You know... I'd make games with the A-Team. Sure! Even if I was the only real developer, I feel like having four badass mercs could have some legitimately practical benefits within the industry.
my advice is don't wait for your dream team.. get going and use your progress to attract team members, cos a wall of searing white text isn't going to do much for you
cos a wall of searing white text isn't going to do much for you
Alas, I was having formatting errors
To comment on Sectaurs' reply:
It is true that eight months experience may not be a huge amount, but this is a posting for people in a similar position to myself who may be starting out and simply want to make great commercial games, and an opportunity to be part of a team that can do that.
And it may be that side jobs would be required to support yourself during the initial stages, but there are the potential for investors in the future and other methods of gaining funds.
I think the big issue a lot of artists (such as myself) have with collaborating with designers, is there's very little you guys actually show that separates a talented superstar designer from an aspiring designer that played a few videogames, and is highly opinionated.
Like if you have level design skills, can you show some level designs you've made? maybe a breakdown of what you were doing? Got any GDD you can share?
Show some mechanics of stuff? A level in Little Big Planet, or a Starcraft 2 campaign?
Yes, I really don't want to come off as I guy who has an idea and wants other people to envision it.
My specialist subject is 3D modelling; it's what I studied in University and it's what I want to do in industry.
My latest ambition to start a development team has been fuelled by my game idea which I have been developing in my own time. I was advised when I discussed my options with industry professionals that he who designs the game should not adopt another role as well, that is why I wish to assist the main 3D modeller as opposed be it, as capable as I would be. And since I have the vision of the game and experience with providing designs for a company, I have decided to adopt the designer role. (As well as handle all business matters)
Don't get me wrong, I do have skill and experience, and take more than my word and visit my portfolio website www.duncangallienne.co.uk.
This is simply my way of breaking into the industry, and help others too.
personally, I will suggest you get your feet wet in a production environment before diving in and starting your own team.
If you're leading a team, they will look up to you for your leadership and experience.
Building a game is not a simple task and you have to plan for a lot of the unexpected.
And trust me, in this industry, ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has a game idea they want to make and 'will be the next big thing'. The truly great ideas come from teams that have their shit together.
'What about Portal?' you ask? 'It was made by students!' you yell? Well, Portal wasn't Portal until it was taken in by Valve. Their experienced production staff really pushed that game to be what it has become today.
A game made by noobs will look and play like a game made by noobs.
Just from my personal experience, I can tell you that I've never seen an indie project survive past a few weeks with the original designer acting only as the "Idea Guy".
And since I have the vision of the game and experience with providing designs for a company, I have decided to adopt the designer role. (As well as handle all business matters)
Huge red flag, nobody wants to work with an "Idea Guy".. They want to see that you've made progress and that you have real passion for the project, they want to see that whether there is anyone there to work with you or not, you will still see to it's completion by your hand or by a group's.
This is a very common type of group, it fails nearly 100% of the time.
If you truly care about the project, you won't be that guy, you'll get off of your ass and work with or without people.
But understand that I'm not making a team to develop my particular game idea, I'm making a team to simply make games with, and my idea would be something to start off with. If it turns out that the team would not feel as though we could profit from it, then we could move onto something else; something that the team would be happy in making.
I've been part of game jam's and a company, so I'm well aware of the developement process of making games.
So just to be clear, I'm not pitching an idea, I'm pitching the potential to be part of a successful team.
If you truly care about the project, you won't be that guy, you'll get off of your ass and work with or without people.
Yes, I've been working very hard to develop my idea. I have made a Buisness plan of exactly how the compny would work which I have run through with buisness professionals.
And you seem to be getting me wrong again, I'm not simply an Idea Man. I'm a man with an idea, yes, but I would work as hard as anyone else to develop somthing which we could profit from using skills I have developed and learnt from industry. It wouldn't be so convincing if I simply advertise myself as a developer looking to form a team with nothing to work on.
Thanks a lot, It's a win win situation really. If the succeeds then, a successful business is born, but if it fails, the starting of a company can't be bad for the CV.
But alas, I feel as though my posting has fallen in amongst the wrong crowd
Thanks a lot, It's a win win situation really. If the succeeds then, a successful business is born, but if it fails, the starting of a company can't be bad for the CV.
But alas, I feel as though my posting has fallen in amongst the wrong crowd
Thanks for all your helpful advice anyway
Not the wrong crowd at all.
We're honest, and that's what you need.
We won't sugar coat anything.
The last thing you need to hear right now is people saying 'go for it!' with absolutely no thought behind it.
This forum has lots of experienced game developers. Many of us have been part of teams like you want to start. We're sharing our experience with you. A majority of new teams fail. It's the reality of the situation.
The more experienced the team the better chance of success.
