Topic: How to make a PC game

Hello everyone... Although my favorite platform for gaming is Nintendo, I still have one or two genre i like in computer gaming (MMO and RPG). And as you guessed, I would love to make a PC game (though it would be great if it worked on Nintendo too but afaik you need some kind of permission for that and your game needs to be of at least certain quality to get it, so PC game is fine for now) that would be either role playing game or the same but multiplayer.

I had coding in school long ago but I didn't realize back then that i can use it to make cool games, or just that gaming was enough for me back then. But anyway - i know some basics of programming. But i never coded any game.

Here is my question, does anyone know how to make a 3D computer game? What language, tools etc. should I use? I am ready to get started just need a hint of direction. Thanks a lot!

Is this... a legit topic here? Just curious XD

Anyway if you want to get down making a game your best bet are engines.
Some are user friendly like RPG Maker, but if you want to deal with coding and more professional programs (not to mention 3D) then you should likely check Unreal or Unity.
Just google these or the, nowaday, many other engines avaiable online and see which one can fit better your plans or which one use the programming language you are more familiar with.

Just a warning however, you are starting with a very high goal. RPG games (even not multiplayer ones) takes a lot of time and effort to make especially if you want to code them yourself.
I made my own 3D JRPG-like game in Unity, all coded and designed by myself, and despite being a lite-JRPG and having the graphic side using external assets, it still took me over 2 years to finish it (NOT counting the years I spent before testing around the engine to learn the tool).

If you want an honest advice, once you picked an engine you think you can work it, just start small and mess around with it, maybe do a couple of minigame projects just to see if and what you can do.
Also try the tutorials usually avaiable for the engine you picked so that you can learn how to use it properly.

And once you got something working don't forget that apart Nintendo or the big PC market, there are also sites like GameJolt and itch.io where everyone can post easily their projects.

To be fair there is a lot to say on the topic, but these are all the basics advices I can think of, hope they are helpful.

Unity is by far the best engine to use for newcomers. It's free to use, it's far easier to understand than Unreal (it's main competitor), it has an absolutely huge knowledge base so any problem you have has probably already been answered, and it can achieve modern AAA graphical quality if you're willing to put the work in (games like Recore, Yooka Laylee and Ghost of a Tale all used Unity)

The company I used to work for regularly used it for 3D simulations, so I've used it quite a lot over the years, although never to make an actual game, but that's largely irrelevant. I know all of the bells and whistles.

You need to be able to write either C# or javascript for the scripting in Unity (C# is supposedly more efficient but I think it's a pretty minor difference). If you want to achieve anything more graphically advanced, you'll also need to learn the CG/HLSL shader language, but you can ignore that to start with. You can get a fully functioning game working without any custom shaders.

If you feel quite confident with your programming skills, just jump into unity and work through some of the beginner tutorials. This site has a great set of tutorials: https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/
Alternatively, if you're getting lost with C#, you should go and do some C# tutorials just in Visual Studio instead. Here's a really good set of beginner tutorials for C#: https://csharp.net-tutorials.com/

If you @ me in this thread, I can reply to any questions you have.

@linq

I've never experienced that. Must have been some problem your end. The engine loads in like 20 seconds on my PC, that has similar specs to yours.

And nope, it's just C# or Javascript. They used to have a third language that was some derivation of Python but no-one used it so it's been mostly dropped:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/09/03/documentation-unity-scri...

@Spois1970 Unity is the best for 3D games for newcomers and professionals also! I recommend C# for Unity it is better than Java or Boo.

As for 2D games my favourite (and I am using it) is Game Maker Studio. Very cheap and easy to start. You can you their own Drag and Drop to create game logic OR you can code on their own language which is GML. It is what I am using and it is extremely similar to Java Script. Very easy.

@Zuljaras

Unity is pretty good for 2D stuff as well you know. Cuphead was made in Unity.

@Dezzy Yes it is but it requires some real coding knowledge like a REAL coding language. GMS is friendlier for noobs.

Unity load speed can vary on my experience. Althought I use an old Unity version on a low spec pc (not the weakest, but 4GB of RAM is not even average nowaday).
To my experience it all depends on the project's size. Small projects load in seconds, while a big one with many assets can even take up to ten minutes to be ready (in which case it feels indeed like half an hour XD;;; ).

Here is my question, does anyone know how to make a 3D computer game? What language, tools etc. should I use? I am ready to get started just need a hint of direction. Thanks a lot!

Hello. To make a 3D computer game you need to use either framework or game engine. I don't know any frameworks that support 3D (there probably are some though) but I do know that CryEngine, Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine 4 support 3D.

These engines I mentioned also support compiling to computer (Windows) as target platform.

Some are user friendly like RPG Maker, but if you want to deal with coding and more professional programs

RPG maker will just limit him. Not one successful game was made and sold in RPGMaker.

Unity is by far the best engine to use for newcomers. It's free to use, it's far easier to understand than Unreal

Can confirm, Unity very easy game engine. But that doesn't mean it's only for amateurs. Even pros prefer Unity from Unreal and other engines.

RPG is also one of my favorite genres and I tried to recreate such game in Unity. I didn't finish yet but I used this guide https://gamedevsuccess.com/game-design/developing-first-game/ and by far i was doing well. Just that my perfectionism made me start over at some point lol because i pay too big attention to details so its hard for me to finish big game. But yeah, Unity is absolutely great game engine not only for beginners. My favorite part about Unity is that you can make any kind of game in it and not just 3D shooters and racing games like in Unreal (though there have been MMORPG done in UNreal as well just not many and that engine is more focused on shooters).

For 3D game you will need to make models. You can create them for free in Blender. I suggest you to go low poly because this style is the easier to mass-make models. E.g you can model 10 stone types in less than 15 minutes even as begginers.

I don't suggest you to make MMORPG. (Although here Unity will be good fit too) - thats because RPG game alone has a lot of features that interact with each other, so your points in strength, deexterity, etc, will interact with character strength, with skill tree, with weapons, and ton of other things ! so now making everything networked while still maintaing these interactions... its just insane.

If you really want to make mmorpg, then i suggest you to make RPG first, and pay big attention to these interactions between features, note everything, have a good plan and interaction tree. after u make it, it will be much easier to make mmorpg, because you literally have a blueprint of interactions between game mechanics and features.