/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

>>27384

>Because the development of a video game is a monumental undertaking even when the goals are relatively humble.

Yet thousands of people find success in it alone, without help from anyone else at all.

>What exactly are you able to do?

That depends on your definition of "able". If speed is not an issue, I can do almost literally everything related to art and design if the theme is right.

I'm inexperienced in environment design and 3D modeling, so I'm not very fast at those. It takes a long time to think of all the environmental details to make a detailed scene, but I can do it if I work at it long enough. I can and have done some 3D stuff, but I'm pretty slow at that too. I guess the one thing I'm unsure about is 3D animation. I played around with it years back in an internship and I believe I could do it given a few weeks of practice, but I wouldn't rely on me.

I'm talking about group projects where many people are contributing. I don't necessarily want to be "the" artist or make all the design decisions, especially if the game is 3D.

>What is it you need from other people that you cannot do yourself?

I can technically make games but I can only enginedev, I can't make efficient code, I can't make organized code, I can't make code that won't make anyone with any semblance of programming proficiency cringe, and I'm not even close to making anything 3D or graphics related in general. I think I'm good at problem solving, but not so good at understanding computers.

I'm making making a fan game for free with friends, we already have a programmer. We're enthusiastic about it and that's what keeps it alive. Half of the friends in the group had to retire from it because of life issues (lack of internet and stuff) and its taken a long time but since we're dedicated to it we already have a lot of stuff and something will hopefully come of it. It goes slower with less people.

Do you like 2D platformer puzzle games?

I mostly do pixel art and game structure stuff along with concept designs and illustrations.

What we're currently lacking is music, background scenery, some additional art and game refinements.

I'm a programmer and I've been involved in tons of /v/ and /vr/ projects that have crashed and burned. Various experiences:

* I work in Linux with C++ and OpenGL primarily. Team chose Unity as a platform, which didn't have any Linux support at the time. I was the only person who knew how to program, and the other "programmers" had never touched anything except HTML. Lots of art and concepts got done, but almost no programming. I wanted to help out, but contributing code was difficult because I haven't used C# in years and I couldn't test my code. Also, nobody knew how to use source control. It died within two weeks.

* Programming got done, but all the artists dropped out. Game was to be in 3D, and we got a couple unrigged models (and one half-rigged one) but wasn't enough to work with. Our programming-art level models were good enough, but nobody wanted to spend hours on rigging as well as hours on programming for a hobby project. It died within a month.

* Programming got done, sprite work got done, lots of sample levels and level editor got done, but nobody wanted to get around to actually finishing the damn thing except me, and when I wanted to release the source code and level editor to the community FOSS so somebody else could do it, nobody else was willing to let that happen, so it's dead in a dropbox somewhere (none of the other programmers knew how to use version control) because it's proprietary

Those are the more notable ones. Every other project pretty much can be summed up as "everybody started off super stoked, but then everybody got burned out and dropped out, starting with the musicians, then the artists, then the writers, then the project management, then the programmers last". I wish I could do it with just programmers alone, but it takes so much fucking work and time to model, rig, and animate even shitty programmer-art models.

>>27389

>Every other project pretty much can be summed up as "everybody started off super stoked, but then everybody got burned out and dropped out, starting with the musicians, then the artists, then the writers, then the project management, then the programmers last"

That's pretty much it with our current project, outside of three people whom are left, two on design (including me) and light programming and one programmer. Luckely the guy's a genious so we're sill making slow but steady progress. We don't have a schedule, so we're okay. Plus, the code is extremely solid and functional, so we're good.

So many reasons.

Because most of the people are shit at what they do. Companies do not hire random people on the Internet, they make sure that the skills of the people they hire do match what they need for.

Game making groups take its everyone and everything, no matter how bad they are.

I looked multiple times for artists and game designers to team up with, and I never found anyone of them willing to learn version control, to write a design document or that actually knew game design.

