How to make Casino Games at Home

If there’s one thing that everyone loves at the moment, it’s casino games. They are some of the most popular and enjoyable things on the market, and they allow players the opportunity to experience the joy of winning from the comfort of their own home. Slot games are currently the most fun, so we have taken a look into how you can started with making your own video slot game. 

Understanding Limitations

For this article, we’re going to assume that you don’t have any experience with game design. It can be a complex area to get started with, so essentially, you don’t want to get too ahead of yourself. You must understand that for your first attempt, it might not be as polished as the games you would find at Gamble USA. As long as you can get a basic slot game working, then from there, you can start refining it, and creating additional features. 

Starting Point

There are two things that you need to do first before even thinking about starting work on your game. The first, is to download a game engine.  This will help you with some of the more complex aspects of game creation. Things such as displaying images, creating animations, and setting up distinct functions in your game, can all be carried out with a game engine. 

In our opinion, Unity is the best choice for this. It has a free-to-use version available that is perfect for hobbyists. On top of this, there are also a huge number of tutorials and learning resources available through the Unity site. This will allow you to get up to speed with the platform, and create a few small scale, simple games before you make the jump to creating your slot game. 

Secondly, you will need to become comfortable with a programming language. Coding isn’t the big bad wolf that many people make it out to be. It’s actually very logical, and not too difficult to get your head around. Just ensure that you choose a relatively simple language that has a lot of learning materials available. 

The best one to choose, especially if you’re going to use Unity, is C#. It has some great resources for learning the language available, and it is compatible with the Unity game engine. This ensures that you will be able to use the skills you learn in a practical manner once you get stuck into creating your game. 

First Steps

It goes without saying, that game development can be a difficult task. It’s not always profitable either, even Google have seen their studios shut down, amid a lack of sustainable profits. However, for hobbyists, it can provide an excellent outlet for creativity without the pressures of balance sheets, and managers demanding targets be met. 

This is why you shouldn’t put too much pressure on yourself at the start. Don’t expect to have a perfectly smooth and high-quality game within a week. Once you have managed to comprehend that your first effort might be a little bit rough around the edges, you can get started. 

The first thing you will need to do, is design the graphics. There are two ways you can do this. Firstly, if you have the artistic talent, you can create them yourself. Look into other slot games on the market, and work out what is needed from them. From here, you will know what you have to create. 

If you don’t have the artistic talent, then you can search for open-source game art. This will allow you to get graphics that other people have created, and use this to put together your game. It doesn’t even have to be for slot games. You can use art from other forms of games and as long as it fits into the spaces you need for your slots, then you can use it. 

Once you have your art in place, it’s time to start thinking about coding. 

Keep it Simple, Stupid

We know, that might seem a little bit rude, but it’s something that you will have to live by. This is your first attempt at a video slot game. Why would you start putting in incredible features and over-the-top bonuses? All you need to do is create a working slot game. Once you have that, maybe then it’s time to start thinking about extras, but in the first instance, let’s look for the easy stuff. 

There are a number of ways to create a video slot. However, as this is your first go, you are best off trying to keep it as simple as possible. The best way to do this, is to set each space on your slot machine to output a random number. Set the random numbers to be equal to the different symbols that you have put together, and then you can link the numbers to the images. This will then make the images appear on the reels when you press the spin button. 

Once you have this working, it’s time to start thinking about the paylines you have in place. Start off with just a single payline at first. Make it check the numbers that are on the reels, and then from there, work out if it is a winning line. Once you have this working, then it’s time to move onto adding additional paylines. 

While you might think it’s best to set your payouts first, you should just put a nominal value in place initially. Then from there, you can tweak them as you test, in order to balance the value of the symbols. You don’t want the game to pay out huge sums constantly, as this would remove the fun aspect. Remember, games should be fun and challenging. Not fun or challenging, they need to be both. 

The coding here is relatively simple. It just requires you to set variables for each space on the reels which output a different random number. Then, the payline can check the random numbers to see what the payouts are. 

Next Steps

Once you have your slot game working, it’s time to look into some extra features. This may require higher levels of coding ability. So, you will have to work on your skills, in order to add them to your game. However, just by creating your slot game in the first place, you will have developed your technique to a level that will provide you with the tools to create more advanced features, such as free spins and expanding reels.