Hello all, I am fairly new to the concepts of game design, and have a few questions about the best way to start out my first project. Of course it wont be anything too ambitious, but I would like to challenge myself and see how well I can do...

First of all, which genre is the easiest for a new developer to start designing? Also, conversly, which is the hardest? To give a little perspective, I am looking at "easiest" and "hardest" mostly from a coding standpoint.

Second, is it really better to lay down a paper trail before you dive in, or is it better to start designing, and work around ideas that arise?

Thank you to all in advance!

Regards,
DeKO_Mania

First of I would go with the tutorials to give you a feel of things.

Most people start with first person shooter games as thier project.

The hardest in my opion would be role playing games.

Welcome and good luck.

well as far as the hardest, its difficult to say, like nidhogg says rpgs are hard but only from the standpoint of its a lot of tedious work with inventories complex panels etc. but RTS's are also incredibly difficult because of the ai, any arcade game is on the simpler side of things, and as previously mentioned so are fps's.

Good Luck

My recommendation for a beginner, don't get your hopes up. But also, don't worry about what you make. The funnest thing as a beginner is to just jump in, make a First Person Shooter (Check out the templates). Enjoy designing levels and let the templates do the work. Once you fee that the templates are not enough, learn how to program c-script....

...after that, well move on from there. But until then, have fun, and feel free to ask questions on the forum. Just remember, CHECK THE MANUAL FIRST. The manual will contain most of the answers to your questions. When you can't find it there, there's a wonderful search feature on the forums. If you don't find an answer, then ask here, and we'll all be more than glad to help

Welcome to the forums, I guaruantee you that you will enjoy working with 3DGS (though it may get a lil frustrating down the road ). 3DGS has the best support and community I've ever had the pleasure of being part of, and you're probably the only one that will ever get such a long welcome rom me

as helpful as Guitar's advice is, i'd recommend doing lite-C as opposed to C-script, because it's basically the same (no harder at all, really) but much more freedom, more power, and you'll want to be using that later on anyway. that's assuming you have a7.

i'm sure templates can be really helpful, but i never touched them. i suppose depending on what your interests are they could be helpful, and maybe if i had begun the way Guitar recommended i would be a better level designer now

julz

@Nidhogg:

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First of I would go with the tutorials to give you a feel of things.

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I have been hitting the books over the last week or so, but yes, the tutorials have been very helpfull so far.

@xXxGuitar511:

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you're probably the only one that will ever get such a long welcome rom me

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And I appreciate it. Thanks!

At this point, I have decided to either design a 2-stage (level, whatever) FPS, or a multi-stage 2D (or 2D with 3D graphics) arcade game. According to you guies, they are the easiest to start out with, so that is what I will do. Thank you all, and between the tutorials, manual, acknex, AUM's, and this forum, I am sure I will be able to start out on the right foot!

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as helpful as Guitar's advice is, i'd recommend doing lite-C as opposed to C-script, because it's basically the same (no harder at all, really) but much more freedom, more power, and you'll want to be using that later on anyway. that's assuming you have a7.

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Actually, I bought gamestudio a long time ago, but never actually started using it. I dont currently have A7, and unless I really get into it, I probably wont get it. So, its C-Script for me!

Thank you all again.
Regards,
DeKO_Mania

My first project was a side scroller where movement was simple to handle but complexity was still there.
The example was AUMs Moonwalk article or something like that and the characters were land tanks (the player) and space ships (The enemy).Getting the turret to pan was initially tricky but in the end it all went well. Then I followed thru with the jumping sidescroller (dodge flowers if I remember right).
Next was the Spaceshooter series (3rd person no gravity) and finally an FPS, very simple to initiate but the more interaction required, the more the scripting complexity rose.

They all gave the foundation for the next exercise, then when I had grasped the basics of C_script, they go and change the scripting language again!

A paper trail is a must when starting out at the very least.
You need to know what worked and under what circumstances they worked, how and why they were used and where thier relationship is to everything else, this way you can back track on errors or conflicts and know where you are at.

A paper trail will also give you a tight schedule to work within so that you can finish each test and move on knowing you have your trail covered.

Dont know if its any help or not but there it is.