Btw op, if you can are a decent artist and you can do the 3 things I said you are worth gold, so learn those of you can

not exactly speaking from experience, but the bulk of failed game projects I see are because of a lack of project management or not even acknowledging the need for it. things like lack of planning scope and schedule, not properly setting team expectations and workload, etc. a lot of teams, even some professionals just think it will work itself out, or just pick low hanging fruit, and it almost always leads to ruin.

but blaming it on teams is a little biased, I'm sure a lot of solo projects that fail in a similar manner, but with fewer people noticing. if no one on the team has been able to finish a project on their own, I doubt they'd be able to carry a team across the finish line with the added burden.

I worked in a small /x/ team for a videogame.

>Get musician, artist and some people who didn't actually have any clear position but worked as moral support

>Present myself as a programmer; suggest Python for a VN-like game (I didn't grok programming at the time)

>Two much more knowledgeable programmers jump in after that

>They start to take care of the programming side. Engine gets upgraded to 3D in Python, so I had no fucking idea of what to do with that codebase

>Slowly get demoted to ideaguy/writer/texture artist position (they didn't seem to mind, tho; there was a really friendly ambient in our IRC channel)

>We get some cool music

>We get some sparse art because the art guy was busy and couldn't work too much on the project

>Some guy also made some title screen mockups. They didn't look too good, but the concept behind them (it would become "corrupted" as the game advanced) was not bad.

>Eventually post progress in board

>"ur game is bad lol"

>"mockups look ugly"

>"I don't like the main character. why does she have dark skin. horror game protagonists have to be pale as paper, so just rip off Heather from SH"

>Team loses motivation

>Artist starts to appear less and less, try to find another one but shit was hard even with contacts

>Lament choice of Python for the engine (in part, it was my fault, but I had no idea of knowing that the scope of the game would increase this much). Start considering a rewrite in Java because one of the programmers was already burned out by C++

>Eventually come up with a radical change for the direction the game was going, much more promising

>Team slowly dissolves afterwards

Moral of the story is, never post progress outside of /agdg/. People outside of here don't understand dev process too much and will shit on it if you just post early stage assets.

I've been involved in two other projects, one of them unrelated to vidya. They failed for different reasons, such as not having a competent programmer (ironically, this one was a /g/ project) or everyone going FFA and an idea guy who joined later and wanted to change the direction of the project into pretty much a meme fest.

Joint ops with anon-made teams can work (they almost did in the first case), but you first have to guarantee a good chemistry with all members and that those members are competent and active. This is extremely difficult to achieve, so this is why you don't see many imageboard projects actually working. Truth is, we are all slackers.

>>27389

>and when I wanted to release the source code and level editor to the community FOSS so somebody else could do it, nobody else was willing to let that happen,

I genuinely understand your frustration. I am working with an IRL group of friends on a game and we initially agreed to make it FOSS, but they eventually backed off. They are afraid someone is going to steal it despite being yet another endless runner, as if there already weren't many free templates for those, and it sucks because I would like to reuse some parts of the code (where I contributed myself) for my own FOSS games and now I will have to redesign some very general frameworks to be able to use my own ideas in my own code.

Because I will not let you design your dream game with my time unless what you do is just amazing, and if you are amazing at it, it needs to make some sense to implement it.

Okay, so in this thread we have

An artist (>>27386)

A programmer (>>27389)

and an Idea guy (me)

Let's make a game, /agdg/!

Lots of factors, but going over them is pointless.

The most important thing is that you and your partner/team get along. And I don't mean on just a 'I know the guy a little' basis, there has to be a bit more. You'll be working together for months if not years.

Skill is honestly not as important because that's something you can improve over time. Results are what you want, even if they're subpar at first.

My recommendation is to team up and participate in a game jam. You'll find out everything you need to know about your team after it. If it worked well you can keep collaborating. If it didn't you only wasted a weekend as opposed to months.

>>27440

I'd actually really like that if we kept the scope small enough that we could make something not-shit before everybody gets burned out.

