What are some good projects for beginner Game Devs?

[MaxGamz]

I’ve made a few games but they aren’t what I would consider any good. I have programming experience but my biggest issue is that I’ve never used my coding abilities to make a game. I was thinking of making a simple game that would keep me in the momentum but I’m not sure if I should persue the game ideas I already have.

[BrotSagtMist]

Try doing a game jam.
I personally made my best works whenever i had a time limit set, it at least keep you away from digging feature holes that lever let you finish something.

[darkfrei]

Start with pong and other classic arcades, you can see the result that you can achieve after a while.

[MaxGamz]

Try doing a game jam.
I personally made my best works whenever i had a time limit set, it at least keep you away from digging feature holes that lever let you finish something.

Are there simplistic ones as well? I’m not extremely used to Love2D so while I do like the challenge, I feel nervous that I might over stress myself

[BrotSagtMist]

Remeber that you dont have to win.
And no one cares how good your work is.
There are lots of unfinished entries on such jams usually.

[dusoft]

Try doing a game jam.
I personally made my best works whenever i had a time limit set, it at least keep you away from digging feature holes that lever let you finish something.

Are there simplistic ones as well? I’m not extremely used to Love2D so while I do like the challenge, I feel nervous that I might over stress myself

You can also find something on Github and just start improving code. E.g. some already finished game where you change or add variables / output etc.

Simple games have been always either basic arcades or text-only input + output + couple of variables + some random occurrence each turn.

[pgimeno]

If you want to start with the very basics, I can tell you my wife's experience. She started with a simple maze game; just walls, floors and void, then a player. The goal was going from one position to another. The maze was hardcoded. The character moved one grid position at a time, but hey, we're at the basics.

Then I suggested her to turn it into a Sokoban game. It wasn't that much of an effort to add boxes and goals, let the player push the boxes and verify if all boxes were in goals.

[Rigachupe]

How about a shooter game with moving targets.
1. prepare a background layer or layers that will be drawn
2. put some targets at the left/right positions outside of screen (for simplicity use only the circles)
3. move targets to the opposite side
4. shoot with mouse or arrow keys that move the target crosshair around the screen
5. you only need collision point vs circle for the targets

Later you could add ducks as targets, trees etc.. and use point vs polygon collisions.

free assets for you here : https://kenney.nl/assets/shooting-gallery

You can even make a small JAM about this kind of game goal. And then look how people implemented the idea to learn an advance.

[Azzla]

I recommend following along a simple tutorial like Challacade's 2021 guide on YouTube if you're just starting out. Then you can move into game-jams or Pong like the others suggested.

When you get stuck, try to use documentation and experimentation to solve it on your own first. Good luck!