Those creations are whipped up by experienced programmers. You can't just have a fantasy land in your head and plonk it on screen much as we'd all like to. It takes hard work to get to the point of making any of that stuff.

Sure the fun design bit is a doddle (technically speaking) but learning the coding or script or whatever, however simplified in those all in one packages is still not going to be like learning basic macros in excell...

Your bran will want you to commit suicide when you're finished and your "dream" will have turned into a nightmare....or a job ;)

Ah, a writer? Cool. If you wanted to take it real simple, you could check out RPG Maker. This will allow you to write out stories, uderstand basic mechanics of how scripts and functions work, and you can get a whole slew of premade graphics. THey are usually 8 or 16 bit based games, like NES/SNES quality.

I think people might be narrowing their definition of games. Why try to scare people away from game development with buzzwords?

To start making games you need a strong desire to make games. Without that it's going to be hard. Certainly if you want to immediately make Counter Strike you need many of those skills.

But to start making games which is what the man asked for, you need almost none of those things except for maybe some GIMP/Photoshop skills.

And if you really want to start programming games (let us not confuse programming games with making them). Game Maker 7's scripting language is a very slow way to ease yourself in.

But once a person is ready to start programming games I would highly recommend Processing. It is a very easy envirnoment that uses the Java programming language. They have worlds of examples and helpful documentation on their site: http://processing.org/ .  You don't need to know any of those buzzwords to start programming.

Obviously when a person progresses and learns they will need to get more advanced. A lot of what Crashman talked about becomes applicable. But that's a long ways away from starting.

That looks AWESOME!  I'm downloading that when I go home.

The developer Cactus (perhaps the most prodigious Game Maker developer) started with Game Maker and does not make games using anything else. He has stated he doesn't know anything but the Game Maker Scripting language but is interested in moving on to more advanced systems. One of the reasons Game Maker is well received is that it allows you to ease into the scripting language.

And as I said in my post they have spent years to get to the point of making high quality games. Nobody should come into game development and think they can just "plonk" it down. Everything needs to be learned and learning takes time. But the attitude that there is no easy/simple entry point to game development or that somehow that entry point is bad/looked down upon is astounding.

GlingGling .. u make any game from this programs u mention ??

Just another thing to consider ...

Depending on the type of game you want to make, it is worthwhile to look into making a mod for a really old game. If you're really big on story telling the Neverwinter Nights engine is supposed to be excellent to mod.

I personally have been programming since I was 16 so I actually find it hard to use Game Maker or MMF (though I really enjoyed the less known Construct ). I've used the Processing language to created several interactive physics demos. I've also used Microsoft XNA and Pygame to create some 2D technical demos. Sadly I have trouble moving past the early development stage. But it's something that has been with me for a while (I spent two years in highschool making a isometric RPG with my friends until our main programmer moved away). It's something I plan to continue on and hopefully have enough ambition to actually finish a game.

I'm certainly at the point which CrashMan mentioned and it took while to get there. But from my experience in the indie games community I know that there is more than one path, which many do not seem to be aware of.

Fully agreed, NWN and NWN 2 have great modding environments. My housemate made a very enjoyable 20 minute campaign in only a day or two. As HappySquirriel said you can do some great story telling.

 if u can finish it by yourself then why u dont do it man.