A message to new developers/beginners

Hello beginner developers or people who are reading this and want inspiration.

PLEASE NOTE IM NOT SURE WHICH CATEGORY THIS GOES IN!!!

A lot of people may not know who I am, or what I do, but I will talk about that some where in here, although I will get right to it.

MY Introduction

My name is Shan, I’m a 5-7 year plus experienced dev, I work in my own studio: “Extender Studios”. I have been a developer in countless game projects and currently I’m working on my own Star Wars group, and Island Roleplay.

Anyways without further ado let me get to the point.

Prologue

I know there are many people out there who want to become developers, or they already are and don’t know where to start, I will give a few pointers and some inspiration to the beginners, people who are still deciding on which path to take, the people who already are and don’t know where to start, or the people who know what their doing and just need a little inspiration. If you aren’t any of these people you can still read and use my tips.

I don’t want to waste much of your time but, I will try to minimize this as little as possible.

Introduction

Developing isn’t an easy thing a lot of people would say. I gathered some info from a lot of developers and they told me these things; “It takes skill.” “You need to practice a lot.” “You need to know what your attempting and what your heading into.”
Yes they are correct but one developer struck me the most and what he said brought me to reality in a developers view, developing requires 0% skill, its all about having a good and bright imagination. One of my best 3D modellers told me that aka: footballpro0777, and as I said, it struck me in the head like a baseball. Don’t get me wrong here as I said in my other post, yes skill is a key thing is your game and you will need it to look good, but its the imagination that will help make it standout from the rest of the games.

A little bit about starting out!

Don’t be afraid to use free models, when I started developing; in almost every game I had my tool box open, just be mindful of the VIRUSES that are in some of the free models, and don’t be afraid to ask for help, put your pride behind you and ask for help. Getting help from others is a big thing in developing as the more people working in your game makes the progress go faster, and helps more ideas get generated. Don’t get me wrong here though, their are some negative affects of having multiple people work in your game, but we shouldn’t always be negative and mostly be positive, as a good mind will affect the overall result of your game. Lets go back on track and head back to what I was saying about using free models, once you get better and get the hang of studio, why don’t you try to make your own models. Its not hard. One thing about technology and ROBLOX is, there are millions of tutorials all over YouTube to get you started, when I started ROBLOX studio I used to watch TONS of tutorials, I would recommend looking at AlvinBlox, or GamerM8 as they have some good coding and beginner tutorials.

Some Inspiration

Never give up, this is a big thing in developing. Have a good mindset on which direction your game is going. As I said before, your attitude will effect the overall result of the game. Giving up only makes it worst, many developers give up because they stumble on a problem in their game and they can’t find the solution, or don’t know a way to work around the complications in studio. But that’s what makes developing fun, see for me and the way I see it, when ever I encounter an error or something I can’t figure out. I do some research, ask my friends on discord who have more experience, if not, I search up a tutorial and try to find the solution. If none of these work, I put together the pieces of the puzzle.
I answer these questions:

What is the problem?

How can the problem be fixed/What steps are needed to fix the problem?

If I cant find the solution, I post something on the forum or try to create it myself. I usually use: Learn Roblox
I hope this can help you, if not there are tons of stuff on Google you can use, and millions of developers on the forum you can ask.

Some info:

One thing about being a developer is managing your time, this is a key essential in developing. School is here and yes, school takes up a big chunk of time in your schedule. But try to find ways around it. (THIS DOES NOT MEAN SKIPPING SCHOOL OR CLASS). If you do, don’t mention my name I have nothing to do with it. Aside from that, even 5 minutes your game will help, try to come up with ideas, brainstorm, have a visual layout, start processing your game in your head then draw the map out on paper. Figure out who you need to assist you, how much money you need to help advertise, etc. These are pretty big ideas in just 5 minutes you can get started on.

Here are some mistakes that happen:
Try not to go out of your boundaries toooooooo far, as it will cause tons of stress. If you can’t do something. Do some research, then take an attempt at it over an over again, aka if you want to become a scripter, scripting is all trial an error until you get the code right. DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS.
Try to make a simple game if your a beginner, don’t go on a massive jailbreak and adopt me project, it unlikely you will finish it, and all you will be left with is a heavy load on your shoulders, stress, and a headache. If you know what your doing go ahead and take a shot at it, you will probably learn a couple things from that experience.

Going back to managing your time, don’t say: "Hey, I’m gonna make a game today, and then 3 days later you start, go afk for 5 minutes and don’t return to it in the next 5 months, you will loose motivation, choose a topic and theme that will motivate you too keep on going.

Closing

Yes, developing is a long hard process, but never give up. I remember hearing some quotes from some wise people, and I would like to share it with you:

I steal from every movie ever made - Quentin Tarantino

A brief bio of this: Look at how games are made, when ever you go in a game look at the content in it, is it low poly, does it have good lighting, try to have an artistic eye for every game you go in, look for the mistakes the developers made and try use that some way in your game to help improve it.

All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that’s why it takes so long. - Steven Spielberg

Good ideas start as bad ideas, but over a period of time you will start to see your ideas improving and expanding, you will slowly see your game content getting better, as long as you spend time.

And one thing that struck to me the most is:
A movie should make you forget you are sitting in a theater. - Roman Polanski.

Lets edit that quote a bit, sorry Roman Polanski, don’t file a DCMA report on me.

A game should make you forget you are playing it. - My redid version @shanbrow8484

Brief bio of my redid version. A game should blow your mind away, it should make you say to yourself “WOW” this game is really good, etc.

Anyways, I hope you take this as inspiration and use it in your game, Thanks to all your support, and thank your for reading this. Please like this post to show you care.

Feel free to comment below on other ideas you have to help new developers.

Links

Discord
shanbrow8484#8259

Roblox Profile

35 Likes

Hope you were wearing a helmet.

Nice post, pretty inspirational with common ideas. Not exactly related to development discussion though haha.

1 Like

Agree! I tried creating a game with my friends, but made no progress because I wasn’t really learning much to develop games. Despite the difficulties, I taught myself to develop and manage to make a game. Never advertised it and will never because of some inefficient code and inconveniences. Even so, I learned a lot. Even now, I’m currently creating some game designs for my next project.

lol yea : )

If only I were… If i was …

I have been there, as said in my post, when I first started developing, I used many free models. Don’t be afraid too, just remember to credit people when needed. Use free models as a guide.

Good post! Make sure to point out that a reason for someone developing is not for money but fun. I’ve tutored so many young kids (especially after alvin blox’s piggy tutorial came out) who think that they are just gonna be handed over a million dollars if they make some random game in 1 day. If you’re in it for the money, you’re not going to achieve anything.

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Agreed, I remember someone named sensei developer, really nice kid. He told me to never put money before game design/development. ← Sensei Developer

1 Like

Was kinda long ngl. All jokes aside, very motivational post thanks for making this <3

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No problem. Just helping out the developer community!

1 Like

This is an amazing post.
Really, I’m not exactly a new developer, but I have been struggling with motivation slightly as of now, lots of different things trying to make me stop.

If you still aren’t sure where to put this, maybe #resources would be a nice spot for this epic post.

Probably. I dont see why not. LOL!

Wait your 5-7 years old?

No, I have 7+ years of experience on ROBLOX STUDIO

1 Like

This is a great post for beginners dev they should read this