I'm a game dev myself and I've made a few games in both 2d and 3d.

Best thing I can suggest is that you start with learning how to write a GDD. Game Design Document.

It will become your golden manual when you actually get into the development process. It should have the entire layout of the story (if there is one), all levels and rough description of them, all mechanics of the game (from settings menu to inventory design to what buttons do what, etc. Is there a double-jump? Is there gear? Are there NPCs, and what are their importance, so on and on).

Then you create the Level Design Doc for each level.

Also decide what engine you plan to use and if it is able to handle whatever your mechanics are and if you're able to learn those mechanics/can hire someone who can do them.

And after all of that, you start the real work.

Edit: A lot of people are suggesting numerous different engines and programs you can use, but none of that frankly matters until you have your GDD. You should not decide what engine/program to use until you have a GDD.

Yep. If you plan to go with 2d then use Unity. It's very friendly toward new learners and there's a big community out there to get help from along the way.

I'm a game developer working on a 2d game, so i got some advice:

If you want a beginner-friendly programming tool that also has lots of potential for 2d games i recommend Game Maker studio 2.
You can import your art on the program or use the drawing program that Game Maker includes.
It has a "drag and drop" option that makes programming way simpler by dragging and dropping conditions and effects. Game Maker studio 2 has a free version. (if you want to upload games outside of Opera, you need to pay tho)
It's great for quick prototypes.

-Depending on your game, make sure you have an early prototype to test if the game is fun. If it's not, tweak the mechanics.
For turn based games, it may be possible to do the prototype on paper, if you need to test the idea on a computer, create a simple prototype with the minimum to convey the game experience.

-When programming, test often and take notes. If you can get friends or family members to test, this will help a lot because they do things one may not consider a player doing.

-No matter the programming language you use, the programming principles are the same: Programming is like giving instructions to someone who will take everything you say LITERALLY. (kinda like those genies in cartoons that give a wish granted based on exact wording without considering the subtext)

-Try simple solutions. As your project scales, you want some easy to understand code and to minimize the weight of your project.

-If you and your testers are having fun while testing, that's a great sign that you are going in the right way.

-Depending of the scale of your project you may need to assemble a team. Some indie games are made by a single dev, but working on a big project on your own can take many years to finish.

-If you need to learn about game developing, i recommend "A theory of fun for game design" by Raph Coster.
Also, Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby and Smash Bros has a youtube channel where he is sharing experience and advice on many aspects of game development for free.

Hope this helps!

Well, I always tried to do something but never finished anything because my projects were kind of large... so my advice is to try small first, finish that project, and then keep with something bigger!

I always liked to play around RPGMaker for those projects.

You do need to understand some coding. Even with programs focused on "drag and drop" or are pretty straight forward (like Renpy), you still need to know some basic computer science.

I recommend Codecadamey, it's pretty straight forward and easy to learn.

Also know what you want and understand that more complex games require a lot of trial and error.

There are some ways to make a 2D game with little or no coding knowledge, like RPGMaker, Twine and AGS (Adventure Game Studio), but they're pretty limiting, usually confining you to one specific style of one genre. There are other engines that claim you don't need code, but you totally do, like Unreal Engine (which lets you use flowcharts, but the terminology and structure will make absolutely zero sense if you don't know at least a little C++, like I don't know how they think a non-coder would know that "colour" is called a "vector 3" ), so watch out for stuff like that when looking for an engine.

So the first thing you need to know is: "What kind of game do I want to make?" and "What kind of Assets can I make?"

If you don't have animation skills, AGS is going to probably going to be a no-go for example, because you'll need to at least make a walk-cycle for at least the main character.

RPGmaker is a good beginner choice because it comes pre-packaged with nice assets and you can buy other assets at a reasonable price, but then there's the downside of just how many assets you'll need to make to swap them out with your own if you wanted completely custom art, and if you wanted custom sprites and tilesets, you'd need to be a good pixel artist (a whole different skill from just being good at drawing).

In terms of art assets, Ren'Py is one of the easiest to get going with if your art skills are 2D drawing and/or painting (or even photo editing), but will require a little bit of Python coding (but it is all in the documentation, it's easy to learn) but does limit you to Visual Novel style games, especially if you're not a coder.

If you can do basic pixel art and animation, Game Maker Studio requires some code, but is very flexible, or even Unity, which can be used for 2D games and comes with excellent documentation and templates. Game Maker was, of course, used to make Undertale, which is a good demo for the wide range of mechanics it can do.

You might also want to look at Construct and Stencyl as options... basically weigh things up based on: "What visual assets am I able to make?" and "What sort of games am I passionate about creating?"

Be aware though, that even if you're not writing code syntax, you will have to learn code logic while making a game. Things like setting up a variable that changes in response to a specific trigger, or an event that changes behaviour based on the current state of a variable... This stuff is vital for even basic gameplay like making sure a treasure chest only opens once, or having an NPC recognise if the player has completed a quest or similar. Luckily a lot of this, you will learn as you go just by making games. They are a lot of work though, so be prepared for that!

That´s really useful information.
AGS doesn´t run on my computer because I have a mac, I think I had the program on my old computer years ago
and I really liked it. What would you recommend to use when someone wants to make a Lucasfilm/Maniac Mansion
style point & click adventure? Animation, pixelart, graphic stuff, sound is no problem for me, I just don´t want to spend
to much time into learning to code

Honestly, if you want to make even a basic game there's still a great deal of work and education needed to do so. It's not as simple as a lot of people think.

But it also depends on what you want from it. If you want something like Trollface Quest (or close to that sort of quality) you still need to learn some form of programming and how programs work in general. There are programs and apps and all kinds of things out there for basic stuff, but the majority of it isn't going to give you a game anyone is going to care about, to be totally frank.

Things like RPG Maker/Game Maker and a few other extremely basic systems can be used for a point and click, a lot of things can, you just need to understand how programming works to figure it out. As long as you know how to use an engine/whatever and how to think in technical/dev terms, you can do a lot.

I personally would not suggest RPG Maker or Game Maker as some people have because they're so limited and they don't really teach you from the ground up, which is important. You might get lucky and make something people will play, but more likely it will end up in the same pile as thousands of other RPG Maker/Game Maker games that follow the same or similar formulas.

Best bet is Unity for anything 2d if you want to take game dev remotely seriously.

Thank you, that´s great advice again

You will need to know Blender really well modeling 3d characters, animating and 3d architectural, backgrounds, and texture mapping. Here's what blender was used for game studios. Sometimes video game studios offers contests.

Copied my reply from a similar thread:

If you don't want to learn coding (like me), and want something done quickly and easily, you might want to try Construct, or ClickTeam Fusion etc. (I stopped focus on game-making for years now so these are the ones I know)

They are perfect to come up with 2d game prototypes (but lack more complex functions)

Here are some 2D engines require none to very little coding knowledge:
Construct 31 (online)
ClickTeam Fusion 2.51
RPG Maker MZ2 (limited to JRPG style games)

also:
Buildbox (online, 3d capable, free but limited)
Gamemaker Studio1 (require coding, free version has no PC export)

Fully Free engine:
Godot Engine (more advanced, require coding, 3d capable)

IMO game development is much harder, time-consuming, requires lots of patience.
Good luck!!

Hey das me! I hope people keep on linking to it so I can see more forums like this lol.