ANY TIPS FOR AN ASPIRING JACK/JILL OF ALL TRADES?

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As the title suggest, I'm aspiring to become somewhat of a Jack when it comes to game development. I'm basically wondering if any of you have any tips/tricks/experience you'd like to share.

To get a bit more specific, here's what I need to get decent at:

- Programming: I'm currently planning to learn Ruby as my first object-oriented programming language. I do have a wee bit experience, but I still suck. I know some XHTML and CSS though, but they're just markup languages, but I guess it's better than nothing.

- Pixel art: I'm probably the worst pixel artist on here, so I do understand that I've got a long way to go. To compensate this, however, I've decided to shoot for a simpler style similar to Brownie Brown (Mother 3, Professor Layton: London Life).

- Music Composing and mastering: I'd like to think that this is biggest strength out of the three. I have very little experience composing music, but I've got a decent fundamental knowledge in music theory (form, harmony, melody writing, jazz harmony, rhythm, time, fusion harmony etc.), I can transcribe a lot of stuff and read sheet music. I'm also familiar with a lot of genres. I basically feel that I just need to keep at it and study other composers. In terms of production quality, I really need to learn to use a DAW that's more powerful than MuseScore.

Should I practice these a little bit everyday or is it wiser to focus on one thing at a time? How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
You're definitely not a bad pixel artist! Way better than I could do and even better you have ambition to keep pushing it forward. :)

Sorry, I'm not very helpful but I got your back, bro. Support!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Music is something that I don't think people should attempt to do themselves if they don't specialize in it. Graphics and programming, I totally get, because you often have to do these things yourself to make them work in your game. External graphical resources don't always accomplish what you need, and programming is something that is different for every game and can't be ported from an outside source. However, you can download music and put it in your game, no problem. No skill required to import it into your game, and the only technical limitation is that it probably shouldn't have a fade-out at the end. There's so much music out there for free that it's utter nonsense to make your own if you don't know what you're doing.

I figured out Ruby programming as I was going. Learning it ahead of time wouldn't have been particularly useful, I don't think. When I had something I wanted to do, I opened up the engine code and mucked around until I did it. In some cases this involved looking up keywords and syntax and stuff on google. Often a dozen times or more before I eventually started to remember them. However I knew some other programming languages already, so maybe that's too hard for someone who doesn't have a solid understanding of programming basics like different types of loops, and passing arguments into functions, and what the hell a return value is.

My current strategy with pixel art is to not do pixel art, because I hate it, and instead create tiles out of photo textures. This probably looks worse but it's about five or ten times as fast. Based on the screenshot you posted earlier today, it seems like your current strategy is to use game boy colors. That probably works just as well, if not better.
Should I practice these a little bit everyday or is it wiser to focus on one thing at a time?

Yes, try to practice a little bit every day, even if it's only a small amount. 30 minutes of practice consistently will probably get you further than 3 hours once a week. Sometimes schedules dont allow for this, but it's nice when they do

Set specific goals. Even if you don't have a particular game going atm, set goals relevant to the skill you're working on. ex: "I want to improve my color theory" rather than "I want to get better at art". it lets you feel good when you reach smaller goals, but also im gonna nab a quote from this article, which is: "The Minimum Viable Product is a product with enough features to be considered enough to be representative of a potential final product." It's a good philosophy.

Learn to work with "this is good enough for my standards", and try to set realistic standards (a very hard task tbh). When you split what you learn like this, you're gonna learn more slowly than if you focus. But I think splitting it up lets you, overall, learn more things quickly, and lets you work on a project from multiple angles at once (if you have one). Your work might not be as polished as someone who has focused on one skill for a long time, but you're more likely to get finished work

How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?

With my current schedule, not very well. ^^^ all the stuff above is what I'd LIKE to do, but lately the bits of time I allocate to practice or game dev have gone to working on skills I already feel good at, which is not a good way to learn!

I collect a lot of articles, process vids, just all kinds of learning resources, too. Whenever I run into a problem, I think "someone else has had this trouble before" and then take some time to try and see how other people have solved it.

author=LockeZ
There's so much music out there for free that it's utter nonsense to make your own if you don't know what you're doing.

