proc gen with hand made
• AI
◦ Basics of AI
◦ My thoughs on AI
• Math (and why math matters)
◦ Why math isn't bad
◦ Why math is important for games
• I want to make my own engine
• ART
◦ Drawing
◦ Why some drawings are bad
◦ Basic Shapes
◦ Anatomy
◦ Perspective
◦ Aereal perspective
◦ Folds / Clothes
◦ Character Design
◦ Tracing
◦ Using references
◦ Using 3D reference
◦ How to make a drawing
• On using placeholder art
◦ Why is not bad
◦ Why is bad
◦ Where to get placeholder art
◦ Copyright issues
• Pixel art
◦ What is pixel art
◦ Why is diferent from real 2D art
◦ Subpixel animation
◦ Retro pixel art
• Painting
◦ Color theory
◦ Drawing Materials
◦ Contrast
◦ Saturation
◦ Composition
• 2D Animation
◦ Types of 2D animation
◦ Fundamentals
◦ What you need to properly animate
◦ A Mixed style
• 3D
◦ Modeling
◦ Sculpting
◦ Rigging
◦ Texturing
◦ PBR
◦ Animation
• Game design
◦ What is Game design
◦ Why it matters
◦ Elements of Game design
◦ Boardgames
◦ Perfect Games
◦ Pen and paper prototyping
◦ Designing games for handicaped people
• Non Violent Games and Feminine gameplay
◦ Why catter to females
◦ Bussiness oportunities
◦ What is non violent gameplay
◦ What is feminine gameplay
◦ The posibilities of non violent gameplay
• Music
◦ What is music composition
◦ The elements of music
◦ How to compose a melody
◦ What makes a good melody
◦ The importance of music notation and why a piano roll sucks
◦ The importance of Chords
▪ Types of Chords
▪ Chord progressions
▪ Chord Functions
◦ Scales and Modes
▪ Why Scales are important
▪ Why Modes are important
 ▪ How to use Modes
▪ Beyond 12 notes scales
◦ Basics Of Song musical production
▪ Structure of a song
▪ Mixing and Mastering
◦ Orchestration
◦ How to copy other songs
◦ How to make a song
◦ On chiptunes and DAWs
• Sound Effects
◦ What is sound design
◦ Types of sound design
◦ How to learn sound design
◦ Sampling
◦ Sound Layering
• Voice Acting
◦ Why voice acting matters
◦ Recording yourself the voices
◦ How to get a female voice if you're a 1MA
◦ Speech Synthetizers
◦ Vocaloid
◦ Tensorflow voices
• JUICE
◦ What is juice
◦ Why is important
◦ Elements of Juice
◦ Shaders
◦ Post Processing
• Graphic Design
◦ What is graphic design
◦ Why you should learn graphic design
◦ Graphic Design fundamentals
◦ Color psychology
◦ The power of typography
• Writing
◦ What really is writing
◦ Why most writing sucks
◦ Why writing matters
◦ When a story is good
◦ When writing is good
◦ Elements of Good writing
◦ How to make a story
◦ How to make the world lore
◦ Hero's journey
◦ Heroine's journey
◦ Basics of romance writing
◦ Character Orchestration
◦ Why Story doesn't matter in games
◦ Why Story matters for games
◦ How to make a plot twist
◦ How to make a sad scene
◦ How to make a bittersweet ending
◦ On Figures of speech
◦ On Poetrhy
◦ On Telling jokes
◦ Why puntuaction matters
◦ Grammar nazis
◦ Where to learn to write
• My process of making a game
◦ Initial Idea
◦ Development of gameplay ideas
◦ Gattering reference and placeholder art
◦ Beggining of coding a prototype
◦ My Personal Process to build a prototype
◦ A Basic level
◦ Adding Juice and GUI
◦ Finishing the prototype
◦ Adding more levels
 ◦ Adding Menues
◦ Adding the Story
◦ Finishing the Game
◦ On Playtesting
◦ A few words on code architecture and game design documents
• On Piracy and Free (FOSS) Tools and Engines
◦ What is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
◦ What's the diference between Open Source and Free Software
◦ Why FOSS matters
◦ Why propietary tools are better
◦ A bad artist blame his tools
◦ List of Free and Open Source tools to make games
◦ List of Propietary tools to make games
◦ Few words on Piracy
• Where to Learn for free online
◦ Trackers
◦ Youtube
◦ Books
◦ Online Courses
◦ List of recommended books and courses to learn from
• On Getting an Online Team and working as a group
◦ On polishing your skills
◦ On working as a 1MA
◦ A portfolio matters
◦ Getting to know your partner and why you should start small
• Localization and Translation
◦ On Why translation matters
◦ On Learning languages
◦ On doing yourself the translation
◦ On paying for translations
◦ Letting the fans to easily translate your game
• Bussiness Side (Marketing)
◦ Viral Marketing
◦ On Getting a social media account
 ◦ On Getting new followers
◦ Niche internet groups to get initial customers
• Copyright Law
◦ Why copyright matters
◦ The Basics of copyright
◦ What is originality to the law
◦ On making fan games
◦ What can you steal
 WHAT IS ART?

