Hello, I’m Justin.
I’ve tinkered a bit with the unreal engine, endured a bit of coding and I’ve done some character modeling in Blender and Gimp.After days lost in experimenting and learning new software I think I’m ready to begin making an actual game. I wanted to know what the average project process should be from start to finish, including the conceptual phase. I feel like I’m just doing focusing on the art aspect right now when I’d like to turn these assets and architecture into coherent levels.
Just start making your game. If you focus on just making all the art assets first, then you might realize that you don’t know how to actually use those assets in a game. Or the other way around, you start making your game and realize you cant’ do the art. Just start and switch between the two until you find a good balance.
I would also say that if your game is even remotely ambitious, don’t start with that game. Make very simple clones of games like pong, breakout, mario, etc. until you have the basics down, and then start working on your “real” game. You’ll find that even very simple games will introduce you to concepts that will carry over to your real game.
I completely agree with KaladinRahl. Having gone through the process myself, I can say my first two projects were just way too ambitious. Start small, keep building. Over time you get more efficient and can dream bigger. Keep learning and you will get successful. Keep improving.