Computers. Homebrew: the art of tinkering with video games in your living room
A game engine, an SD card, an old console, a lot of trial and error, and you're ready to create a video game. This is homebrew, or home brewing, which is gradually becoming more professional. A mini-revolution in the highly lucrative world of development.
They are awaited almost religiously, like the release of a movie or the new season of your favorite series. Gamers are desperate to finally find Doom: The Dark Ages and Hades II on their consoles.
And then there are those video games that, on paper, don't look like much, but are a delight for fans. Titles designed by anonymous people, in the privacy of their living rooms, far from the buildings of big developers, for their own personal pleasure and, sometimes, to try to sell them.
In the jargon, we call this "homebrew." A term borrowed from the beer world to describe a movement that is no longer as confidential as it once was.
This is due to the increasing number of tutorials on the web and the widespread availability of game engines, from the simplest to use (and free) to the much more sophisticated (and paid).
This is mainly due to the emergence of retrogaming and, in its wake, the resurgence of the good old NES, Gameboy or DS that rocked our childhood.
"It's quite easy to get started creating retro gaming games without too much money, because the technology is much more rudimentary than on modern consoles," confirms Antoine Gohin from Auvergne, founder of Broke Studio, in an interview with our colleagues at La Montagne .
Tips for getting started
Is getting started with homebrewing fun? It depends. In any case, it already requires a certain affinity with video games and consoles.
If you're passionate but a novice, don't jump into big projects right away. Start with the basics. Play around with simple, free game engines that will help you familiarize yourself with programming concepts (and its vocabulary) and game logic.
Once you're all set, choose the game engine that works best for you.
Practice it to understand how it works. Try, fail, try again.
Once you feel confident, start working on your dream game.
Based a stone's throw from Clermont-Ferrand, his company has taken homebrew to the next level by professionalizing it. First, by developing its own games, but also by offering behind-the-scenes tinkerers the opportunity to market their creations.
And it works for him and his team: they now export from Europe to Japan.
And even though it's still a niche market, their results already indicate the beginnings of a small revolution. A bit like the one that the first microbreweries sparked in the world of beer in their time... Definitely!
Le Progres
