How are games developed?

[Atreyo Bhattacharjee]

How does one go about making a game without using a pre-built engine? Do they have to create their own engine? Also, do API's like OpenGL only provide graphics resources? And if so how would a developer build all the other parts of the game like AI and physics and sound?

Also, if OpenGL is for graphics only, why aren't their API's for all the aspects of a game such as sound and physics and AI?

 

[k1114]

You've asked multiple questions that can have quite in depth answers with books and books of info. For ease, I just searched tom's for a decent past thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/122155-13-creating-game-engine But everything was created by someone. Nothing just comes to existence out of nowhere. It takes multiple years and 1000s of people to make the AAA games of today. Just watch the credits and see all those names. Smaller games don't have an engine like you think. It's just a program. How much do you know about coding?

 

[Atreyo Bhattacharjee]

You've asked multiple questions that can have quite in depth answers with books and books of info. For ease, I just searched tom's for a decent past thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/122155-13-creating-game-engine But everything was created by someone. Nothing just comes to existence out of nowhere. It takes multiple years and 1000s of people to make the AAA games of today. Just watch the credits and see all those names. Smaller games don't have an engine like you think. It's just a program. How much do you know about coding?

Not much at all. I was just curious how a programmer would make a smaller game like you said, but I was hoping for a more general and non in depth explanation.

 

[Karadjgne]

It starts with an Idea. What game, what does it look like, what resources will it need, there's a shopping list of stuff to figure out and plan for. After that, the job is easy, just need to fill in the list. Way back in the day, when I took computer 101, we had to create a game. Of course this was even before the days of DOS popularity, so we were all still learning Basic as a language. So I coded Battleship. Perfect game for all the 'if x = y then goto 1020, else goto 1060' commands. The coding was the easy part. The hard part was coming up with a viable idea, plot, result, win/loose scenario. Today's games are no different, just infinitely more complex. But the process is the same.