Oh boy, what a thorny question, one that people easily dismiss as this nonsense that only a snobby
group of art critics with self importance grandeur delusions like to discuss.
It's easy to think as an outsider why art matters, and see all these crappy art pictures of people doing
random drops or see a picasso cubist painting and wonder why anyone even gives a damn about all this
poorly made stuff, and see those fine art paintings selling for millions and wonder if all is just an
elaborate ploy to launder money (which a lot of times it is).
But art is important, and is relation to being a morality gauge of society is important, if a society start
making inmoral art, then is a reflection of the soul of that society. An inmoral society is one that has not
grounds on deciding what is important, if the life of a baby is important, if pornography should be
legal, if drugs should be legalized.
As such, art is of uttermost important for the kind of life we want as a society. If our souls are inmoral
and dirty, this will be reflected in art that is ugly and only appeals to the lowest desires of humans.
As such, art that is moral, that has as cornestone of it's main purpose to elevate people into being better
beings, to not glorify vice, to make a stand that vice and crime should be shamed, to show people that
life is worthy of living, is of uttermost important not just for the artist, but for the society that creates
such art.
I do believe the epidemic of vice and sin modern society suffers, our alienation with the work we do,
the abortion discussion, the collapse of the nuclear family, the lack of empathy we may feel towards
others, the drug epidemic in our youth, the lack of masculine roles that some want to destroy. I do
seriously believe is because of the lack of moral standarts in the art we produce and consume.
This is why I think art should be at least one of the things the artist should be concerned with at least
once in his life.
I'm not an expert on art, but I've been doing art since I was a small kid, I do remember drawing some
cartoons when I was in kindergaten, always looking at some cousin keyboard and wishing I had one,
tracing anime cartoons when I was younger, writing some stories about classmates in school.
As such, art matters a lot to me and I've been thinking why I am doing it, what's the purpose of it, why
do I care so much about it, why anyone would give a damn about all these moral and philosophical
questions.
People always keep repeating, but what is art, you clearly don't know nothing about it, you lack
credentials or they discuss if anything can be art, always coming to the same points where some guys
believe a small subset of art is real art or if anything can be art.
As such, I've though a lot about this issue, and I would like to share my thoughs.
I do believe I can answer, at least personaly this question.
 What is really art?
First we need to define art, what do we meant when we talk about it, without proper definitions, we
could be argueing about diferent things all day.
I do believe ART is basically any human product that has a reason to exist beyond the pure utilitarian
survival reasons, we do create art because it fills something that isn't just something inmediate to
survive.
Sure, food isn't really art, but cooking can also be an art.
Sure, kicking others in the balls isn't really an art, but martial arts are clearly an art.
As such, the intent we have on a human creation is what helps us define first what is art.
In reality, art can be defined as the combination of an IDEA, plus an EMOTION, plus some
TECHNIQUE humans use to construct this thing we call an art piece.
IDEA is the raw material an art piece uses, is the mystical raw material an artist steals from that
methaphysical plane of unknown land where ideas exist, a world that is beyond our five senses. It could
be anything, from the mystical like dreams, to mere bursts of inspirations to more common things like
stealing other artists works.
EMOTION is like this spicy spice artist use to make the art piece has some meaning to use, some
emotional connection we need to leave our daily boring mundane lifes into some special escapist
fantasy land where real pure love exist, where the good guys save the world, where evil gets their
justice. In reality is an spiritual conection, a cathartical experience with the spiritual world, a conection
with the divine, some claims this catharsis is our conection to God.
TECHNIQUE is the rules of the craft, the mental tools but also the physical tools we use to create the
piece, is the carpenter tools and workflow he may use to change the IDEA into a tangible good, like a
chair. As such is the labour needed to take the raw material and convert it into something other person
could enjoy and call it art.
As such there's basic combinations that create most of what we diferentiate in art.
IDEA + EMOTION : This is the combination of cheap melodrama and some art pieces like soap operas
and romance novels, as such isn't so much concerned (because of the artist lack of skills in some cases)
to produce stronger art pieces. Popular music tends to fall heavily on this side.
IDEA + TECHNIQUE : This is the land of mere intelectual pursuits, as some of classical music studies
where the artist care more about pushing the technical posibilities of the medium, more than entertain
using feelings. Most of modern academical art can be considered to fall into this area.
TECHNIQUE + EMOTION : This is the land of stuff like fan art illustrations, where there's a big
concern over the technique and also the emotion, but usually the idea is not original, interesting or deep
enough. A lot of commercial art (specially things like advertising) fall into this cathegory.
