Am a developer with the knowledge on web standards and programming languages like PHP, JavaScript along with HTML and CSS...How should I start or what is the best way to learn game development?
I see you have already made a post on making flash games in another thread. Using either flash or flash develop, you can skim through THIS tutorial. Right now it is incomplete but there are 3 parts there that include all the source files.
Of course there are several other online tutorials you can use to learn how to make games. Avoider, being one of them is also a good tutorial. You can also check out some of the stickies including THIS thread and read up on some material.
Start by developing a small game, try to look into retro style games like pacman, pong, tetris and replicate the game just by observing its mechanics.
A good IDE is FlashDevelop but it doesn't have the graphic environment like Flash.
Then theres Unity that has become popular over the recent years and is starting to emerge here on AG.
There are alot of tutorials out there but most cover the basics of game development.
If you really want to do this try to get a team together, since it takes alot to develop a game you will want people familiar with different things. Art and Animation, Programming, Sound and Music. Then once you have that determine what you want to make and write out a Design Document that shows the goals with deadlines to meet. I think I have seen many tutorials but one was that If you are really serious you should have your first game done in a month, It isn't going to be a really groundbreaking game but should have your feet in the water so to say and ready to go deeper on the next one.
This channel has some good advice on game development.
@Hectichermit some good advice, I think Unity is a very good option for a SDK.
Getting a team together too is important for diversity, sole devs can be good but more brains can be better.
According to mochi flash survey in 2009 apparently some 60% of flash developers are solo and about 25% of them work in pairs. Of course the flash industry has died down due to the lack of revenue from the ad market, but I still feel that anyone who is getting into game programming that flash is the best start. It is very easy to use and understand. You can also share your games using the already existing flash environment in practically every browser. I have never used unity but seeing as it is very similar to flash in terms of online accessibility, I would say the same thing.
