Understanding How Video Games Work

This is a tutorial made for regular people to help understand how video games work, and to give insight on how you can make your own game.

It's incredible to see the contrast between the simplicity of Pong and the beautiful graphics of today's games.

<sub>from Pong press kit



from Tom Clancy's The Division 2 press kit</sub>

Yet, even as the technology is more complex, it's easier to make a game now than it ever was before.

Everything in a video game is treated like an object. An object is equivalent to things that exist in the real world. We'll use a toaster as an example of an object for a game.

Our toaster has properties that make it what it is, such as the brand of the toaster, the weight of it, or what material it's made out of. Objects in games can have such properties too. The properties can even be about more specific things like what position the object is at or how it's rotated.

Our toaster also has functions. Its function is to toast bread. You can think of functions in games as how the object would act. An example of a function would be a gun shooting a bullet, or how the player would react to getting shot. Functions are what give games their interactivity.

_{You can tell how hungry I am right now}

_{from Pixabay}

The reason why games are easier to make now than they were before is that instead of programming all these functions by yourself, there is a vast amount of resources online that provide commonly used functions in a game. Game engines such as Unity or Unreal give a framework for your game by creating all the necessary functions for you. It all works like you're playing with Lego. You just need the right pieces to make the game you want.

Since it's so easy to make a simple game, I believe that making games can be a fun hobby. The game you make could be about whatever you want. It could be about an in-joke that you have with your friends. You could make a game to show your niece or nephew and look cool. You could also make a game about someone to show your appreciation. Anything you can think of is possible!

Thank you for reading.