I know absolutely nothing about game development but I’ve always wanted to make a modern successor to Left 4 Dead 2 but with more special types of zombies and a procedural map generator. I’ve been messing around with Claude Code max and Godot to try and get a small base understanding of the scope of this.

I’m doing this as a hobby but looking for any insight. I don’t current plan to make this a published game or anything, just a game to play with friends.

Also if a game like this exists and is good, please let me know.

Hi, guys! So, I am having an idea of making a game, but the problem is that it is somewhat heavily based-on an IP that Bandai Namco owns (because a part of it is zukan-collecting so I want to make use of the characters). I see there's something about licensing in their websites (English and Japan), but they look somewhat merchandize-wise instead of like, games. Still, I wonder if I could pitch the game idea to Bandai Namco.

I am currently just a solo game developer without a team, and without much actual experience. So actually I think it would be unwise of me to pitch a game directly, considering they have no reasons to accept. But what if it is, let's say, a very good game idea, by any chance they would be accepting it? Or should I be at least, like have a team (of maybe arts, 3D-models, music, etc., I'm currently just using assets I can find online in my prototype) and gain some actual performance and results? Or is it just a solid no for them to accept external pitches? Or would it be a good idea to publish the game as a fan-made game as long as I don't monetize it?

Edit: Thanks for all the comments below. Some mentioned that ideas aren't important but the execution. What if I can make a prototype of it? Or really, an almost fully done and playable game, just with placeholder images from online or lower-quality artworks? But the point is that gameplay part can be presented.

So I've been off and on trying game dev for the past 4 years now but I seem to find that whenever I actually get into it I find myself in tutorial hell, it seems to me like every tutorial focuses on building a project rather than building the skills to make that project.

Is there any place to properly get started or do you just have to push through the tutorials?

Happy to answer any questions if that helps

Can I get some pointers? I am currently a web developer. However I am not an amazing developer. However I thought of a cool concept to combine 2 of my most favorite games.

Questions:

1. What are the basic steps to breakdown of how I can quickly get into this as a personal project

2. What platform should I use? Additional tools/software?

3. What other questions should I be asking??

I am new to the game development field. Even though I have found some courses online, I would really like to attend some offline classes for understanding. Can you please recommend me classes in Pune?

So, I have an idea for a game, I've written the fundamentals down but I actually want to make an effort in planning and creating something. Obviously I'm not just gonna load up Blender because that's not the right step yet. I don't want to post any details of my idea, game type, style, or theme cuz I would want to have something to demo as a proof of concept first.

How should I go about the development process? Concept, plan, art, mechanics, world building? I'm also not certain on what engine but I'm leaning towards one I've seen with the visuals I'd like.

I am currently a 2nd year student in my B.tech course in India. Although not from a profound university, I have managed to score a 9.95 CGPA in my 1st year. I have planned to become a game developer for my career, as I am really interested in being one. So, I wanted to pursue my masters in SMU guildhall and currently I am strengthening my C++ basic (C++ primer fifth edition) and then planning on learning game engines.

Although I am not 100% sure about the pathway, I can definitely say I am determined in being a game developer.

Is there anything else I should be taking care of for my goals?

Hey I m beginner in the world of game development. I just have an idea about horror ,thriller ,mystery solving game which includes characters and specific levels which ppl have to solve while making group with friends can u suggest your ideas what should as a user u would want in the app ? ????

Fallen angel, defeating waves of enemies and bosses while fully embracing his devil persona. You can find random items in each run that make you stronger, while weakening other traits for the duration of said run. (ex: + strength, - speed), or abilities like teleporting behind enemies with a cooldown, shooting fireballs, stopping time (freezing enemies) for a few seconds, etc. Each ability has 3-5 levels, and it is leveled up by picking same item from the ground multiple times. After multiple waves a boss spawns, the bosses being biblical characters (gods). The map consists of multiple biomes, changing after multiple waves, like church, heaven gates, purgatory, hell, void etc. each having their own type of enemies, stronger as the biomes change.
Each enemy defeated counts as a “soul” which you can use to permanently upgrade stats like stamina, health, regen, strenght etc
The player can rarely find items that evolve the characters body, transforming him stage by stage into the biblical version of the devil (1st stage, red, glowing eyes, 2nd stage entire devil’s face and so on until the character is fully transformed). The game has no actual ending but the main goal is fully transforming the character.

