How to Build PC Games

The PC has been an important gaming platform since its inception, with early games being made by single game designers working out of home offices or garages and mailing off self-packaged games a unit at a time. Since then the PC games industry has grown and matured with studios producing games with budgets in the millions. Even so, the basics of building a PC game havent changed, and you can build your own by following the same methods that have been in use since those early single programmer gaming pioneers.

Instructions

Things Youll Need:

• PC
• Developer software
• DVD burner

1. Step 1

   Come up with a complete vision for your game. This vision should include some idea of what the game experience will be for the consumer. Develop a look and feel for your game, rules, objectives and game plot. The vision is an idea of what your game is to be when it is complete. Once you have the ideas in mind place them in a presentable format, mapped out as completely as possible.

2. Step 2

   Decide on the design method of your game. Depending on your game vision much of the game design may already be complete in the form of a usable third party game engine. The game engine is a graphical set of tools with many of the developing obstacles already overcome by the engine designers, including graphic system, world physics, and even the basic user interface, and can be licensed from other game developers. If your game vision looks nothing like existing games, you will have to develop the game engine from scratch using a set of programming tools.

3. Step 3

   Program your game world. For an engine, this means modifying the engine according to your own needs, from the look of the game, to the sound and the game physics, all engine attributes can be modified to create a unique look and feel for your game. If youre not using a game engine, you will have to create your own, using the programming language of your choice.

4. Step 4

   Program the rules of your game into the engine. These are all the rules of the game for the players to follow as well as the artificial intelligence of your game that provides players with a challenge. Make sure the rules are consistent throughout the game. You should also make the challenge scalable so that beginner and advanced players both can enjoy the game.

5. Step 5

   Test the game as you continue to program the game engine. You will have to test every single game element with an eye towards actually breaking the game in the process. Test everything the player could possibly do in the game regardless of how strange the action may be. Create a list of any bugs encountered during the test and fix them all, adding new bugs to the list as more are encountered and repairing them until the bug list is emptied.

6. Step 6

   Burn a prototype copy of the game on DVD and send it off to the duplicator. You may wish to install a digital rights management system on the program prior to sending it off to duplication, to protect against software piracy. When the game has been duplicated, package it for delivery and distribute it for sale.

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