While it's true that there is bunches and bunches of free music out there, the reason I finally started learning how to make music was b/c I wanted to have things like leitmotifs or specific ideas that would be difficult to represent without music tailored to it (ex: vocal track that fades in/out with background music based on certain cues, or uh........... the fact that i have one project that's a rhythm game, one that has rhythm game Elements). As I'm not in the habit of collaborating with people except for v rare circumstances, and I currently can't afford to hire a composer, it pretty much falls to me to fill musical gaps where "download stuff" doesn't work.
Totally with Pentagon* (whoops sorry!)

Focused work just gets better results and is fun to set a scope with too. Pat yourself on the back!
Because of that personally I feel staying a little bit longer with one thing at a time helps - and if that means one day art and one day music it may work out if otherwise you would just spend like 10 minutes on each.
However, consistency is much more important and since they are very different in nature, it can be a great break of focus too.

Specifically I have little to offer *chuckle*

Personally, as I have a lot of flow and change in my daily habits n needs I am all over the board. I usually have my inner section of
"working mood / bored mood -> these options -> do this"
"need people mood -> these options -> do this"
And decide what exactly on a whim/intuition/feeling or priority. It's like how I have no idea what game I will review next until I decide what I'm playing when I do. It also makes playtesting on demand a little trickier (if it's like for something I am not involved with), but you can still do.
Working is fun but I just can't do it all day, haha, so one way or another I end up doing some stuff. It actually is solely why I sought out reviewing back then - I needed something to do to break up the day n flow.

I also like working with deadlines which prolly helps me in the usual education settings haha. It just makes me do stuff when I have free time and get it done eventually.
I like continously keeping at it, and then usually I just dedicate a few hours a day and get it done (translations usually worked like this, tho then it's about starting n doing stuff whenever. it's a fairly relaxing simple work)
The only thing I need to find better ways with is when I am very occupied emotionally. Tho taking care of myself always sounds best to me then, or spending time with friends.

Setting a weekly session for art definitely got me results, but since it didn't go too great with my flow how fruitful or useful it was really depended on where I was. It got me solid practice and routine though, so I reckon especially if yer trying to get familiar with new programs or sth this is still a thing worth doing it for.
Since it also is a very casual hobby right now I am not setting myself things for it. Tho I do have a few specific projects (another poster for my bf haha) that because
author=InfectionFiles
You're definitely not a bad pixel artist! Way better than I could do and even better you have ambition to keep pushing it forward. :)

Sorry, I'm not very helpful but I got your back, bro. Support!
Thanks for your support, bro! I'm not a very confident person, so I always try to look down on my creations so that I can feel forced to get even better. xD

@LockeZ: Yeah, music is definitely not a joke. I do agree with you that it's better to work smarter rather than harder if you create games by yourself. I do feel very confident when it comes to my music composing skills though and it is my goal to compose music well enough to be able to list it as a feature/selling point for my future games.

I'm pretty sure your general programming knowledge helped a great deal when you tackled Ruby and RGSS. I've heard that once you know your first programming language, you've basically got the foundation down to learn other languages. It all becomes a matter of learning and memorizing new syntax/rules.

Do you think it would be a waste of time for me to learn Ruby from scratch? My main goal ATM is to be able to have more freedom over editing the default RM scripts and create custom scenes.

About the game boy palette, that is basically just my go-to palette when I want to practice pixel art. However, I do feel quite inspired to create a game with a similar minimalist style.

@PentagonBuddy:
Good tips and I'm well aware of all of them. I do however feel very intimidated when I try to practice all of these different things everyday. I'm pretty sure that it's harder in the beginning though when you're basically a rookie in everything.

I usually go for a more "robot approach" to game development:

1. Finish all 800 maps
2. Finish all cut-scenes
3. Finish balancing
4. Test etc.

EDIT: By one thing at the time, I meant something like: spend 3 months focusing on learning Ruby, spend a month focusing on sprites etc.

@Kylaila:
Interesting. I definitely feel like I need more time than 10 minutes to make a significant amount of progress. Working on many different things at once have always been intimidating to me and it usually results in me getting too stressed out to focus on what I am doing.
That's exactly what I mean. Working only 10 minutes on one thing would definitely be too little for me (or anyone), haha. So better to have a half to an hour at least for each thing. Is my point : ) Schedules differ to allocating 30 minutes a day for each individual thing, when you have multiple goals and areas to enhance at once, might be difficult. And so it better to spread over days.

Others might disagree tho. For muscle memory 10 minutes a day can already be a thing to "keep" the knowledge, tho that's more for instruments. And it can be a more gentle way to get motivation going when in a corner.