IDEA + TECHNIQUE + EMOTION : This is usually the place reserved only for the art we tend to put
in high pedestal as the measure of culture, It has a combination of strong technique, plus it creates an
emotion into the viewer and also are about deep philosophical human eternal issues. This is usually the
art that survives in history.
 Types of art
The previous clasification system is helpful, at least initially to help us device a more complex sytem.
So, having said that ideas, emotions and technique are the basic elements we use to make art, we could
then start to clasify art into three basic cathegories.
I call them Fine art, Entertainment and Real art.

FINE ART
This is usually art that is concerned about the mind, the logos. As such isn't concerned about emotions,
since is major interest is entertaining the mind and the intelect. Isn't so much that fine art isn't
concerned about emotions, but that it's major source of pleasure comes from mere intelectual pursuits.
Some feel this art is a bit snobby, since it's usually the art that snobs tend to like the most.
Also is the art of academia, since it's what pays the bill of entire academic deparments in universities to
keep writing and discussing the merits of art pieces. Academia spends a great deal of effort to create
this illusion that this deeper and more complex art is more worthy of cultural respect than
entertainment.
It's not that intelectual pursuits aren't worthy of merit, but a lot of times comes from a position of
superiority where the snob doesn't view as interesting entertainment and feel it lacks the intelectual of
richness that some academical art posses. As such he thinks if only the plebs could see all this hidden
richness of this academical piece.
The average folk, since he lacks the proper art education, sees the piece as sterile and boring, because
what the average layman wants in art is to feel emotions, and since a lot of fine art is usually more
interested into intelectual complex topic and loves to be entertained by just technical virtuosity, the
average layman can't really get it, because he doesn't get it. He needs an education, which he lacks.
I usually consider the entire point of fine art to be intelectual pleasure, as such I consider it the same
type of pleasure one gets from things like learning to play a musical isntrument, learning a new skill,
learning a language.
As such I do consider things like podcasts, or political comentary on the TV or youtube to fall into this
fine art cathegory.
Documentaries tend to fall also into this cathegory, and most of non fiction and specialy didactical
pieces of literature tend to fall heavily into the fine art cathegory.
A piece of warning, people will claim snarkely than shit on a can isn't really an art piece, which I think
it's art, but is poorly made fine art.
As such I see some mediums like conceptual art to fall heavily into the fine art cathegory, and most of
non realistic painting styles like cubism, abstract expresionism, abstract art and so on.
Graphic design topics like logos fall also into this cathegory.
ENTERTAINMENT
This is usually what the average folk consumes, is what powers the entertainment industry, is what can
make an artist rich and famous.
But also it gets a bad reputation for not being “deep” or “real” that fine art snobs tend to critique and
make average guys feel shame and get defensive about what they enjoy not being good enough, or
being cheesy.
It's the diference between high culture and low brown culture, which is more a socio economical
diference between the highly educated clases and the popular usually uneducated masses, as such is a
matter more of social status than the quality of the art piece.
But I do believe entertainment has value, and it serves a purpose, usually fine art lacks that emotional
richness entertainment has.
The issue with entertainment is that is usually less complex and less rich than fine art, and is usually a
lot of times very repetitive and even cliche.
It's a lot like the candy you loved as a kid, at some point you become an adult and desire more refined
tastes than just the cheap candy you liked it when you were in school.
Entertainment is mostly concerned with pleasuring the body, the hearth, the feelings, and such isn't
concerned about deep issues or deep topics. It just want to have fun and have a good time, there's not
big concerns about leaving a legacy that some day centuries from now, it will be remembered.
Pornography is an example of entertainment, It has not other purpose than the entertainment of the
body (lust).
The issue with entertainment is that it can degenerate into vice and hedonism.
Tasty food isn't bad, but it can clealy become a vice and cause obesity and other health issues.
Most of commercial art, like most hollywood films tend to fall into this area, also most of the popular
and commercial music falls into this cathegory as well as most genre fiction.
A major purpose of entertainment is to make money, since it has a big demand.
Since the average folk is what consumes this type of art, it tends to be easy to understand and consume,
it's major concern tends to be aesthetics (because of its desire to be fun), but because of this most of the
time it lacks deepness or complexity, since complexity would hinder it's purpose of being understood
by the average layman.
Videogames, pretty much all (except for a few honorable mentions) tends to fall exclusively into this
category, this is a major source of why art critics tend to not consider videogames art.
REAL ART
Now I concern with a cathegory most people can easily understand, but I think neither the gatekeepers
and the everything is art understands.
There's clear diferences between the works of what we call genius in some art and the average artist.
It's usually the cathegory we try to gatekeep as the exemplary examples of what art can be and should
be teached in schools.
The shakespeares, cervantes, beethovens, van goghs, bachs of the art world.
The top of the top, the cream of the crop.
