I am at the first year of diploma and I am planing to make a nice small 2D or 3D First Person Shooter game . As I mentioned I am just at first year in IT ,I Dont know much about game developing but I do know lots of more things that normal 1st and even 3rd year students . 

I  Know Java,C,C++ and little bit of python and GTK+ framework . I am currently trying to learn SDL and Qt with C++. I will also happily learn new technology if required to make games.

Now my main Question's are:-

How much time will it take to make SMALL 2D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

How much time will it take to make SMALL 3D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

Will learning Qt help me make games faster or with High performance ?

My main platform is Linux and Android.I don't care if It runs on windows or Mac but it should run fine on Linux .

Thanks in advance

37 minutes ago, smit patil said:

How much time will it take to make SMALL 2D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

Define "small". You can feasibly make Pong or Snake in an afternoon. More complex games will take more time.

39 minutes ago, smit patil said:

How much time will it take to make SMALL 3D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

Same answer, I'm afraid. anywhere from days to months, depending on complexity. Although in this case you will be learning both SDL and OpenGL (since SDL by itself can't do 3D graphics), which will add some time.

41 minutes ago, smit patil said:

Will learning Qt help me make games faster or with High performance ?

No, not really. Qt is a great framework for building desktop applications, but it has little relevance to games.

42 minutes ago, smit patil said:

My main platform is Linux and Android.

SDL can run on either of those. Linux will likely be easier to get started with than Android (Android adds a lot of complexities around mobile development that are only tangentially related to games).

Thanks for reply

small mean I want to make small FPS(First person shooter).

5 hours ago, smit patil said:

small mean I want to make small FPS(First person shooter).

I was thrown by your 2D question there. First person shooter is an inherently 3D genre.

A 3D shooter is not a simple game to write from scratch in SDL+OpenGL. Expect to spend considerable time learning the basics.

If, on the other hand you decide to use a 3D engine like Unity or Unreal, an awful lot of those basics are handled for you, plus you'll be able to leverage their examples and asset stores to get a basic shooter up and running in days (or even hours).

On 2/11/2018 at 11:48 AM, smit patil said:

How much time will it take to make SMALL 2D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

How much time will it take to make SMALL 3D game as a single person in SDL while LEARNING SDL ?

This really depends on your ability to use the language and SDL, as well as problem solve. There is not a set "time" anyone can give you because one person could complete Game A in 4 months, but another person might take 9 months to complete Game A.

The factors that come into play are:

• How fast you're able to learn your core language and understand the key concepts
• How fast you're able to learn SDL in a 2D enviroment
• How fast you're able to learn openGL on top of SDL for 3D games
• Your ability to create solutions and solve problems
• How long it takes to generate assets for your game

All I can tell you for sure is that making a 2D game with SDL will be quicker than making a first person shooter using SDL and openGL. You also have to account for time to create or obtain assets for your game.

If you're looking at speeding up the process when creating a game, you would have to look towards high level languages, and engines that handle the bulk of the work for you.

thanks

But now I am thinking of trying out GODOT engine as it is open source , But I have new question now.

Should Directly go for learning any game engine (Except Unity Cause I don't know C#) or should I learn SDL and OpenGL basics before starting ?

If you want to make a game, start with an engine. If you want to learn low-level graphics programming, learn everything from the bottom upwards.

Keep in mind that the latter takes a lot longer than the former to achieve the same end result.

Even if you don't know C#, Unity still may be a pretty rapid route (I didn't know any C# when I picked it up).

9 hours ago, smit patil said:

thanks

But now I am thinking of trying out GODOT engine as it is open source , But I have new question now.

 

Should Directly go for learning any game engine (Except Unity Cause I don't know C#) or should I learn SDL and OpenGL basics before starting ?

@swiftcoder provided a great answer.

I personally got into engine and tool programming on top of game programming because I was extremely interested in learning how it all worked, but this came at a large cost in time. I would recommend that you stick to pre-made engines for now If you're not really into making all the components to the engine, tools, and then a game on top of everything else.

Going into C# from C++ really isn't an issue (even if you're not far enough in C++ it wont matter), and using Unity along the way will really motivate you because you can achieve results a lot faster. The Unity community has a ton of support as well.

If you decide to take on SDL and openGL you will be left with a lot of tasks. Game Loops, Time Steps, Collision, Physics, Asset Management, Event Management, Memory Management, Buffers, ect... before you can even get your game up and running. You really need to have a reason to motivate yourself to push through if you're going down the lower level route because it's a major time sink.

I will add something to give you an Idea of what you may do.

I am writing now the graphic part of my new game using only Opengl, It is already about 11000 lines of code to do do what needs something like 400 lines with SDL2. So as they already told you unless you want to learn or/and just love the process of writing game, just go with a game engine. This thing eat time and you need ALOT of motivation to not stop in the middle of nowhere.

Sorry your question seems like asking "how long is a piece of string"?

One person's idea of small is mammoth to someone else. Learning from what baseline, know "hello world in C++" or have worked on million line projects for 10 years? 

A lot also depends on the type of game. 

How about a different tact. I think everybody knows DOOM?

Those 4 guys each had 10 years experience making and publishing games - before starting idSoftware.

Then they made a handful of games together, like Wolfenstein. After that they made DOOM. Lived in a shared house and worked on it pretty well every hour they were awake.

How long? That took 12 months.  By today's standards DOOM is a small game. Not sure what you had in mind?

If you know C++ and Linear Algebra (matrices, vertices...) well and you only have to learn SDL/OpenGL then should be able to make some "hello triangle" - hey it moves type "games" in a couple of months I reckon. 

3D is a lot more work, probably a year to make something which doesn't have everything in it. 

Initially you can borrow the art but will eventually have to make your own.

The first few games will not be games, they'll just be programs which emit graphics while learning.

It can be done.