I like working on one thing at a time too, tho just having a habit of doing half an hour of stuff does work wonders. I say trying out is really what's needed to nail it down haha.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
And if you're not just practicing, and you aren't feeling one of the three, then try and focus on one and give it some time. I wouldn't suggest forcing anything as it can lead to bitterness. Since you have three different subjects to tackle, hit whatever you are feeling head on and then move onto the others when you're comfortable.

I dunno, but is that bad advice?
author=Luiishu535
How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?


I flop around like a fish until something kind of works
Trihan
"It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...timey wimey...stuff."
3359
author=Pancaek
author=Luiishu535
How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?
I flop around like a fish until something kind of works


A tried-and-true method that I use myself.
author=Kylaila
That's exactly what I mean. Working only 10 minutes on one thing would definitely be too little for me (or anyone), haha. So better to have a half to an hour at least for each thing. Is my point : ) Schedules differ to allocating 30 minutes a day for each individual thing, when you have multiple goals and areas to enhance at once, might be difficult. And so it better to spread over days.

Others might disagree tho. For muscle memory 10 minutes a day can already be a thing to "keep" the knowledge, tho that's more for instruments. And it can be a more gentle way to get motivation going when in a corner.


I like working on one thing at a time too, tho just having a habit of doing half an hour of stuff does work wonders. I say trying out is really what's needed to nail it down haha.

I guess I'll just need to experiment with this a little. Thank you for the tips!

author=InfectionFiles
And if you're not just practicing, and you aren't feeling one of the three, then try and focus on one and give it some time. I wouldn't suggest forcing anything as it can lead to bitterness. Since you have three different subjects to tackle, hit whatever you are feeling head on and then move onto the others when you're comfortable.

I dunno, but is that bad advice?

It sounds like good advice to me! Working on all of those things consistently at once does feel a bit forced IMO. I'm pretty sure that I would enjoy the process if I focused on specific things at the time instead of trying to do everything at once. Thanks for the helpful tip, bro!

author=Pancaek
author=Luiishu535
How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?
I flop around like a fish until something kind of works

author=Trihan
author=Pancaek
author=Luiishu535
How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?
I flop around like a fish until something kind of works
A tried-and-true method that I use myself.

I may have to try that. Thanks for the ideas, guys!
author=Luiishu535
Pixel art:I'm probably the worst pixel artist on here, so I do understand that I've got a long way to go. To compensate this, however, I've decided to shoot for a simpler style similar to Brownie Brown (Mother 3, Professor Layton: London Life).


Believe me: people might be quick to knock the "inspired by Mother" look nowadays but it absolutely is a great base to start with. I started with the Mother 3 look,and I ended up with some weird Dragon Quest/Mother/Kirby hybrid. More often than not, if you start with a highly stylized look like Mother, you'll eventually deviate into something that retains that same sprightly personality that a lot of people love.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=Luiishu
Do you think it would be a waste of time for me to learn Ruby from scratch? My main goal ATM is to be able to have more freedom over editing the default RM scripts and create custom scenes.
It sounds like your goal is specifically to learn Ruby for RPG Maker purposes. And I think that's a very reasonable goal, because there are so many programming languages out there that every project or engine I use seems to make me learn a new different one. What this means is that you don't have to learn all about how to use Ruby - you only have to learn the parts that are used in RPG Maker scripting. A general-purpose Ruby tutorial will spend a lot of its time teaching you stuff you'll never use, if you go through it step by step.

The good news is that some of what you've learned in eventing actually carries over to scripting. You don't need to learn how conditional branches or variables work, for example.

If you are interested in teaching yourself Ruby programming so you can work in RPG Maker XP, VX, and VX Ace, here are the concepts I would focus on at first:
  • How data types work in variables. Ruby has "fuzzy typing" which makes this harder to learn but easier to use.
  • Arrays and hashes. Hashes are also called associative arrays in many other languages. These are the two most common ways of grouping and organizing variables.
  • The two main types of loops: "while" and "for". They are used differently. You're probably already vaguely familiar with how loops work in parallel-process and auto-run events, but these two types have extra functionality.
  • What methods are, how to pass arguments to them, and how to return a value from them. They're called functions in many other languages.
  • How to alias a method, and what it means to do so. This is a commonly-used trick in RPG Maker to add custom code in a new script, without modifying the original default code.


This all is the equivalent of something like 40% of an Intro to Programming college course.

