Before Starting – Beg, borrow, steal (and buy)

Whatever genre of game you want to make, there are going to be other games that have come before that will have some similar or identical pieces of code – probably even for your target game engine. For example, my roguelike. Top-down turn-based roguelikes are nothing new. I can guarantee there’s C# code out there for some standard things like Pathfinding, Line-of-Sight, Saving and Loading, etc etc.

Wherever possible, beg, borrow, steal (as long as you can legally do so). I already know that for line-of-sight I’ll be wanting Bresenham’s Line Algorithm. It’s simple, well-tested, and to be honest, I accidentally reinvented it for an earlier project years ago, so I know I can understand how the algorithm works. Which is an important point: if you’re going to beg, borrow, or steal code, make sure you know exactly what it’s doing.

Also, unless you’re super in love with rehashing long-solved problems, consider buying assets or code that can significantly shorten your workload. I’m buying this set of art assets: https://www.oryxdesignlab.com/products/ultimate-roguelike-tileset
They meet the exact visual aesthetic I’m going for and should let me have some decent graphics up and running from the start.

Also consider Open Game Art. There’s a lot of great stuff there for free. And of course, subreddits can be a great place to find stuff too. Just don’t get too obsessed with finding premade stuff this early in the game. Remember, you need to keep that MVP in sight!