Introduction
Game development is a difficult field to break into. While there are several different approaches to game development, this article will focus on the one that I've used to make games for the past seven years. This road map will help you learn how to code, design levels, and do everything else that goes into making games as a career. It's not easy but it can be fun!
Art
Art is a crucial component of any game and will be one of the first things you'll need to start working on. You'll want to make sure you're using the right tools for your development process, so it's important to take some time learning which software works best with your team and what they need from you in terms of art assets.
2D art: To create 2D sprites, characters and environments, you'll use programs like Photoshop or GIMP. These programs allow artists to create images that can be used in games and are often found at top studios like Blizzard Entertainment or Nintendo.
3D art: Creating 3D models is a more advanced skill than creating 2D imagery; however, there are still many programs available (such as Autodesk Maya) that allow anyone who knows how to use them access into this field of game creation.
Gameplay
Playtest: Testing your game with real players from the target audience is an important step to improve gameplay. It's hard to know how a player will react without finding out.
Design document: A design document should be created before starting development, detailing the goals and gameplay mechanics of your game. This helps you focus on making sure everything works together rather than having random ideas that don't lead anywhere (or worse, make things worse).
Create prototypes: Prototyping can help find flaws in your design before you start development. Creating small playable sections of your game allows you to test out those sections with real players and see what works well or what needs fixing before moving forward with development.
Programming
Programming is the most important part of game development. It's what makes the game work, and without programming it wouldn't be possible to build a game. Programming also takes a lot of time, so it's often difficult to get started with learning how to program if you don't have much experience with it already. However, once you've got some programming skills under your belt, then there are many more opportunities for career growth and personal satisfaction in this field than any other aspect of game development!
Audio
Audio is just as important to the overall experience of a game as any other element. It's not always visible, but it's always there.
Audio in games covers a wide range of topics, from sound effects, to music composition and implementation, to voice acting. Regardless of your role or title within the industry (programmer, designer), you have an opportunity to work on audio for games. There are many ways you can learn about all aspects of this field:
Learning through self-teaching or an online course
Taking classes at a vocational school or university
Working under another audio professional
Level Designing
Level design is the process of designing a game level. The level designer is responsible for creating and refining the layout of the game level, including its objectives, obstacles and challenges, as well as its visual appearance.
Level designers must be able to think about gameplay first when designing a level. They should also be able to consider how each new gameplay element will affect players' perceptions of the game's world, so that all elements complement one another in creating an enjoyable experience for players.
The artistic side of level design involves creating levels that are visually appealing and consistent with other parts of the game's world (such as characters or other environments).
Game Development Lifecycle
Game development is a complex process and requires the collaboration of many different people, disciplines and tools. The stages of game development have their own goals and objectives that need to be met in order to make a great game.
The first stage is pre-production, which includes researching what kind of game you want to make (genre, setting), prototyping ideas, defining goals and establishing technical constraints. Once you've created an initial prototype, if it looks like something worth pursuing further then you move into production where all the assets for your game are created: level design; character animations; cinematics & cut scenes; sound effects & music tracks etc... Then comes testing where testers look at different aspects of the gameplay such as user interface usability or whether certain features work properly with others.
Following this road map can help you grow as a game developer
Following this road map can help you grow as a game developer, but it's important to remember that each section is not equally important. Some sections contain information that is more crucial for your growth than others.
For example, if you're just starting out as a game developer, then the section on programming languages (which comes after the first few sections) won't be particularly useful to you until later on in your career because they're mostly focused on high-level concepts like variables and functions.
If you already have some experience programming games with another language though, then this section will be especially helpful since it covers some of the most popular tools used in game development today and discusses common pitfalls when using these tools together.
Conclusion
We hope this article will help you plan your career as a game developer. As you can see from our road map, there are many avenues for this career and every one of them can bring you happiness and fulfillment. No matter what path you choose, remember that it is important to stay focused on what you want to achieve with your life so that when opportunities present themselves in front of us we are able to take advantage of them.