>>27433

>your dream game with my time

I'm talking about group projects, not jewish ideaguy-led projects.

>>27435

>people who have completed solo projects before

That's going to be much harder for an artist. You can't make a game without programming, but you can make a game without art.

Would be cool if there was some kind of template game that artists could make all the art for for the sake of practice.

>>27440

By the time we come to agreement on what kind of game to make the team will fall apart.

Just being realistic.

>>27383

In a similar thread back on /v/, I've raised the point that there simply isn't anyone to lead such a project.

People who can contribute, rarely want to lead, and people who want to lead can rarely contribute.

if there are people here that actually want to work on a project their best chance is some kind of game jam. even setting up a small one here would serve as practice working in teams if we predetermine all the details including what game to make and time limit.

I'm a UE4 blueprint shitter but I'm decent with them, I'm down for group projects if I'm at least tepidly interested in the subject matter / genre

i would be willing to try lead a small team, if only to be able to write on my curriculum that i did so, since team management is the only thing i cannot learn alone.

i'm not an idea guy and i have no particular interest over the kind of product to produce, and while being team manager i wouldn't want to be the designer. (this does not mean i'm looking for idea guys.)

i have time until October, before university starts again, so i would suggest a 2 months project. obviously if at end of september the project is still going strong there is no reason to stop it.

i think that a team of 5 people is big enough, with 2/3 artists and 3/2 programmers. The tools used will depend on the knowledge of the people involved.

The theme of the game will be decided by artists, since they are the ones that will have to actually be directly involved with that.

The mechanics of the game will be decided by programmers because of the same reason.

after the other 4 people are found we use one week to put down a design document that everyone agrees with and to decide which tools to use. after that we will divide the project into blocks that will be assigned to different peoples. we will do weekly revision of the design document.

things written in the design documents will be law.

if you are interested send a email to:

agdg.group@gmail.com

with the following info, (the example is based on me)

>position wanted

programmer

>skills in order of experience for the position you are applying for

c#, unity, c# reflection

c++, opengl, qt

python, java, jmonkey

>experience regarding other stuff

blender (basic of scripting), networking(but i really don't want to do a multiplayer game), game design, git, world machine pro.

>time you can dedicate to the project

7/7 for 2 months.

>examples of your previous works

on 8chan, the paradox engine map loading clone.

>extra

i have a copy of grand designer, a program to make good looking planets really fast that i haven't found to download for free anywhere on the internet.

>themes you would like to put in the game (for artists)

idea guys are not welcome, designers are expected to do something else too, and they are expected to know deeply general game design.

Everyone is expected to manage design documents, and programmers are expected to know git.

>>27459

>i'm not an idea guy and i have no particular interest over the kind of product to produce, and while being team manager i wouldn't want to be the designer. (this does not mean i'm looking for idea guys.)

So then what the hell are you? Sounds to me like you are an idea guy.

When was the last time that I sat around and though "Damn, I really need someone to lead me in a team over the internet instead of working on my own project"

I suppose I expressed my self poorly. When I said that I'm not an idea guy I meant that I'm a programmer.

You can think of it in term of game designer and game producer.

A designer decide how to make the game fun.

A producer decide how to make sure it get compleated.

I said I'm not a designer because I recognise that making the game fun is not my main skill, even if I do understand about game design.

>>27461

Btw, yes, you are right, I sounded like an idea guy even if I tried to say the opposite. I should have stated first that my main occupation is programming which is 98% of the work , and then on top of that I would keep the git repo and the design documents clean.

>>27471

Hey, if that was the deal, I'm all in. I'd even manage code audits and pull requests for the central repo.

It would have to be GPL, though, so that no one faggot involved can try to hijack the thing somehow for themselves.

>>27472

Well, Just wait for our game designer, considering the immense amount of nodevs we have around here, someone might want to collaborate.

Well it's not like a designer will fell off from the sky. If a team group up and nobody has previous experience with pure game design the best solution is to implement one system foreach guy involved, so that each one has only to name sure his system is fun