Having explained now that art is made of EMOTION, IDEA and TECHNIQUE, we must now explain
what is real art and why the other two cathegories of art aren't real art.
It's not that fine art and entertainment aren't real art, is that what I call real art is usually the real deal,
the most deep that also speaks to our souls and make us better people. It's an honest art and therefore is
the real art we all consider REAL ART.
It's what the average folk and both the art critic can agree is real art.
This type of art is both concerned with pleasuring both the soul and the mind, as such is concerned
about aesthetics and being beautiful, using mastery of the craft the artist has spend a lifetime to learn,
but is also not just pretty, is also deep, and usually about the deep iner fears mankind will always have.
As such this type of art perdures because it speaks to our soul, it speaks to the core of the human
experience, and will survive, because it talks to the same old issues people had centuries ago when
shakespeare was alive, issues of falling in love, what is our purpose in life, will evil people gets finally
justice or will evil triumph in the end, poverty, racism, helping others, having a family, getting older.
It speaks to all the things the artist care deep in his soul, and such he speaks also to those fears we all
share. We all care about helping others, or becoming older, or being alone. We all fear or care about
those things, as such people from centuries from now will have the same fears, and such real art will
speak the same to them as it speaks to us, or spoke to people now long forgotten.
For some reason this type of art is only reserved to the artists that care about being remembered, which
I don't get why most of artists don't seem to care. A lot just wants to become rich and famous, but their
work is banal and lacks this sincerity that speaks to our core human condition.
Fine art lacks the aesthetical capabilities to speak to our soul, and entertainment lacks any real deep
value, and such is just like a fashion product. And such as fashion it get's forgotten after a few years.
But real art, as such it speaks to our souls, and that has value, and this value is what it makes it perdure
in time.
It's not that this art is special or harder to produce, it's more that it was made by a special kind of
person, and that's harder to replicate than learning an art. Not all persons concerns about being
remembered in history.
This is why there's not such thing as mediocre or bad real art. Sure, a mediocre begginer artist could
produce amateur real art, but even an amateur piece of real art has a soul, a special quality of passion
that makes it shine, it's to view the inner soul and deeper worries of the artist, and such is honest, and
that makes it seem more beautiful than pretty well done illustrations or some complex art piece that
lacks emotion.
 Why games matter and why games could be more than what
they are now

Having defined what is art and what we mean by real art, then is important now to clarify what we
mean when someone say games arent art.
I think they don't mean that there's not artistic archievements in game music, game art, character
design, stories, gameplay.
Sure why something that requires so much artistic content not be real art, it would be as absurd as
claiming that opera or film arent art, but people don't discuss if film isn't art.
I think they really meant that videogames doesn't have enough works of real art, and since most of
them are entertainment, because their main purpose is to produce money for companies, there's a lot of
times where both making money and artistic goals clash.
As such It has the same issues hollywood movies tend to also have, It's usually the smaller indie films
or middle AA films that try to be something more than cheap entertainment.
I think videogames are still a too young medium to still considering and talking about real art
videogames, but I do hope there will be in the future some reinasaince sort of genius who have
mastered all the skills in gamedev and could produce a masterful real art videogame. Most of the indie
guys that started back in 2008-2010 are now near 40 and such, they still are too young to create
masterpieces, the medium is still too young right now. But I do hope with better and easier tools it may
be possible for a single guy to make a complete masterpiece by himself.
So far, cave story and undertale seem to be one of the first this kind of honest games, maybe one day in
the future gamedev will have it's own beethoven or mozart.
Still, the issue isn't really if games can be art, but what games should we treasure as these elusive
masterpieces we love to put in museums.
It also speaks to the diference an autheur game like cave story could have with an AAA project, why do
we fucking should care about some small game with most of the time poor graphics, poor code and
amateur music, why do we care about them versus a big budget title made by professionals.
I think because of freedom the artist have, AAA titles need to be profitable and such are constrained by
the economic needs of their mother company, as such they feel like sometimes need to whore the piece
into being the one that produces more money, and include all kind of really anti consumer schemes.
As such, such AAA games aren't concerned (most of the times) with making an art product, a real art
videogame, and usually is only a few ones every couple of years that really makes us realize the artistic
potential of games.
Some gamers could claim that games aren't art, because they don't want the fine art snobs to dictate
what a game should be, and why fun is bad, and try to make games into this poorly imitation of films.
However I do feel gamers should discuss the artistic merits of games, and try to understand what makes
a good game beyond mere being “is fun” argument and not being scared of the work ART.
I think a good solution should be companies to give more freedom to single directors over what they
want to make, something like the Spielberg of videogames and not expect giant economic returns of his
work.