I would definitely recommend learning these topics in this order. You can actually do a ton of script editing without understanding anything about methods, and methods are definitely the hardest of those things to wrap your head around. Just learning the first three things is enough to, for example, redesign your damage formulas and stat growths.

If you can figure this stuff out, you probably won't be able to write custom scripts from scratch, but you should generally be able to edit existing scripts to act the way you want, and that's the really important thing. Unfortunately I don't have a good tutorial to point you to, but if you find one, hopefully my advice will help you skip around in it to find the parts you actually need to learn.
author=Pancaek
author=Luiishu535
How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?
I flop around like a fish until something kind of works


This is the way of the exploratory coder. Strive for 6 hours into the wee morning to finish debugging and perfecting that one complex skill-state and then realize you have hundreds more. *copy paste acquired* Then later you learn someone else did it and you could have just copied their work. ~realism~
@SgtMettool:
Looks like I'm on the right track then! Thanks for your input!

@LockeZ:
Thank you very much for your tips, man! I'll start studying those things in the order you mentioned right away!

@Delsin7:
That sounds like quite a common thing that can happen. xD Still, I personally think it's nice to be able to create stuff yourself from scratch. That way, you won't have to rely on others as much.
Programming you just need some basic knowledge of it. Know the most fundamental things so you can get started at all. After that it's really mostly "know where to look" rather than "know everything".

Pixel Art really only requires you to read a few tutorials to understand the basic tricks there are to it (like removing the visibility of the grid), but that can be done in a single really, after that it's just a laaarge time investment. I'd claim everyone can do good pixel art, an inexperienced person simply needs more time. So what if you draw on that on 24x24 pixel maptile for 2 hours? As long as the result looks good and you have fun. I think many people here just completely underestimate the effort required and then just handwave it with "I'm not good at pixel art". Even some of my favorite pixel artists told me they invest an hour for a single maptile.

Can't say anything about composing as I really stayed away from it. I just listen to existing game music is simply to my favorite album while playing my games, so I don't really need ingame music. (The good thing about that is that I finally get some time to actually listen to the albums I bought! :p)
author=Luiishu535
As the title suggest, I'm aspiring to become somewhat of a Jack when it comes to game development. I'm basically wondering if any of you have any tips/tricks/experience you'd like to share.

To get a bit more specific, here's what I need to get decent at:

- Programming: I'm currently planning to learn Ruby as my first object-oriented programming language. I do have a wee bit experience, but I still suck. I know some XHTML and CSS though, but they're just markup languages, but I guess it's better than nothing.

- Pixel art: I'm probably the worst pixel artist on here, so I do understand that I've got a long way to go. To compensate this, however, I've decided to shoot for a simpler style similar to Brownie Brown (Mother 3, Professor Layton: London Life).

- Music Composing and mastering: I'd like to think that this is biggest strength out of the three. I have very little experience composing music, but I've got a decent fundamental knowledge in music theory (form, harmony, melody writing, jazz harmony, rhythm, time, fusion harmony etc.), I can transcribe a lot of stuff and read sheet music. I'm also familiar with a lot of genres. I basically feel that I just need to keep at it and study other composers. In terms of production quality, I really need to learn to use a DAW that's more powerful than MuseScore.

Should I practice these a little bit everyday or is it wiser to focus on one thing at a time? How do YOU deal with all of this stuff?

I would recommend you completely ignore Ruby first. Strange advice, I know but hear me out.

Alot of the problem with scripting is that you completely depend on it, and don't get a good sense of how the rpgmaker code itself works. Yes, I know, it seems straightforward. But we get these problems all the time because people don't really understand how the coding handles stuff.

https://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/22626/

It also means that if you have an issue, you see Ruby as a fallback, when it should actually be for the shiny bonus stuff.

Do the following systems using local and common events (if you haven't already).
  • A day/night tint change, and semi-realistic time
  • Weather, including how to shut it off when you go inside a building.
  • A bank system for excess money. In fact, make multiple bank accounts, since there is a rather low variable limit (I think it was 999,999)
  • Understand the regular door/chest/other basic events, with working knowledge of every command. This also includes understanding of why glitches happen and what to do about it.
  • Create one custom common event that does something you didn't think you could do (mine was automating turn-based system when 2k3 didn't have)

When this list is done, you are ready. Learning Ruby before that is like giving a machine gun to someone who is not proficient with a pistol.
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