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[Izkimar]

I've been gaming for a long time now, and MMORPG's happen to be what I enjoy the most. Over this time, I have had the pleasure of testing a lot of AAA games, and working with some awesome devs. Experiencing this really sparked my interests in game design, and finally I have decided to learn to make my own games.

I am a complete and utter noob, and I have almost zero programming experience! "Went to university for a semester as a computer engineer, so little exposure to C++." Other than that, I have really no experience. Thus, I decided to start with something easy. I am currently making my first projects on Game Maker, and learning GML.

I already finished my first super small project, and am currently working on another, you can watch the experience here:





"I also have some game dev interviews on my channel. You both laugh at my terrible dev skills, and my super awkward interviewing skills!" I interviewed both Colin Johanson of AmazonGS/ANet, and Crowfall Devs J.Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton.

Anyways, documenting my process as a noob got me thinking. What were other people's first projects? Do you look back at them and laugh in embarrassment? Or were you a total beast and made a masterpiece first try?

TL;DR: Do you remember working on your first game? What was it, and how bad/good were you?

[MSThalamus]

Yes, I remember my first game-- it's the one I'm working on now! :D Not sure I'm the best judge of how good or bad I am, but the reception has been mostly positive so far. I'm a long ways from done though.

[Izkimar]

That's awesome! What are you making it on? And you have any links/video of it?

[MSThalamus]

It's called Dawn of the Fel. The website is dawnofthefel.com if you'd like to take a look!

[Izkimar]

Awesome, thank you for the link I will check it out for sure!

[litHermit]

Everything that's a "first of" is going to look bad and laughable at some point, if you continue growing and learning in the chosen creative field. Even when ideas behind a project were amazing, the execution couldn't have hardly been... unless perhaps with prodigies?

When I look back at my old projects, there's a lot of  , but also a lot of "OK this was a sound idea, I could make that better today"

[Ordnas]

My first game was TicTacToe made in a custom C++ engine. It was a nice experience, which I do not laugh when I look back then, the code is more naive and too complicated if compared to a more experienced coder, but the most important thing is the project, and it was done well. 

[ThemsAllTook]

I was young enough when I started programming stuff that I didn't really have the concept of a "project". I would just make little doodles in HyperCard, implement some kind of basic interactivity to mess around, and then leave it and move on to something else. I think I was 11 years old when I started putting multi-day effort into something that resembled a game. What I remember of it was that it had super tiny black and white pixel art (like, the character was probably 5x9 pixels or so), and was a top-down walking-around adventure sort of thing. You could pick up a sword and a shield, swing the sword, and go through some sort of portal I think. I don't remember building much beyond that. There was animation, sound effects, and I figured out how to do some kind of full-screen color effect when you picked up an item that I guess I thought looked cool.

Looking through my ancient backups, it looks like I actually still have the thing. I should see if I can get it to run on an emulator...

7 or 8 years later, I made my first actual game release on the internet. It's a freeware platformer that I've maintained well enough to keep it running on modern PCs. There was a lot of jankiness, but it was pretty well-received. It's still up on my website today.

[Izkimar]

Everything that's a "first of" is going to look bad and laughable at some point, if you continue growing and learning in the chosen creative field. Even when ideas behind a project were amazing, the execution couldn't have hardly been... unless perhaps with prodigies?

When I look back at my old projects, there's a lot of  , but also a lot of "OK this was a sound idea, I could make that better today"

Yeah I totally agree lol. I have had that experience a lot when looking back lol!

[Izkimar]

My first game was TicTacToe made in a custom C++ engine. It was a nice experience, which I do not laugh when I look back then, the code is more naive and too complicated if compared to a more experienced coder, but the most important thing is the project, and it was done well. 

That's cool, how long have you been working with C++?

I was young enough when I started programming stuff that I didn't really have the concept of a "project". I would just make little doodles in HyperCard, implement some kind of basic interactivity to mess around, and then leave it and move on to something else. I think I was 11 years old when I started putting multi-day effort into something that resembled a game. What I remember of it was that it had super tiny black and white pixel art (like, the character was probably 5x9 pixels or so), and was a top-down walking-around adventure sort of thing. You could pick up a sword and a shield, swing the sword, and go through some sort of portal I think. I don't remember building much beyond that. There was animation, sound effects, and I figured out how to do some kind of full-screen color effect when you picked up an item that I guess I thought looked cool.

Looking through my ancient backups, it looks like I actually still have the thing. I should see if I can get it to run on an emulator...

7 or 8 years later, I made my first actual game release on the internet. It's a freeware platformer that I've maintained well enough to keep it running on modern PCs. There was a lot of jankiness, but it was pretty well-received. It's still up on my website today.

Holy shit! I wish I had gotten into this back when I was 11! It would have been awesome to have gotten into programming much earlier, especially with the time and curiosity of being a kid. That's badass you should definitely try to get it up and running again lol!

You have a link to your website?

[ThemsAllTook]

You have a link to your website?

Yup, in my signature. Here if you have those hidden: http://ludobloom.com/

Water Tower Classic is the game I was talking about.

[Ordnas]

At the time when I made my first game I was still studying C++ on my first book from Bjarne Stroustrup, I basically split my time between studying and writing games. Maybe it was 6 months I was studying C++ from zero knowledge, 4 hours a week.

[Lorenze]

Mine was when I was in 6th grade and I had just discovered RPG Maker VX. I downloaded the trial, played around in it, and quickly discovered I had no clue what I was doing.

A few YouTube tutorials later, I had a shitty, lifeless "town", a few enemies and boring NPCs, and boom - my first game created over the course of one night. I think I even called it "Last Fantasy" and didn't realize what a rip-off it was until a family friend pointed it out to me weeks later. Sadly, I think I accidentally overwrote the data later that night, so I no longer have it.

Ah well, everyone's gotta start somewhere...

[Tusky]

Text adventures on the BBC Micro when I was in primary school.

[s0]

yes

[Superb Joe]

yes

[Superb Joe]

i posted that without scrolling down. its bull shit how much my brand is being encroached upon.

[Janionano]

The first time I developed a computer game, it was during an 8-hour mini-course at the university while learning Java to create a super simple game. The teacher showed everything quickly and used a minimum of code to have a gameplay. The animation was simply that of the GIF, and each object was running on its own Thread (cpu process). To stop moving the object, the Thread should be paused.
It was ominous. 
But it motivated me to study more about programming.

[s0]

i posted that without scrolling down. its bull shit how much my brand is being encroached upon.

yes

[Schoq]

how much to hire super joe as an inflUen_Cer