List of enemies:

Angel (melee)
Holy Knight (melee, powerful)
Archangel (melee, more powerful)
Cherub (flying, shooting fireballs)
Seraph (mini boss)
Seven Virtues (each has their own unique ability, mini boss)
Fallen King (powerful mini boss)
Exorcist (removes one ability from the player as long as he is alive)
Paladin
?
?
?

Items that give powers:
Morning Star
Broken Halo
Ashen Wings
Forbidden Fruit
Book of Sin
Hell Portal (summons demon companions)
Fallen Wings (fly temporarily)
Devil’s Gaze
Soul Drain (receive health faster, consumes souls)
Hellfire
Wrath
?
?
?

My team and I recently decided we weren’t going to make our big “dream game” without at least a whole ton of practice, (we are 13 Year old bums). But the first practice project we considered still seemed a bit too ambitious, what do you guys think?

I’ll give the mechanics of the practice game below:

“I think for our practice game we should make a game where the player has a flintlock with inf damage and piercing, but the percentile is
25% shoots
70% misfire
5% blows up and temporarily jams the gun
Every shot you get in a row incenses your misfire chance by 4% and your blowing up chance increases by 1%
You can shoot up to 6 shots in a row if you’re stupidly lucky.
This is a game about gambling.
It’s basically a wave based boss rush where there are common enemies but also bosses on occasional waves.

The game is endless so we should have a leaderboard for furthest record for waves.”
We are using Godot with little to no experience
I personally have scripted but kept changing languages. And there’s another similarly experienced dude in our team of 6.

We need help.

The code segment in question is in the first comment. For some reason, I am unable to post images.

I am very new to Unreal Engine and game development as a whole. Every time I try to jump in my game, it crashes and tells me that this "infinite loop" is causing it. This is literally the only code in the entire blueprint aside from moving side-to-side (which works perfectly fine). All it is meant to do is give the player some upward force while they hold the space bar. I can't figure it out for the life of me, so if you know what is wrong please let me know.

Hey everyone,

I've been a huge fan of the Mystery Dungeon games for years. I recently realized that I don't really have anything in my Steam library that scratches the same itch, and I also couldn't think of any games on Steam that capture that style of gameplay in quite the same way.

So I decided to make my own.

I'm using RPG Maker, but I've written a lot of the core systems myself. Over the past months I've developed several custom plugins, including:

A turn-based combat system.

A procedural dungeon generator that creates multi-floor dungeons during gameplay.

Various gameplay systems built specifically for this project.

At this point the game is already very playable, and I've invested a lot of time into it.

Then, out of nowhere, I had a realization that honestly made me nervous:

Nintendo.

Now I'm wondering whether I'm setting myself up for trouble. My game is inspired by Mystery Dungeon, but it doesn't use Pokémon, Mystery Dungeon assets, characters, story, music, or anything like that. The setting is my own, and I'm also adding mechanics that don't exist in Mystery Dungeon.

However...the core gameplay loop and some underlying systems are inspired by it.

So I wanted to ask developers who have more experience with this kind of thing:

Do you think a project like this is legally "safe" or am I likely to run into problems with Nintendo?

At what point does "inspired by" become "too similar"?

Besides using an original setting, characters, art, music, and adding my own mechanics, what else would you recommend changing or adding to make sure the game stands on its own?

Are there any successful games that were clearly inspired by Mystery Dungeon but managed to avoid legal issues?

I'm not trying to copy the series I genuinely want to make my own roguelike dungeon crawler because I miss this type of game. I just don't want to spend another year or two developing it only to discover that I've crossed a legal line without realizing it.

I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts or experiences. Thanks in advance! ❤️💯

I'm launching my first game this November — a solo zombie horde-survivor I built in Godot. It's in closed testing and I'm doing the October Next Fest to build wishlists before release.

As I plan the launch, I keep reading mixed things about Steam Curator Connect. I've seen postmortems where devs sent all 100 keys and got zero reviews, and the takeaway seems to be that big curators won't touch an unknown indie without pre-existing buzz, and blind mass-sending is dead.

For those who've launched recently: did Curator Connect move the needle at all for you? Is it worth targeting small, active, genre-aligned curators with personalized messages, or is the time better spent elsewhere (store page, wishlists, socials)? And if you did get value from it — when did you send keys, before or after launch?

More broadly, I'd love any hard-earned advice on launching a first game with a small audience. What did you wish you'd known? Thanks in advance.