How to make a video game
Figure out what you're going to make. Sort out the conceptual problems now, and you'll save yourself a lot of time in the execution.
Create a design document. Even if it's just for yourself, writing down your ideas will help you organize your thoughts and exercise your creativity. Decide what kind of game you're making, what will be needed to complete it, how the controls will work, and so on.
Think about what's reasonable. Can you build a massive 3D world? It's certainly possible with the tools I'm about to show you, but determine whether or not it is feasible given the amount of time you're willing to dedicate. Retail games are made by teams of professionals - you're one amateur. If you're an absolute beginner, as this article assumes you are, you should probably start small and build up your game as you learn new skills.
Don't be discouraged - small doesn't mean simplistic or dull. You might assume that everything has been done before, but in actuality, gaming is still a young medium. There are billions of ideas just waiting to be had, and it doesn't matter if your game is big or small - good ideas are good ideas. Consider how quickly games went from vector graphics to 2D sprites to 3D rendering - there simply wasn't enough time to cover all the possibilities, and that fact is partially why 2D gaming is seeing a comeback.
So how are you going to build this thing? You have two options - spend some time learning a bit of scripting, or use software that requires little to none of that. It's up to you.
Eventually, if you're serious about indie game development, you'll want the flexibility offered by a full understanding of programming and computer science. Right now, however, you may just be testing the waters. No problem, there are plenty of tools for nonprogrammers. I've arranged several popular methods in roughly the order of their complexity. Some are free and others are demos.
Game Maker 7.0 Game Maker is an excellent piece of free software ($20 gets you more functionality). It does what it purports to, allowing you to create relatively complex 2D games with very little knowledge of programming, though it does contain a simple scripting language for more complex operations.
There is, of course, some learning to do - but it's no more difficult than mastering a new game, and part of the reason I recommend Game Maker to beginners is its excellent community and very complete set of tutorials.
RPG Maker 2003 An old favorite. Unlike Game Maker, RPG Maker does limit you to one type of game, but it does RPGs very well. It's your basic tile-map, animated sprite character, random battle engine. The interface is well designed and easy-to-use, and the software includes a good array of pre-made graphics (though wouldn't you rather make your own?).
A newer version, RPG Maker XP, is available, but the full license will cost you $60 USD.
RPG Toolkit While it doesn't have the most refined interface, RPG Toolkit is pretty flexible, and aids in the the creation of 2D isometric RPGs. The hard stuff has been taken care of for the most part, leaving you to work out the graphics and scripted events. There's also a decent selection of tutorials on the site to help you get started.
Byond Byond is an interesting tool which allows you to create small online games with relative ease. You're going to have to learn a bit more in the way of coding than you would with something like GameMaker or RPGmaker, but if you absolutely must make an online game, this is probably the easiest way. and you need to know how to do math really good to make a video game to.
