How can a noob become Phaser expert

[crazyDev]

Hello everyone.

I have just completed Phaser's official "build your first game" tutorial, and also finished Lynda.com's tutorial on creating a Phaser game.

I wish to become a Phaser expert and make games for a living with it.

 

How should I go about learning the framework to become really good at it, to the point I can monetize my skills within 6 months?

 

Additional Questions:

Is it possible to make games for a living knowing just HTML, CSS, JS and Phaser?

Is it possible to generate an income of $2000 p.m. or higher within 6 months of learning Phaser?

[Ninjadoodle]

Hi @crazyDev

 

You can definitely make $2000+ a month on html5 game dev, but it is entirely dependent on your commitment.

 

My tip would be not to focus on a single revenue stream.

 

You can make money from ...

 

- Advertisements on your website

- Preroll ads in your html5 games

- Wrapping your games as native apps and distributing them on numerous stores

- Selling exclusive/non-exclusive sponsorships

- Selling source code

- Selling templates

- Selling assets

- Work for hire

- etc.

 

As far as learning, I would not worry about learning everything under the sun, but instead go straight to making a game.

 

You will learn a TON while doing this.

 

Pick something really basic, like an 'Odd One Out' game with a timer, then 'juice it' and make it snappy and fun!

 

Your next game can be something a little bit more complex.

 

You can make games, basically for free ... all you need to invest, is your time. Don't devote your self to a 6 month project, betting everything on it making you money.

 

Instead make what you love, and try to do it in the form of - short, fun 'coffee break games'. This way you could be putting out new content every couple of weeks.

 

Don't get me wrong tho - I'm not saying sacrifice quality! Make sure your game is slick & fun, but make it easy to produce in a short timeframe, and don't get caught up on 'feature creep'.

 

Run your own site where people can play your games and build a name for your self.

 

To sum this up, the most important thing in order to succeed is to 'just do it!', and do it regularly.

 

If you slip, get yourself motivated and get back on track, as you only have yourself to blame, if you are unproductive.

 

This is the advice I would give to myself, if I asked the same question you did

 

Hope this helps.

 

PS. If you want a regular income, but also want to work on a bigger game, then do so on the side, not letting it take away from your regular releases.

[crazyDev]

Thank you for such a comprehensive answer @Ninjadoodle

[mileung]

Just look at as many examples of Phaser as you can from different sources.  Also, buy the Phaser books; really helpful.  And the most important thing is to build something; that way you can run into problems which you will learn how to solve in the future (unlike just reading off articles).

[tips4design]

Well, it depends on how you want to monetize your game. If you want to sell the source code or licenses, than the code has to be pretty clean and for this you need to have a very good understanding of JavaScript. 

 

Now, if you just want to sell your game to end-users (players as mobile apps) or just integrate ads than the code is not really that important as long as it works. What instead you need to do is to make the game look, feel and sound appealing. I don't think you need to be an expert in anything to make something good or better than something already existent. You don't need to be an expert in photography to make a really good/nice photo, it mostly depends on what you're actually trying to photograph. So, instead of being focused on the technology itself you should focus yourself in learning more about what makes a good or addictive game. After that, when you try to implement it, you can just ask for help or search on Google if you are stuck on creating something specific.

[MichaelD]

Yes basically what others have already said, find an idea, make sure its a nice idea (meaning that you would be interested in playing this game), ask for some input on your idea explaining the mechanics, look&feel, general info basically. And if you are happy from what you find go ahead and build it, as you build you will come across difficulties but as you progress things will look better and you'll get the hang of it.

 

These forums and the docs/examples are an amazing resource of knowledge, use them well and often

[drhayes]

I've learned a lot by trying to help people on the forums and reading the Phaser docs and source code. Like, straight up reading it before bed.

 

But, honestly, I've always learned the most by writing games. Short games, prototypes, tech demos are great... but writing an end-to-end, polished, finished game that you show to other people and get feedback for is *the best* learning experience.