In any case, games could evolve to have their own language and vocabulary, similar to how
cinematography works for games, maybe one day we could make our own type of cinematography,
using gameplay mechanics to tell a story, telling important details, not using cinematics or dialog even
to express emotions, to develop a character using the actions he has in the game, even make the
characters react to the story decisions beyond a mere NPC jrpg change of dialog but also have the NPC
have some important life, some character development as well. Maybe stop giving meaningless quests
to the character and start giving stuff that not only impact the player in the game, but also teaches
important stuff to the player in his real life, lessons about helping others, about being a good person,
tackling huge issues like politics, but not proselitizing, but helping to understand.
I do think games have this huge untapped potential to be more than just mindless entertainment you
just consume and that games, the same as the other major mediums, can speak to our souls and mind in
new ways that are imposible to other artists.
As such videogames could have this infinite potential to communicate the artist feelings about
something he really cares about, and even invent newer genres not because of their gameplay
mechanics but because of the emotion it tries to convey.
It all would sound kind of snobby to the average gamer, why we should change videogames if they're
perfect.
But this is more a question all the artists have asked themselves when they make art.
What's my purpose in life, why I am making art.
Am I making something that has value, that will be remembered?
Not all artist even care about these issues and they only want to have fun or make money or become
famous, but as such that type of work is just banal and most of the time trivial.
Why do people still care about some SNES games like FFVI or Chrono Trigger when AAA games that
were made just some years ago nobody cares or even remember them.
It's an important question to the artist, do u want to make money but nobody care about your work
some years later, why not work on something like making a bussiness or become a programmer
working on some boring software nobody cares, those are clearly better options than slave for years,
unpaid, overworked, crunched for a game nobody will give a fuck later. Clearly money isn't the main
reason why some artist would want to make art.
Sure, money is important and is what it pays the bills, but there are easier ways to make money.
I do think all artists at some point, stop worrying about paying the bills and start wondering why are
they making art, and start to ask themselves all these questions.
As such I would love more if game developers started to think and demand that companies should
focus less on making so much money and more on why are they making games.
 How to learn anything

Since I doubt there will be a college degree that will teach all the skills, from graphic design, to pixel
art, to program, all you need to make a game, I think before teaching what you need to learn all the
skills, you need to understand how someone could learn a skill.
I think anyone could learn what I've learned to a professional level if he starts with the mental tools
needed to learn something new.
There's a lot of guys who just dabble in art for years without progress, and I can speak a bit of that
personally.
Of course anyone can learn art or music if they spend 10 years just practicing, they will develop an
unique style and over time their brain will understand how the skill works.
But I feel that spending 10 years when you could do the same in 1-2 years of proper study, is a better
use of your life and time. Of course you need a shit ton of effort and repeated practice to learn a skill,
and that reading books isn't enough to learn and sort of get to the point where your understanding
change and your perception of reality changes.
The only diference between a master and a novice is that the master has all this understanding that
comes from years of experience, a master will see a drawing and see diferent things than an untrained
person will see.
The whole talent vs nurture debate in art comes from a missunderstanding of the whole process of
learning an skill. You could see people progressing in a single year, or even a couple of months faster
than others would take them years to not even get to the same point.
But there's nothing to say that there's not such thing as talent, is more than anyone can reach a highly
skilled level of technique. Technique can be easily taught and repeated. But talent comes from a
personal point of view. Not other person view the same things, has the same opinion. This is why
there's a lot of really skilled musicians in clasical orchestras who can only play complex pieces but will
never compose a single piece, or why there's a lot of artists who can only copy portrait photos to
amazing detail but could never draw from imagination. Talent I believe comes down more to that
elusive soulful quality, that eternal childlike joy some people still have, that childlike pleasure some kid
has when he draws, he doesn't care his drawings are good or bad, he's happy he's drawing. I think real
talent comes not from technique, but from that unique taste and childlike pleasure and passion one puts
into his art. Technique can help improve and make this talent some possess.
I could try to explain the technique aspects of every craft, and you can clearly learn and practice and
improve very fast to learn a skill technique. But I'm sorry I can't really teach you this childlike passion
and wonder. Only thing I can hope is that whoever is reading this, also share this passion and burning
desire to communicate something and someone make a game people will care and will love to play.
I do think all indiedevs have in some level this passion.
Having explained all that, I think one of the best teachers how learning a skill works, is actually going
to the gym. Nothing I could explain would make as much sense as improving your body with exercise
and lifting weights.
All the discipline and results and methods one learns in a gym to shape and sculpt your body are the
same methods one use to learn any skill.
Basically it all boils down to having a proper method to learn a skill, a proper workout routine to
practice daily the skill and some kind of progression towards more dificult movements or weights, and
the most important thing a gym will teach is to learn to take it slowly and realize building muscle takes
a lot of time and the improvements are small and only after a few months you can see your old pictures
and realize how much have you improved.
This is not to say that improving your body, your image can make you gain confidence and be more
happy, also all the heathl benefits.
The most important thing you can learn from going to a gym is patience and self discipline.
