I am going to be honest with you. I have no skills or talent. I just downloaded Unity and plan to learn programming, and I have a ton of books on learning art. I am about to enter college this August. Here is the thing. I have been working on a scifi story for several years now, since around 2011. I plan to announce details here after I copyright it in a few days. Anyways, this is something I have poured much of my life into. Its basically a paracosm i have had in my head since I was kid. I have always imagined it as a scifi video game series, on the quality of say Uncharted or The Last Of Us. Until recently I thought it would be impossible for it to be made. Then I found this game called Universum: War Front, a tps/rts being made by only one man. Obviously I don't have any experience or skills like he does. So my question is this: How can I make my dream game a reality? I am just your average joe. I have always imagined my story as a very long single player narrative game played in 3rd person. EDIT: I think I put this in the wrong section. If so, is their any moderators that can help move this topic?

I plan to announce details here after I copyright it in a few days

Copyright is automatic in the US (and many other places), but applies to the fixed-form of the work. You can't copyright the "ideas," which is what, presumably, you're thinking of sharing? Or were you really intending to paste the entire story you've written onto this forum? You may want to read the forum TOS before you do that.

I have no skills or talent. I just downloaded Unity and plan to learn programming

I have always imagined it as a scifi video game series, on the quality of say Uncharted or The Last Of Us.

These two statements are quite at odds. You have two main courses of action here:

Either you drastically reduce the scope of your "dream game" to something remotely manageable within your skill budget or

You put the idea of implementing that game on hold for quite some time before you actually start on it, and spend a few years building other, smaller games to hone your skills.

How can I make my dream game a reality?

Personally I'd suggest option two: put your magnum opus on the back burner and learn to use Unity to make simpler projects more in line with your current skills (almost none), building up those skills until you have the capability to at least contribute meaningfully to some aspect (artistic, programming, whatever) of your game that isn't "the idea." At that point you can begin work on it and will be able to bring on people to help fill your own skill gaps.

(Moving to For Beginners.)

I am going to be honest with you. I have no skills or talent.

First you need self belief, motivation and confidence

Though this might be a minor miscommunication on your side, i e, since even though you may not have the skills now, you may be smart enough to acquire the skills and have the potential and talent which you can develop.

And importantly, If you don't have self belief, the slightest sign of being stuck with your code could drag you down

I just downloaded Unity and plan to learn programming, and I have a ton of books on learning art.

That's a very good first step

I am about to enter college this August.

This is another good step, though you haven't stated your intended course of study. If its a course you want to help you with your ambitions, then either math, physics or any computer science or game development related course would be fine

How can I make my dream game a reality? I am just your average joe. I have always imagined my story as a very long single player narrative game played in 3rd person.

You need to know that learning to code and learning game mechanics and development is very achievable (though would be tough with steep learning curve) .

You've taken some good steps which are:

1. Studying a (relevant game development) course in college and

2. self learning with tutorials

3. and you have motivations and ambitions

The ones you need to add

4. It would help significantly if you simplify your game first so you don't get overwhelmed with issues, and gradually upgrade the complexities to your eventual target

5. A forum such as this where you can learn from experienced developers and

6. where you can ask questions when you get stuck and a...

7. dogged determination to succeed

I have always imagined it as a scifi video game series, on the quality of say Uncharted or The Last Of Us. Until recently I thought it would be impossible for it to be made.

That is reasonable to assume. Look over the game credits for those games, or watch them scroll by on a video. They go on, and on, and on.

The games you've selected as comparable titles are huge. They required several hundred work-years to develop. If you are doing this on your own you will need more than your full lifetime to make them.

There are games that take only a few work-years to develop but they are in an entirely different camp than Uncharted or The Last Of Us.

So my question is this: How can I make my dream game a reality?

The primary methods are:

* Do it yourself. This means gaining all the skills you need, or hiring people to do it.

* Do it from the inside. This means getting a job in the industry, and after a decade or so of showing your professional skills and moving up the corporate ladder, eventually reach a point where you can pitch ideas to the studio and hope they'll chose your idea among all the other great ideas out there.

* Arrange for others to do it. Generally this is not an option unless you have several million dollars sitting around. It is an option for some people, but not many.

Tom Sloper's FAQs cover the options in detail, among other subjects. There are about 90 entries on there, and they are highly recommended reading on the topic.

It is possible to make your game, and many games like that get made every year. But unfortunately for everyone with a big dream (including me) statistically the vast majority remain as unrealized dreams. Every game developer I know has at least a few such ideas, many have filing cabinets full of them.

Assuming you still want to set out on the journey -- and it is a journey many enjoy -- I'd recommend you start with a one month project:

1. See what you can create in one month. Do as much as you can for 30 days.

2. At the end of 30 days, call it done, put the project down. Don't work on it again. That project is over.

3. Think carefully on what you learned. This is critical.

4. Repeat at one with another 30 day month of working on a second project.

After several months if you don't give up you will gain quite a lot of knowledge and skill. The first few attempts you will discover that game development is far more complex than most people realize. Seriously you'll want to start on things like a pong clone or a tetris clone. After a few iterations you'll learn what you can accomplish in a month and you'll be in a position to build parts of your dream game. Then you can scale back your dream to something you can build in several small pieces, and eventually build something that satisfies your dream.

