Hello everyone

I am an artist and a songwriter, and new to game dev (though I have programing experience in the past just not games).  I have an idea for a game, but I am not sure where to start, so I thought I'd see more about the experiences of others first.   So let me list what I've heard:

1. You should join a Game Jam first, or several Game Jams before ever choosing who to work with.  Network in the jams, make friends, then choose who you want to join you in creating your game.

2. You should develop a prototype first, then seek funding from Kickstarter or other crowd sourcing, then hire qualified candidates.

3.  You should increase your skillsets, and make the game yourself.  Release it, get feedback, and only then seek funding to better your game.

4. You should enroll in a school for game dev, get a job, learn the ropes, then branch off towards your own independent projects.

5. Just work on simple games first.  Try different game engines, different languages, until you find what works best for you.  Then pursue your game idea.  You need a lot of experience before even thinking of making the game you really want.

If you agree with any of these ideas, or have a better one, please share and offer your reasons.  Thanks!

- ronaldaam

A lot of those ideas use should as a word, while they describe one of the multiple paths you can take. It all depends on what your aim is. Do you want to earn a living? Just make games for fun? Increase your skills? Make friends? Each aim has a very different solution.

Game jams are fun, but most of them have deadlines. Personally I’d advice against joining a game jam for your very first game. If you are unfamiliar with the process, it might not be as fun to work under tight deadlines.

My general advice would be, start making small games. Plans are nice, but they can only get you so far. If you reach a point where you’ve made 10 small games, then it becomes easy to make plans that are achievable for your next one. Otherwise you run the risk of planning a game for months, and the moment you start working on it, you realize how overwhelming it is to implement all the details, and be demotivated.

Regardless if you want to earn a living, or just have fun, or network with people, learning how to make games is important.

How much of this makes sense really depends on what your goals are.  Do you want a job in the industry?  Do you want to start your own business?  Do you just want to make games as a hobby?  And do you want to work alone or with a team?  Here are some general thoughts.  For perspective, I work alone and I do this as a hobby.

1. You should join a Game Jam first, or several Game Jams before ever choosing who to work with.  Network in the jams, make friends, then choose who you want to join you in creating your game.

Might be a good idea if you want to work with a team and focus on art and music, but doing a jam might be overwhelming for a first step - more on that later.

2. You should develop a prototype first, then seek funding from Kickstarter or other crowd sourcing, then hire qualified candidates.

Even for experienced devs this is extremely ambitious.  Many if not most Kickstarters fail, and even the successful ones often run over time, over budget, or are outright canceled (just like anything else in the industry).  I wouldn't even think about funding or hiring people or even trying to sell something at this point.  Focus on learning and gaining experience.  

3.  You should increase your skillsets, and make the game yourself.  Release it, get feedback, and only then seek funding to better your game.

I would suggest treating your first projects as learning experiences rather than potential commercial opportunities.

4. You should enroll in a school for game dev, get a job, learn the ropes, then branch off towards your own independent projects

If your goal is to work in the industry or make a living with your own independent studio, this probably makes sense as a long-term plan, although I don't know how necessary a game design degree is.  If you just want to be a hobbyist, though, this is way, way overkill.  You don't need any of that to make games on your own.

5. Just work on simple games first.  Try different game engines, different languages, until you find what works best for you.  Then pursue your game idea.  You need a lot of experience before even thinking of making the game you really want.

If you want to make games yourself, this is the most important advice.  The thing is, when you are first starting out, you are going to make a lot of mistakes.  You'll pick tools that frustrate you, design things poorly, and take a long time to accomplish simple tasks.  It's best to get these mistakes over with on small projects that you can finish quickly, rather than letting them pile up on a huge project that becomes more and more difficult to complete.  Then when you do decide you're ready to make something bigger, you'll have a lot of knowledge you can apply that will make it a lot easier.  Scoping and finishing projects is also a skill in itself, and it pays to practice it on small projects first.

Jams are a good way to practice your skills, since the short time frame pushes you to work small and prioritize completion, but I don't recommend trying one until you have at least some familiarity with making games.  Jumping into a timed project while still trying to learn the bare basics will probably just stress you out.  Take some time to play around, do some tutorials, and figure out what you like doing and what tools you like working with.