Another good teacher I think is great is to learn to actually learn how you learn newer languages, it
follows a lot of the same techniques. One special technique I learned from trying to learn japanese is
spaced repetition.
Languages are not that dificult to learn once you understand the concept of spaced repetition.
So, basically to learn a skill you need the following:
– Read enough theory from books or courses to get a basic understanding of what subskills
something like music or drawing is composed of and make a list, from the easier ones to the
more dificult ones.
– A progression from begginer subskills you need to understand before progressing towards more
complex ones.
– A sort of workout routine where you practice a small subskill, a small technique you can
measure objectivelly if you're doing it wrongly or properly.
– Focus first on your weakest subskills you need to practice and try to do spaced repetition on
them, repeat a skill every day, not for hours, but for smaller periods of time where you can
measure your progress in some form. Then just start to move towards your weaker skills after
you have learned this technique or subskill, having of course some repetition period after one
week or two weeks where you remember the skill and evaluate again if you have forget it and
you need to focus again on it.
That's it, no magic, no talent, just a proper method you can use to learn pretty much anything.
My other advice is to form a calender plan of studies where you sort of plan in months in advance how
much should It take you to learn every subskill to reach your goal.
Of course spending more time on a certain skill because It was harder and may need more time is ok,
nobody but yourself has to negotiate with you how long it should take you.
Also, rest is important, the brain can't simply study for more than 3-4 hours without becoming bored
and shutting down from learning more. What you could do is you switch to other skill you need to learn
so the brain doesn't feel burden. Also remember to take some rests every hour, maybe five to ten
minutes to recharge bateries, a sort of reward to the brain, that way the brain will equal practice with
some kind of pleasure and your discipline will improve.
 How to keep in a project and not procastinate.

This is something I feel I'm also guilty and I feel I procastinate also a lot, but I think I've been able to
improve it over time.
The issue is that most people aren't born with high conscientiousness, and therefore is something we all
gonna struggle at some point.
I wish self discipline was something that was more taught in school, It is vital to trying to archieve
anything in life.
In any case, there's small steps you can do to improve it, if I can do it, and I think I'm not the best I
think someone with more self discipline than me could get it done.
The issue is that you procastinate because maybe the idea isn't really exciting, is not something that is
vital to you, so you're kind of struggling to do it.
I think is related to motivation, but motivation is the initial shock, that initial pump that puts you to
work on something, but like cheap nitro in a car, it gets burned out very easily.
You need to get into the process of working every day, It doesn't matter if is just a single drawing, or
five minutes of code, or 15 minutes at memrise, you need to do it daily.
That's why I alway think a gym is the best teacher, for a lot of reasons, beyond the whole heatlh and
losing fat deal, the biggest thing I've learned from a gym is to be patient and to work every day, at some
workout routine, not with the idea this small workout is some big goal, but more that this five ten
minutes workout is something you need to do, a small step you take that eventually will paid off some
months or a year later.
That's the best lesson I've learned from doing the basics of fitness.
It took me some months to lose my belly, and sometimes I quit thinking it's pointless.
But you eventually learn to give up on giving up.
You learn that it may feel the most realistic giving up ever, you could feel you simply want to give up
and that that dream you have obssess is pointless, but the real deal, the one that only the winners will
see and learn, is that you come back.
Sure, you can give up and maybe stop for a few days, but at some point you recharge your batteries and
you will feel ready to try again.
You try and try again until you keep moving slowly towards that goal that you want.
It's ok if you take a single day off, but you should go back, go back to working out towards that dream.
Eventually your stamina will improve and you will be able to be more focused and you will get used to
waking up every day thinking about what you need to do that day.
You will stop enjoying pure entertainment, because is not as good as working out towards your dream.
At some point you will drop everything, games, music, watching movies, because you're hungry of
working towards your dream, you will see it very clearly and see how much you're moved away from
that initial point you used to suck.
It will take some years, but if you don't give up you will get to that dream game you always wanted to
make.
 How to overcome feeling not good enough

Something that is very common is to feel your work is crap, specially when you're new and you're still
making begginer mistakes.
Specially when you're starting you can feel overwhelmed your work is not good enough and you feel
discouraged your will never be good.
The truth is that you're not yet old enough, this is specially a younger worry, when you become older
you start to realize improving at something takes years and years of experience and that you shouldn't
feel bad a begginer piece is less impressive than a piece done by a professional.
Nobody thinks a young kid could win in a fight with bruce lee, and we do see the young kid being
clumsy as just he being a kid.
So why do we assume we're not good simply because we can't compose top tier music in a month, or I
spent a week or a month in drawing and think I'm still garbage.
It takes time to improve and your brain to growth all the mental synapses to understand music, piano or
drawing.
That's why I mentioned the perception thing before, because the brain of a master really has all this
newer gray matter and synapses the younger artist lack. Experience and time helps develop such brain
matter that will help you make better art or better code.
