I've been playing games my whole life and have always wondered how one can get into game development. Is there an easy way of starting out, making my own games?

There sure is.

Learning how to design games is a very involved experience and one that you don't just jump into. As with any profession, one has to start small and at the bottom, and slowly build your way up.

To answer your question, however, there is a way in which you can start along this way as an amateur. Obviously, should you plan to make a career out of game design, it would be sensible to enrol in a game development course.

For the average gamer who would just like to try his hand at it, there are a number of software options available on the internet. A good place to start is YoYo Games' "Game Maker".

It's a very elementary game building system in that you start very, very small. It takes you through the basic concepts and helps you to build the type of games that used to be popular at the time of the advent of computer games — all for free.

And yet you can grow in your game building abilities with it, eventually moving up to more involved games on the level of 'Doom'. To reach this level, however, you'll have to purchase the software.

YoYo Games even supplies a Wiki website with some tutorials to get you going. From there on... it's up to your creativity.

When you've mastered Game Maker and you're still hungry, then read this article for information on free game development courses offered online.