What’s the Best Way for a Beginner to Start Making 2D Games?

Keep the scope extremely small and work backward from a simple goal. For example, decide that the player only needs to move, jump, defeat one enemy, and reach an exit. Build those features one at a time. A polished metroidvania requires a lot of systems, so developing small prototypes first will make the larger project much less overwhelming.

Start with a very small, intentionally simple game. Pong, a basic platformer, or a tiny avoid-the-obstacles game can teach movement, collisions, input, scenes, and basic game logic without the huge scope of a metroidvania. Your first few projects are practice projects, not your dream game.

It can also help to learn basic programming separately through small text-based games or exercises. Focus on variables, conditions, loops, functions, and how to break a problem into smaller steps. Then apply those ideas in an engine. Read the engine’s documentation when you get stuck, and use tutorials as a guide rather than copying an entire project without understanding it.

If a full engine feels like too much, try Scratch first to learn programming ideas visually. After that, you could move to a 2D-focused engine such as Godot. You don’t need to master the entire engine—learn only the parts needed for your current project, such as sprites, scenes, input, collisions, and simple scripts.

Choose one engine and follow a beginner tutorial instead of trying to learn everything by exploring the interface alone. Tutorials introduce features gradually, and practicing each concept with your own small experiment will help the tools start making sense.