I plan to announce details here after I copyright it in a few days

Copyright is automatic in the US (and many other places), but applies to the fixed-form of the work. You can't copyright the "ideas," which is what, presumably, you're thinking of sharing? Or were you really intending to paste the entire story you've written onto this forum? You may want to read the forum TOS before you do that.

I have no skills or talent. I just downloaded Unity and plan to learn programming

I have always imagined it as a scifi video game series, on the quality of say Uncharted or The Last Of Us.

These two statements are quite at odds. You have two main courses of action here:

Either you drastically reduce the scope of your "dream game" to something remotely manageable within your skill budget or

You put the idea of implementing that game on hold for quite some time before you actually start on it, and spend a few years building other, smaller games to hone your skills.

How can I make my dream game a reality?

Personally I'd suggest option two: put your magnum opus on the back burner and learn to use Unity to make simpler projects more in line with your current skills (almost none), building up those skills until you have the capability to at least contribute meaningfully to some aspect (artistic, programming, whatever) of your game that isn't "the idea." At that point you can begin work on it and will be able to bring on people to help fill your own skill gaps.

I see. I suppose I will do option 2. And yea, I probably shouldn't put the story on here now that I think about. Its not just a idea, it actually has a nearly complete story with a whole array of story and lore. So I think I will start out small, then see if i can get a team in the future and be director. I really appreciate all the help so far from you guys. And as for college to the guy who asked, I plan on double majoring in computer science and Biology as I plan to be a game developer and ecologist. Obviously not at the same time though but by working at various jobs between the two fields within my lifetime.

Okay. Great that you finally found the motivation to download a game engine and start your journey.

Now put that idea you have on the Backburner for some years, and get down to business... and currently that means learning the basics. Learn to program, learn how to use the Unity Editor, learn how to create simple art. Create Pong, or PacMan, or Tetris Clones. Forget about 3D Graphics first, that is a HUGE topic as of itself.

Then move to more complex games, say Super Mario Clones. Maybe you come up with your own simple ideas along the way to spice up your cloning training routine?

In some years, if you keep doing that, you will have become somewhat competent at programming, and have some finished games to show. They might not be the prettiest thing in the world, but they are the proof that you have achieved something and gathered expierience.

Now, decide what you want to do:

1) Do you want to dive into 3D Games yourself, and learn how to create 3D objects? Add some additional years of learning.

2) Do you want to dive into 3D Games, but you can live with using stock or free art? You should still learn some 3D Modelling skills, you will need to get your hands dirty with some of those downloaded object.

3) Do you want to Team up to get there faster? That is a very sane idea, given the amount of time you will spend for learning art skills, and having to do everything by yourself.

BUT: Hobbyist Teams are fickle. You need to be VERY careful with whom to Team up IF you are really serious about results (if its just for learning, team up with whomever you like... you are guaranteed to learn one thing or another, mostly what does NOT work in a Team :) ). You need to be VERY careful on how to run a team (these are unpaid volunteers, so treat them as such).

On the other hand finding good hobbyists ready to Team up with you is not easy, the people with skills most probably are already busy doing their own thing or have found a Team.

Last bit of advice: Never, EVER compare your work to AAA games. Bad practice, will only get you depressed. Even if you would be the most insanly skilled game dev in the world, working a 5 times the speed of the next best devs, you couldn't produce the same result as a Team of 100 expierienced devs.

Let Uncharted be uncharted. Your game might not have as naturally looking characters, it might not have as beautyful vistas, hell it might lack any textures at all and have extremly simplified lighting. But its something new and different.

Not to discourage you from learning to program but, if you already have an abundance of written material, why are you not looking at doing a book or a comic or a tabletop game of some kind instead? Something that doesn't require years to learn a technical skill before you're able to introduce your vision to the public. If you do have a passion for programming and you learn enough to begin making games, consider that if you've been writing and publishing all this time you would have all this IP at your disposal that has already been exposed to the public and have a measured response for.

Start making small games, and in each game, do something that will contribute to your "Dream Game"
Eg.

Game #1, make a combat system

Game #2, Inventory

etc

And by the time you are good enough to make your dream game, you've already made, tested, and hopefully refined all of the components.

And by the time you are good enough to make your dream game, you've already made, tested, and hopefully refined all of the components.

Yes, this can work but factor in the fact that you'll spend as long throwing away that version 1 combat system, and refactoring a version 2, version 3 that you're actually happy with and works well.

In programming, you can expect to rewrite things several times, for performance, bugfixes and general readability before it works and you're happy with it.

To paraphrase what others have said before: Performance, Stability, Readability. Pick two. :)