Recommend Reading (and Watching)

I didn't start learning game design by opening up Game Maker and bashing my keyboard with my face, even though it very much seems that way. I started out by making things that are so awful that I don't feel confident enough to repeat them here. But I will do you a favor and point you in the direction of resources that I've personally used to learn.

Newground's "AS: Main" Thread

I began my interest in design when I started going to Newgrounds.com. Flash, while a fun tool for animators and game designers, is a buggy, fickle program. Though, if you have a copy of Flash and want to try it out, I would recommend the Newgrounds BBS (Bulletin Board System: an old, ancient word for a forum). They have thread that's been there since 2003 called AS: Main. AS stands for Actionscript, which is the programming language for Flash.

Anna Anthropy's "Rise of the Videogame Zinesters"

I'm a fan of Anna Anthropy. Her games and her personality are a big reason why I've made some games the way I have made them. After reading her book on amateur game design, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, I made a game about a really bad day I was having. Following her lead, I used bright, jarring colors in order to try and make the player feel as annoyed as I was. The book is a celebration of game desigenrs doing what can be compared to what sketching is to painting. She lists several beginner's game design engines, such as Game Maker and Inform7.

Tom Francis' "Make A Game With No Experience"

Now, if you want to learn Game Maker, one of the most popular engines for new game designers, the absolutely best place to learn how to code in it (the software doesn't require coding, but it's very useful to learn the language) is by watching the "Make A Game With No Experience" series of YouTube videos by Gunpoint creator Tom Francis.

He explains his ideas well and shows you, step by step, how to make your first game in Game Maker. In the most literal sense, I would not have been able to use Game Maker without Francis' videos, so if anything comes from this, I will owe it mostly to him.

Good Game Design Software For Beginners

Here are all the free programs I've used in the past to make games. Try them out!

• Game Maker - A very versatile game creation engine that requires no coding expereince, but it does help to learn its language, GML (Game Maker Language).
• Inform 7 - An interesting engine that uses a very simple programming language in order to make text adventures. The language is presented like English, so if you wanted to define a room, all you program is "The Cellar is a room." If you want there to be a chair in the Cellar you code "The chair is a thing. The chair is in The Cellar." (Note: I may be a little rusty on the language, but it is that easy).
• Twine - Everyone's favorite choose-your-own-adventure game engine. It provides a sort of storyboard format where you link parts of your story to other parts using simple commands. It also works as a great way of keeping track of branching narratives and dialogue in other games.

Now, I understand that there are many barriers to entry when it comes to game design. I'm a cis white guy living in the middle of America; I have many privileges that allow me to have a computer and to be supported by seeing many other cis white guys in America making games.
Women get harassed, trans or non-binary people get belittled, POC rarely get any representation at all (and when they do, it's usually racist in some way), and the vast, vast majority of programming languages are English-only.

There needs to be more ways to let more people get into game design. I'm not equipped to be able to help everyone (or even most people, if at all), but I will do my best to make my website a safe space for anyone who wants to get into game design and make sure that I do what I can within my power to help anyone who asks.

Thanks,
- Frank