Have you ever tried making games?

[Technocrat]

Ever since I were a wee lad, and was brutally exposed to the intoxicating world of games, I've wanted to try making them. It seemed like a more enjoyable creative outlet than merely writing or drawing - the creations would actually do things, and give a story a whole new dimension.

When I was about 7, my parents got me an ancient program called "the Games Factory", whose limit was basically things like racing games and platformers (some here may know it and its fellows as the Klik series of game-makers), but I was enthralled, and came up with some of the most bizarre games I've ever seen, having just dug up a trove of them. One of them being a parody of licenced games, entitled "Stonehenge: Racing and Gardening".

The big problem I had was never being able to finish them. After I played Yahtzee's games, I turned to AGS, and managed to churn out [http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/arcade/1st-drop-a-gravity-assisted-space-adventure/1751/] a couple of games [http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/puzzle/billy-and-desmond-s-fantastic-amazing-rainbow-tube/1257/], and am now working on my third proper one - an homage/knockoff/parody of turn based strategies like Advance Wars and Endwar.

Obviously, the majority of the population of this forum play games, but I think it'd be interesting to see how many have dabbled in making them - whether in Flash, or a game-maker programme, or even something akin to XNA. Tell us your stories, your ideas of what you'd want to make if you could, or just pimp out what you've made here!

 

[pirate64]

A few years back I made a quite a few (bad) games using game maker 7. Including one that I was very happy with. it was called "the 50 level maze" guess how many levels. But it was good as every level was different and every few levels (like every 5) I would introduce a new mechanic and if must say if anyone played a flash game called "the hardest game" or something like that. that game has nothing on how hard mine was. you could save every 10 levels but hell the game was brutal. I made it and I've still only beat it once. hmm it's probably on my hard drive somewhere... hmm I'm going to go play it.

edit: wow just found it..... wow it's much worse than I remember.... still going to see if I can beat though.

 

[Hiphophippo]

I was pretty prolific as a map maker back when Duke 3D was big. Made at least one fairly well released map.

I was like 14. Pretty proud of it.

 

[Technocrat]

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about levels too. I had quite the Half-Life phase at school, I enjoyed making surreal geometries, and recreations of the school. Naturally, the staff were terrified I was going to pull a Columbine, especially when I started making character models based on people.

 

[Rensenhito]

I won a math fair with a game I made called "PlusMinus," an RPG wherein you beat monsters by solving math problems. Made it with RPG Maker 2000 when I was in the 3rd grade.

 

[ArchAngelKira]

I would but the economy sux and I need money to live. I wish I had a team to work with.

 

[Furious Styles]

Me and my friend designed a board game that won a prize at a local fete when we were 9.

Not a videogame but still

 

[Necator15]

I'm actually making a crappy text-based version of that old Lemonade Stand game. Text-based because I don't quite have the motivation to learn to program a GUI in C++.

So far it's been more difficult than I thought it would be, and I haven't even started in on the equations to decide sale, and number of people that will be there.

 

[Trebort]

Had to do it for a module at uni using Java in a special tool called Greenfoot. I was really crap at it. Thank god for my partner! ^_^

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Oh yeah.

RPG Maker XP... the times I had with you...

Also tried using XNA for some stuff.

Waiting for my teenage self to actually wake up with energy one day so I can get around to learning C# and doing some proper coding with XNA.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

I've made plenty, some of mine are done, abandoned, or in-development.

Haven (abandoned), Grey(development), The Fall(en) (done), Peekaboo (done), Forgetting Death (development), Split (development), Pixel (development), Haven 2 (development), True RPG (development).

Of those games these are the ones which are playable:

Haven, The Fall(en), Peekaboo, Split, Haven 2, True RPG.

Damn, I only came to this thread to mention you...

Well, I made a (horrible) game at school once. It was a platformer, kind of...

 

[ShadowKatt]

I made a simplistic pokemon clone that let people make up their own little fighting monsters, but it wasn't a video game, it was paper and pencil.

Still, it was good enoough I had my entire math class playing it halfway through the year. Every day after we got done with class work everyone would pair off with dice and their character sheets and go at it.

 

[Harlemura]

A few of us in primary school made a really crappy tabletop version of that You-Gi-Oh Duelist of the Roses thing. But that's as much as I've done.
I never bothered looking into game development or design or whatever, just seemed like too much work to get anything right.
My pitiful attempts at LittleBigPlanet levels confirmed that.

 

[Lullabye]

I managed to make a LARPG in elementary that alot of my kids participated in. the only successful attempt to making a game I've had.

 

[Heart of Darkness]

I've dabbled a bit, but I haven't actually finished a game yet, excluding the RTS that I had to make for my JavaScript class last spring. I'm currently dabbling in Game Maker with a platformer and a port of the JS game, but, so far, nothing really worth mentioning. I'm also learning C++ on the side, so hopefully that'll help a little bit.

 

[Blue Musician]

I wanted to, but I haven't yet.

 

[Estocavio]

I made a game could Deathtime. You die in 6 seconds. The only way to live is to mash 1, very, very, quickly.

 

[Ghostbody]

I attempted to with Blender but nothing impressive. I'm considering production of another one but I don't know how it would pan out.

 

[Just Craig]

The big problem I had was never being able to finish them.

Although I spend a lot of time tinkering with Game Maker, this is my biggest problem.
Often times I'll spend a lot of effort making a game engine only to lose intrest when I have to start building levels, or when a shiny new idea comes along.

Currently working on a Castlevania 2-ish adventure game, but only still working on the sprites and such at this point...

 

[Korten12]

A few games I tried in RPG Maker VX, I might go back to it some day...