As such a novice should understand art is a long life endeavour and is ok if he sucks when he starts, he
will improve if he doesn't give up.
It took years and even decades of practice and study and a life long experience for the elite artists we
all admire to reach that stage.
Any begginer should not feel not worthy, but learn that failure is just a step in the right direction, one of
the many thousand steps you need to make to reach that mountain that you see impossible to reach and
that only a few talented guys reached, but they're not diferent, they just never gave up and kept
walking.
If you kept walking one day you'll reach that mountain, It only takes a long time to reach it.
Don't take seriously when one guy says you suck or what you make is garbage, he is just comparing
your current work with the work of more skilled guys, he clearly can't understand you're just a couple
months or even a couple years and the better work is just the work of someone who has 15-20 years of
experience.
Of coure you need to take into account you need to study hard and practice hard, there's a lot of guys
who just half ass their work for 20 years and never reach the moutain.
You need to be serious about improvement but realize a couple years more is not a long period of time
once you take into account art is a lifelong endeavour, masters never finish to learn an art form,
musicians still learn at their 60's as much as they learned when they were 20.
So don't worry for that thousand step journey, don't worry about every crappy drawing you make, that
crappy drawing is just one step of the thousand crappy drawings you need to make before making non
crappy drawings.
So don't give up.
 Where to get inspiration for ideas

One issue I've noticed with a lot of anime, manga, games and other nerd hobbies, is their lack of
exposure to other mediums, so eventually you get a lot of incestous ideas and cliches your work
imitates.
One clear antidote to this is just do basic research, go outside the comfort zone of your genre, medium
and embrace putting attention in real life.
Giving a walk in the park with your dog is a good source of meditative state your mind need to have to
have good ideas.
Put attention when you're buying groceries for all those small bits of inspiration, maybe make a game
about buying groceries, who knows, there's a lot of real life activities or hobbies that arent in
videogames I feel is a waste to just try to clone again the same old genres that are 25-30 years old.
Why not just move towards a greener pasture than trying to compete with the big boys.
Some of my best ideas was when I was helping my family buying stuff in the city.
When I was a some cloth boutique I kept watching all the people there, the salesgirls, and kept thinking
this may be a cool videogame, maybe a girl that wants to make her own boutique, and kept thinking
about what she may need for a boutique, like all the items she would need to buy in the fantasy JRPG
town, maybe this JRPG town would also have another NPCs she would need the help to get some stuff
she needs for the clothes, maybe there's a tailor girl next door, maybe there's another old guy who sells
textiles and makes the fabric of the clothes, maybe there's another girl who just trade some expensive
dyes. Who knows, maybe there's a big story about some poor boy you feed one day in your shop and
you help him become a heroe in the world, maybe you lend him money so he can initially buy some
potions and you recommend him to some smith who then makes a strong magical armour for him.
Maybe the entire town depends on this poor boy you helped to become the best knight on the kingdom
and save the town from an evil dragon that someday will try to destroy the town.
That sounds like a more original idea that just cloning X game with Y mechanics.
The whole game I feel should have a purpose beyond is X game mechanics.
Another idea I had another time was when I was in the terminal station of buses and I was there taking
some coffee in a coffee shop.
I kept thinking how a fantasy coffee shop game would be, like you would need to get the items to make
coffee, maybe there's a day night system with the town NPC and you need to get early to buy the spices
and wheat and coffee from the market and prepare the food you will sell that day. Maybe there's also a
story where you meet some guy in the town that needs some job. And you meet him and you felt in
love. There could be also that his brother is this rebel guy planning an insurgency because the king is
evil and he uses your coffee shop as the base of operations and there's a major plot when the rebels
attack the major and start the rebellion and you need to help him escape and coordinate in your shop
what he needs to succeed.
That sounds like a fun, more edgy kind of non violent game I would love to see more of.
In any case, I think there's plenty of places where a game developer can get newer ideas.

Library
This is the best place for getting newer ideas, history books are excellent, there's thousands of year of
history, from random places, random empires, other civilizations, drama plots. Literature is endless
with thousands of really good stories you could spend an entire life to just to read, less alone make
games from.
There's not excuse to be a good reader today, specially with the internet.
Just start to read history, all the books of the history of art, fashion, history of weapons, history of
empires, of wars, of even religions.
There's plenty of inspiration to get from reading a bunch of books.

TV / Film
Even while I think books should be your major source of inspiration, games are a visual medium, as
such, there's still plenty of good material from things like less well know anime stories, and less know
films, specially documentaries are also a great source of inspiration.
Getting exposed to genres you don't like or just don't know can serve as a burst of inspiration to get
newer ideas.
There's plenty of ideas still in films, anime and TV to explore.

Other games
I think a game developer should be aware of all the diferent mechanics that are in most genres, even
while I disagree with cloning games, I think knowing diferent games open the world to enrich your
game mechanics vocabulary.
