itch.io

I’m going to mirror what No Time To Play said – you need to know what kind of game you want to make first. If you want to make an interactive fiction game, Twine would probably be fine. If you want to make a JRPG, then RPG Maker would be a good fit.

There are a huge number of engines out there, and some of them are hyper-specific to a particular genre (like those I just mentioned), and some of them are generalized (Unity, Unreal and Godot are great options). Using a non-specific engine requires more abstract learning though.

To answer your question about your hardware, that will undoubtedly limit what software and techniques you can use. I am sure you can find something that will work but it will still probably require some learning.

EDIT: Oddly enough, I was poking through a Kenney bundle and found a PDF called “Getting Started with Game Development”. He suggests Construct 2, Game Maker: Studio and Stencyl as pretty easy to learn. He also mentions Löve – I found this to be pretty easy to learn BUT it is a framework, not an engine. You’d need to learn Lua.

Of course, any and all of these suggestions may or may not work with your hardware.

My current project feels like my first game dev experience, even though I’ve been working on some designs for the last 7-8 years. I am learning how I work best and what tools are most effective for me. The project is pretty simple, so I’m more worried about the process than the finished product.

It’s a useful experience, and tbh if I had tried doing this even 5 years ago I might’ve gone mad – I was too focused on getting something out AND making it great. Now I’m just focused on the work, no matter how long it might take to finish.

I’m curious to know if you’ve tried visual coding languages? I am not a user myself, but I think Godot, Unreal and Unity all have implementations.

I certainly don’t hate it :-)

Correlating musical notes to progression in a fractal as you draw it is very interesting, and I think it works! For the sake of a trailer, I’d add some background noise/music…maybe? Because you’re using a musical scale, you might be able to make your actual demonstration be musical enough to not need anything further; however, in the trailer there is a lot of dead air.

One note I will make, though, is that it could be louder and the recording could be a little crisper. Games like Proteus and Fract OSC pay more mind to their sound design because it’s a main feedback mechanism.

This looks very intriguing. If it were me, I would explore the dynamic between the fractal and the noise each iteration makes.