Ever wondered how to make your very own video game without incurring copyright infringement?
You've come to the right place! Here is a short step-by-step guide to making your own game:
1- Designing
Designing is the most important phase in the realisation of your first work because based on the basic design you will have to use specific tools and spread the work over several ready-made ones.
Start by deciding what type of game you want to realise: will it be a platformer game, an RPG or perhaps a text adventure? Depending on the genre, you will have to create suitable game mechanics.
2- the game engine
Is software that will allow you to actually make your video game. There are different engines, some generalist, i.e. allowing you to make a bit of everything, and others specialised, providing more specific solutions.
Each game engine can support one or more programming languages, for your convenience we suggest some alternatives:
RPG MAKER - an engine specialising in the creation of turn-based RPG games, can be used without any programming knowledge.
GODOT ENGINE - an engine that can allow you to create a bit of everything, it uses a programming language similar to Python
Unity - Unity allows you to create a little bit of everything, it mainly uses the C# programming language
Unreal engine - like Unity, it is considered one of those professional softwares suitable for making a bit of everything.
Gdevelop - a simplified engine that allows you to create 2D video games without programming knowledge, a good solution especially for making platformers.
Scratch - a simplified programming language that enables the creation of videos and video games through a simple brick-based interface. Developed by the non-profit world to introduce the very young to programming, it can be a good way to make your first game.
Pygame - pygame is a python library that allows you to create video games, unlike the alternatives listed so far in this case you will have to build everything through the Python programming language.
If you want to experiment at zero cost and have no programming experience, we suggest you try using Scratch or Gdevelop.
Godot is also a good solution: it requires a minimum of coding, is user-friendly, freely available and open source.
3- The assets
To realise your game, you will need a series of assets: images, audio and, why not, even video.
At this point you have two options:
realise them yourself using graphics / audio / video programmes and your imagination
acquire already realised assets
While in the first case - since they are your own creations - you can do what you want with them, in the second case you have to be very careful about the licence to use them and act accordingly.
All large digital stores of video game assets provide precise instructions on the licence to use them, so as long as you follow these instructions, you do not risk violating the rights of the artists who made them.
Now that you have everything you need, you are ready to start your own intellectual property-friendly creation.
If you have come this far, you will surely have realised that developing a game is a job that requires effort, commitment and passion.
Knowing this, it will be easier for you to understand why it is important to respect the intellectual property of artists, programmers and writers who have worked hard to make a new work.