How to build a game as just 1 person

[cod3r_]

Hi,

I need some opinions/advice. I am a programmer by trade for 12+ years now. I've always dabbled in hobby game programming mostly 2D stuff and like 99% of the rest that try it I give up at some point because of the magnitude of even the simplest projects.

However I've come across the UDK and read quite a bit about it and believe this will be my tool going forward. The problems I've faced in the past (with torque engine) will to some degree be the same problems I'll face today. Too much stuff to do for 1 person..

Now i'm not trying to finish my game this year or even next.. hell i'd be happy to get some of my ideas half way done in 10 years this will likely never be my profession nor make me any sort of income, to me it's just a hobby like any other.

So what should I do to not overwhelm myself again? I'd like to buy a lot of my assets ultimately, but for now I don't want to spend too much money on them. So should I start by building the game world learning the editor and modeling programs along the way which is obviously a huge undertaking or should I just build something basic and start with the code and use assets from UDK to test it then start investing in assets and maybe having to learn less about the art of modeling and more on world building..

this hobby will get pretty expensive if I buy all the assets and I think this is really the point where i start to get overwhelmed.. So I'm thinking maybe I should just forget about the code and spend the next (forever) and just focus on art..

i dunno.. need some opinions.

[Dr Bearhands]

First of all, there are free models out there you can use, there's also some assets with UDK you can use.
Personally it helped me a lot to switch from making my personal weird RTS project to building a generalized framework and releasing it's source, it's much more rewarding and you get feedback etc. It will be easier to find others to work with you once you've got a good chunk of gameplay to show.

In the end there's nobody who knows how to make a game yourself "properly" though. What has worked for others may not work for you.

[darthviper107]

I would build up your skills in one area rather than trying to learn everything. The stuff that goes into creating assets is enough to learn in itself without having to do programming on top of that, and if you do know what you're doing it can still take a lot of time to create stuff.

Of course, depending on the project, there might not be that much that needs to be made, but most games do require a lot of work in creating the art assets.