How to Start Making Games When You Don't Know Anything Yet

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How to Start Making Games When You Don't Know Anything Yet<br>This article isn't about how to make great games. It's about how to start and finish your first game. Or your first prototype. Actually, let's call it a prototype. That sounds a lot less intimidating.

Alex Shlykov<br>Jun 10, 2026

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I’m not going to dive deep into technical details. An article called “How C# Classes Work in Unity” might be fascinating. But it’s unlikely to get you any closer to making your first game (at least not for a few years).<br>At the end of the day, games are more about emotions and experiences than technical implementation.<br>So let’s start with a simple question: what is every game actually made of?<br>The Idea

The idea is the reason you’re making the game in the first place. It’s what you want to share with other people. It’s worth defining that reason clearly and reminding yourself of it whenever things get difficult.<br>It can be anything.<br>“I want to capture the feeling I had as a kid when I climbed over the school fence after hours and had to run from the janitor.” That’s a perfectly good reason to make a horror game.<br>If you’re reading this article, you probably already have an idea. Or maybe you just really enjoy reading articles. But if you don’t have one yet, think back to the games you played as a child. Video games came from there. Tags became arcade games and shooters. Hide-and-seek became a horror game. Playing house became The Sims.<br>The Story

Even the simplest games have a story. Mario is trying to save a princess. The birds in Angry Birds are angry because the pigs stole their eggs. And that’s not even getting into complex RPGs.<br>You don’t need to come up with the next Crime and Punishment for your first game. Feel free to use the most basic story templates. Just accept that your game should have some kind of story.<br>Let’s go back to our example of the kid sneaking into school and running from the janitor. Maybe the main character desperately needs to retrieve a book they left behind. Inside are tickets to a concert they’ve been looking forward to for months, and the concert is tonight.<br>A story gives players a reason to care. It adds emotion to what they’re doing.<br>If you’d like to learn more about storytelling, I’d recommend this course on Coursera. I personally had no idea how stories were structured when I started (I’m actually trained as a steelworker, of all things), and found it very helpful. It’s short, practical, and explains the core elements of storytelling without wasting your time.<br>https://www.coursera.org/learn/video-game-story<br>If that’s not enough, I’d also recommend Creating Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland. Like the course, it’s concise, practical, and full of useful examples.<br>The Genre

Remember when we talked about having an idea? Now it’s time to think about how you’re going to turn that idea into a game. The same idea could become an RPG, a strategy game, a racing game, or something completely different.<br>Take our school example. It could become a tower defense game where heroic janitors try to stop an endless wave of students sneaking onto school grounds. Or it could be a racing game. Or maybe it stays a horror game. It all depends on how you choose to approach the idea.<br>This is also the moment to think about your core game mechanics.<br>What is the player’s goal? How do they win? How do they score points? What do those points represent? How does the player interact with the game? This is one part you probably can’t outsource to an AI. You’ll have to come up with it yourself.<br>You don’t need to create a formal design document. Writing a few notes for yourself is enough. What’s important is that you write them down instead of keeping everything in your head. The moment you try to put your ideas into words, you’ll realize how many things you haven’t thought through yet.<br>Controls, UI, and Visuals

Think about how the player will interact with your game.<br>Will they move freely around the world? Will they make choices through dialogue options, like in a visual novel? Or will they interact in some other way?<br>For your first game, it’s important to pick one approach and stick with it. Don’t be afraid to borrow ideas from games you like. After all, every game has a menu button.<br>It’s also worth mapping out the player’s journey through the game. Most games follow a structure that looks something like this:<br>A title screen and main menu. This is usually where the game loads images, sounds, and other assets, so there aren’t any awkward pauses later.

An introduction to the story.

The gameplay itself and the mechanics you’ve designed.

An ending that reflects the player’s actions.

Credits with your name displayed in giant letters.

Almost every game follows some variation of this structure. Feel free to use it as a template for your first project instead of trying to reinvent everything.<br>Images and Icons

For a prototype,...