Maybe you shouldn't really copy X game with Y mechanic, but more like think what this cool idea
from a non game medium I should copy, and see that maybe this story of time travel could really work
in this or that genre with these collection of mechanics.

Folklore
This is related to reading books, there's all this material you can freely use of diferent rituals, imagery,
traditions, architecture, music, even monsters and ideas for characters in folklore, new ideas that aren't
really explored and are waiting to be taken in newer directions.
I know plenty of cool african and aboriginal monsters that aren't really explored in videogames,
because of the aforementioned reason that most gamedevs don't read books.
 Why and when to clone videogames

I do believe copying is how humans learn, how a baby learns his native language, how we learn to
write, how we learn to draw, to make music, to write.
It's a vital step into learning the skills, any skill you need to make games.
I learned to draw simply by copying anime artists, like satoshi urushihara for some years.
Musicians learn to compose simply making covers.
Copying is a vital skill that begginers should focus on.
There's nothing wrong with copying those simpler games you want to remake, maybe take them in
newer directions.
It's also much easier to just take some Mario sprites and remake mario in some game engine that going
full 100% original code and assets.
Also, most gamedevs aren't ready or doesn't want to make their own finished games, some just want to
have fun and make some cool shit for their friends.
So that's ok.
I think the older NES games are perfect projects for begginers, the SNES are more like intermediate
projects for more experienced guys.
But because of NES limitations I think a NES game (at least the earlier ones) are dificult enough to
challenge a begginer, but are still withing the reach of the novice.
I also, one of my personal goals is to remake such ancient games in HD, because I feel they deserve to
be given new life, and maybe kids today can't appreciate such crude graphics and music.
16 bit games I feel are quite a challenge for complete begginers, that's why I wouldn't recommend a
noob to start with making a fangame to a SNES game as his first project. Noobs should learn first to
crawl and then start to walk.
About fan games I do think the safest route is to feel inspired but not just clone the IP and designs of
the companies, some can get very itcky about fan games, like Nintendo.
Even if you lacks art skills, you can still sort of edit the original sprites into something diferent, like
what Terraria did with their sprites.
I would hate my work to be C&D, specially if I've spent a ton of time and effort into it. It's easier to just
play it safe and do some spiritual sucessor than just taking the sprites and making a fan game.
 CODE

What is to Code?
In few words, code is like writing ancient arcane spells the machine will make reality. It's a bit like
magic, like taking this dumb machine, a literal piece of plastic and metal to make incredible things.
In a more serious note, coding is writing a recipe, an algorithm the machine can follow, a list of
instructions to describe how to make or do something.
Even if it feels like magic, it all follows mathematical rules, machines are really dumb to come with
original ideas, but are better than humans at following them.
One good introductory course to coding is the Harvard CS50, which will teach the basics of
programming, is a C intro course, but will teach the basics of C, which are the basics of pretty much all
gamedev languages.
For learning to code you must understand that you take a piece of data, which is structured in a form,
usually a struct or class or some vector data, or any form of data structure, and you transform that data
into another thing using instructions the engine or library will provide.
As such when you're learning the syntax of a language, you will learn about variables, which are the
most basic container of primitive data, then you'll learn about things like loops, which are cycles of
code you can use to make diferent stuff, like a 2D array when you create a map and you use a 2D array
to create every cell and initialize values, finally, there's more complex containers of data, like classes or
trees, you can use to describe what you want.
The syntax is not really complex and after a while you simply get used to write in the syntax of a
language.
Core concept skills you need to learn to start coding are stuff like data structures, you can google any
proper data structure crash course on youtube or watch long college lectures from MIT to learn all the
inner details of the topic.
Data structures are things like trees, quadtrees, lists, arrays, which will be needed for more kind of
engine side of things.
Most engines like unity or godot already have pretty much all the major data structures you need to
make a game implemented.
It's usually helpfull to learn the basics for things like roguelikes, which requires you to learn and design
your own basic data structure of the cells you need to implement the code.
Algorithms are usually another essential skill to learn when you code, as such you will need to search
some algorithm lectures or book.
Even while most of the algorithms you need for game development already comes implemented in the
engine (engines will implement pretty much all the core CS shit you need for a game), it's helpfull to
understand the basics of algorithms in case you want to make some complex shit, or use a framework
instead of a full game engine.
Learning the basics of algorithms will help you learn later shit like optimizations, will help you
undersand how not to code some crappy 2D platformer that runs worse than AAA games in top
machines.
Math is also fundamental to gamedev, specially linear algebra, trigonometry and basic vector math.
Those three are 99% of what you need for basic games (Calculus is useful for the physics side of
games).

Learning a language.
As a first language you should learn C, is very simple compared to learning a more complex language
like java or C# or hell, C++
C is simple enough to understand the syntax in a short day, maybe a couple days.
The Harvard CS50 is a good introduction to C.