Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with this idea for a while now – building a college basketball video game. Yeah, I know, there are some out there, but I wanted to try my hand at it, see what I could come up with. I started with zero experience with making video games, but I had a love of basketball games and thought, why not make one?
I started, like anyone else would, by looking stuff up online. Watched a bunch of videos, read some articles, just trying to get a feel for the basics. Game engines, coding languages, asset creation… it was a lot, not gonna lie. I had some basic experience with coding but nothing too serious, so I thought I better start there. I decided to start with Unity because it was suggested that it is good for beginners. Also, I found many tutorials about it, so it was a no-brainer.
So I spent a good chunk of time just going through tutorials, trying to get comfortable with the engine. Building simple stuff, you know, making a ball bounce, creating a basic court. Baby steps. It was frustrating at times, hitting roadblocks, code not working, but I kept at it. Slowly but surely, I started to understand how things worked.
- Choosing the engine: I went with Unity. It seemed beginner-friendly, and there were tons of resources out there.
- Learning the basics: I spent weeks just watching tutorials, reading documentation, and experimenting.
- Building the core mechanics: Started with simple stuff – dribbling, shooting, passing. Just trying to get the feel right.
Once I had a basic prototype working, I started to think about the actual gameplay. How to make it fun, engaging, you know? I played a lot of basketball games, both old and new, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. I wanted to capture that college basketball vibe, the energy, the passion. I looked into how the pros do it, but it is really overwhelming with all the details. And I am just an individual, not a studio with a lot of money, so I had to work with what I had.
I started messing around with AI, trying to create opponents that were challenging but not impossible. That was a whole other beast. Making them react realistically, making strategic decisions… it took a lot of trial and error. I spent days just tweaking values, watching how the AI played, trying to find that sweet spot.
- Developing the AI: This was tough. I wanted the computer-controlled players to be smart, but not unbeatable.
- Designing the user interface: I kept it simple. Easy to navigate menus, clear in-game information.
- Playtesting and feedback: Got some friends to try it out. Their feedback was super helpful.
Then there was the whole visual aspect. I’m no artist, so I had to rely on pre-made assets, stuff I could find online. I learned how to do some basic modeling, just enough to create a decent-looking court and some basic player models. It wasn’t AAA quality, but it was something. I was just aiming for something simple like in the arcades, and I think I did well.
After months of work, I finally had something that resembled a playable game. It was rough around the edges, for sure, but it was mine. I shared it with some friends, got some feedback, and kept refining it. I even managed to create a simple tournament mode, which was a blast to play.
The End Result
So, that’s my story. It wasn’t easy, and the game is far from perfect, but I learned a ton, and I had a lot of fun doing it. It’s still a work in progress, something I tinker with in my free time. Maybe one day I’ll release it to the public, who knows? But for now, it’s just a personal project, something I’m proud of. I also realized that it was way harder than I expected. The games I played before were made by whole studios with many professionals and not by one guy. But all in all, I am happy with what I achieved and the fact that I made a playable basketball game. Now I can show it to my friends and we can have fun together.
I know I won’t start doing this professionally, but at least now I know how to do it if I ever want to do it again. The important thing is that I achieved my objective, and I had a lot of fun in the process.
