My Recent Article may be of interest: Why your games are unfinished and what to do about it

There is a very definite stage in a game developers life where they hit a "well" - they make tons of games and find themselves unmotivated and end up not finishing it. The article hopes to expedite the process

The reason why there is that "well" is because most new game developers try to think of things that are not important. This is my 2 cents to your problem:

What do you want to get out of making games? Do you want to be a programmer? Do you want to be an artist? or Do you want to make/design games?

I'd always say start with something simple and small.Your #2 question is a popular one among newbies, the "it's too simplistic for a 'real' game" excuse. Throw that sort of egotism out. Some people will call you out for it, but these too will be game developing wannabees who use the 'best' tool they could find - but end up not releasing any games. You might have started with a simple tool, but at least you have a finished game in the end.

Also, don't believe anyone that says GameMaker is a 'simple' tool, it has grown (an example of a game from GM: http://godswillbewatching.clay.io/) Note that I personally do NOT use GameMaker, and I am not trying to popularize it in anyway.

Finally, and on your last question, if you can create one game in one day, then you're well on your way as a game developer!

Start small and work your way up.

1. Build yourself a couple text based games. Start with something like Hangman and Tic Tac Toe. If those games seem beneath you, you're wrong. If those games ARE beneath you, then it will take you very little time at all to develop them, and it will still be a useful experience. That experience should encompass the full gamut of basic, required, game functionality. At the bare minimum a Start screen, game menu, robust and flexible Console and File IO, saved games, Computer AI, and high score boards. There's a lot to be learned here, and if you haven't done all of that with minimal debugging required, moving on to more complex games will likely be quite frustrating.

2. Once you're comfortable with console based games you can step up to simple 2D graphics games. Best to start with single screen style games ala something like the old Atari Tank game. This will introduce you to working with 2D graphics and collision detection; and also provide a good introduction to some real Computer AI. Navigation and Combat AI specifically. One of the distinctions of this style of game with regards to AI is that it's fine to give the Computer complete knowledge of the environment because the player also has complete knowledge of the environment. If you're feeling ambitious, go ahead and try your hand at network multiplayer as well. Scrollers can be tackled here as well, but it's probably better to leave these as your second or third 2D game.

Once you've done all that, the answers to pretty much all of your questions should be completely obvious to you.

I'm new to game making and I chose to try out making a dress up game by myself (in 3d)

Here are the dilemmas you face going solo:

If you aren't artistic you have to get an artist to help you

If you aren't technical (don't know how to program well) you have to get a technical person to help you

Want sound? How good are your musical skills? Voice acting?

Thankfully, I am well versed in all things needed to make a game (been learning it before I ever thought of game design).

It seems that if you want to make a game by yourself, you have to be sort of like an engineer. You have to know a little about everything, and how it all works together.

I am using the Free and Opensource Game Engine Maratis3d. Here is a link to my progress on my game and the process I am using to make it:

http://forum.maratis3d.com/viewtopic.php?id=873

I am actually liking my game design process, as it is smooth. I am trying to figure out the next step actually. Even making conceptually simple games can turn out to be complicated (that is the part I don't like).

Game Maker is not too simplistic. Very popular games have been made using it. However, it will also cost you a lot to publish on anything mobile. I mean, even if it is simplistic, if your goal is to make a game rather than to flex your programming skills, then that is the way to go (simplistic).

Unity 3d is more complete than Maratis however (and I personally think it is harder to use).

For now, Maratis, to me, is a good cross between simplistic and flexible (you can flex your programming skills)

Thanks for all of the good advice.

I'm a competent programmer, so making the game myself isn't an issue. I ended up going with Flash as a platform, using FlashDevelop. I'm just making a basic shooter for now, so far it works with random enemies and one type of ship, but it's been good practice and I'm slowly adding in more and more features as I go.

I think a shoot'em up game is a good starting point, because it doesn't take very long to have a working game, but then you can just keep adding in more enemies, more player ships, more weapons, upgrades, levels, and so on. It's been great to be able to have a basically 1:1 ratio of me doing stuff to the game improving, unlike some other game types I've tried where you need to know exactly what you're doing from the beginning, plan things out, and it takes a long time before you have something playable and fun.

I'm not much of an artist, but I can do some basic pixel art, so that's defined the style of the game. I don't want to hire out an artist (or request a freebie) on my first game, so I've just kept it simple. Here's a screenshot of the game so far:

At the moment, I'm planning to put it up on Kongregate once it's done, since that seems to match the quality and size of the game fairly well.