2 answers
brendan
Student
North Branch, Michigan
2
Questions
2 answers
Christy Marx
Writer & Narrative Designer
48
Answers
San Francisco, California
Updated
Christy’s Answer
It depends entirely on what sort of game is being made, the size of the team, the budget, and the resources allocated.
When I designed PC games early on, they took about a year and a half.
Big console games can take years. MMOGs take years.
When I worked at Zynga making mobile games, we'd turn a new game around in a matter of months.
Go to gamasutra.com and look for articles about game production and game scheduling. They have tons of articles about making games.
When I designed PC games early on, they took about a year and a half.
Big console games can take years. MMOGs take years.
When I worked at Zynga making mobile games, we'd turn a new game around in a matter of months.
Christy recommends the following next steps:
KB Evans
Programming
8
Answers
Monroe, Louisiana
Updated
KB’s Answer
One of the first exercises a computer science student will do is to create a "hi-lo" game where you try to guess a randomly generated number and the computer says "higher" or "lower" in response. It takes less than an hour, but that's not a very fun game! One of the first things that student will learn to make with graphics will probably be tic-tac-toe - maybe an hour or two, but still not a great game.
If you look at the games most people enjoy today - AAA games released by big companies - you will realize it takes hundreds of people a few years to make them, and then they'll have to make updates to fix bugs that they didn't find before release.
Those are the two ends of the scale, one person and one hour for a dismal game, hundreds of people and hundreds of hours for a top game. But you can be anywhere between! For example, Super Meat Boy was made in 18 months by 2 people and became an indie hit.
It really depends on what you're making and what resources you're using. Since I'm bad at art, it's taken me a few hours to draw ONE little character for a game I'm working on. Meanwhile, my old roommate who majored in art was churning out amazing paintings in that time, so obviously it's different for everyone, and she is a far better resource for art than I am.
If you look at the games most people enjoy today - AAA games released by big companies - you will realize it takes hundreds of people a few years to make them, and then they'll have to make updates to fix bugs that they didn't find before release.
Those are the two ends of the scale, one person and one hour for a dismal game, hundreds of people and hundreds of hours for a top game. But you can be anywhere between! For example, Super Meat Boy was made in 18 months by 2 people and became an indie hit.
It really depends on what you're making and what resources you're using. Since I'm bad at art, it's taken me a few hours to draw ONE little character for a game I'm working on. Meanwhile, my old roommate who majored in art was churning out amazing paintings in that time, so obviously it's different for everyone, and she is a far better resource for art than I am.