If you don't want to come off as an idea man then it's probably best not to make a recruitment post with nothing to show in it, stating that you're basically looking for everything except a game designer.
yeah, go for it- but it bears repeating *do not hang about waiting till you've got the perfect team*
look at it this way: you will attract more talented people the more you have of your project done. It is highly likely that the people who come to you just from some text on a forum are going to be the very low end of the skill food chain. More experienced guys know:
1- if you've started a bunch of stuff on your own, it shows you're motivated and committed and won't flake out halfway through the project
2- the more content has been created, the higher chance of the project actually seeing the light of day
3- if you've got some design briefs/docs/concepts ready, and better yet prototyped in some of the tools like Ben Apuna posted, they can feel more confident in your design skills.
what is likely to happen if you get a team together from scratch when you have nothing of the project done, is you'll have inexperienced team members, who may fight with each other, disappear from the face of the earth, produce poor quality work which needs redone over and over again, etc etc.. and you'll go through several teams. You should put the idea of forming the perfect team from the get go out of your head, unless you know them all in person (which doesn't seem to be the case)
PS- in case you haven't guessed, I'm speaking from experience here, both joining mod/game teams and starting them- and for each of the projects I started I already had a bunch of assets which people liked the look of. And things *still didn't go very well, due to the teams ever-changing lineup and my own inexperience.
So just to be clear, I'm not pitching an idea, I'm pitching the potential to be part of a successful team.
Oh thank god, I thought you were pitching the potential to join a team headed up by a guy who has no business or product development experience composed entirely of individuals unable to work at a quality bar high enough to feel they deserve payment for their work.
But since the success is guaranteed, I will gladly join your project. Quitting my job right now to go join your successful team!
Honestly, forget about making commercial games. Nobody makes a good game on their first attempt. You're new, inexperienced, and you have so much to learn before you are able to make games that people will pay you money to make.
Sorry if I come off as rude, I'm just a bit sore with indie teams that have a core, "Idea Guy".. The last Idea Guy I had to deal with threatened to sue me..
If you want to build a cool team of game making dudes, start making a game and other folks will go "that looks cool, I want to help!"
Having brought nothing to the table at the moment, you give the impression as a guy who has nothing to contribute. Start to build something and you will generate interest.
If you want to build a cool team of game making dudes, start making a game and other folks will go "that looks cool, I want to help!"
Having brought nothing to the table at the moment, you give the impression as a guy who has nothing to contribute. Start to build something and you will generate interest.
^
In it's most simple form, that's really all I was trying to say as well.
Building a team and attempting to create a game right out the gate isn't the worst idea in the world. At best, you make an awesome game, and at worst you still have a learning experience. But there are smarter ways to get started, and everyone here is trying to help you out in that regard.
You probably know that making a game is a lot of work. Good! But it's almost always going to end up being about a hundred times more work than you initially expected.
And not only is it a ton of hard work, there are development pitfalls in every direction. Even if you slave away at your game, it's still entirely possible some tiny little detail you never even considered will bring your game to a screeching halt before you know it. Being experienced doesn't just mean you can contribute your fair share as an artist, but also means you know how to avoid those pitfalls. It shows you know how to manage a team and set realistic deadlines. And how to carry the project into a successful release.
So when you say you have no experience, and you want to start a team to make a game, you're generally only going to be able to pull in inexperienced talent like yourself. Why? Because as you can see in this thread, the guys who have been around the block once or twice know that an inexperienced leader results in a failed project nine times out of ten. And once you've invested weeks of work into something that never sees the light of day, you never want to see it happen again. That's why everyone is poking fun at you and giving you some shit, because it will take a lot of convincing on your part to show us you can pull something like this off your first time.
I've been there done that. I failed, learned some things, and moved on. More than once, actually. And I'm sure I am not alone here either. And as someone who's been in your position before, I'd recommend joining a team before starting one. You have less work to worry about, and you have a chance to see how things work before being told to run it all yourself. You don't open a bakery without knowing how to bake, and you shouldn't make a game without knowing how to make a game. That's just my own personal philosophy on the matter.
If you're brimming with passion about these great game ideas you have, excellent! That can fuel you to victory. But only if you're smart about how you do it. Otherwise, all that passion is going to go to waste and you'll have nothing to show for it. And that only makes it that much harder to try again.
My advice is: don't make others to lose their precious time. Start yourself something first and don't play as the director, and more IF you lack of quality.
Want to make games? find your strong point within game development, master it, and find a job. That's the easy way to make games with a good and productive team. In the internet is very difficult to form anything stable and solid, with a real pipeline (all the members have their life and they may not have enough time or level of quality). "leader" fights aka "i rule on you and you do what i say" are present in almost all the mods/ue3 teams.
And when a project have a bit of light, greed will kill all, and as in my case, you will receive a kick in your balls unless if you are the "leader".
The worst thing you can do is to drag people to your dream (sometimes a shared dream), and then.. see how the years pass away without doing anything. If you can't accomplish a simple task on time, forget all. But of course, you can keep dreaming , dreams are free.
To form a team, to attract people, you must have talent in anything related to game development, show your work!. If not, to our eyes, you will always be the "cool ideas guy" or the "random guy". Forget it and grow up, because making games is not easy.
yeah, go for it- but it bears repeating *do not hang about waiting till you've got the perfect team*
look at it this way: you will attract more talented people the more you have of your project done. It is highly likely that the people who come to you just from some text on a forum are going to be the very low end of the skill food chain. More experienced guys know:
1- if you've started a bunch of stuff on your own, it shows you're motivated and committed and won't flake out halfway through the project
2- the more content has been created, the higher chance of the project actually seeing the light of day
3- if you've got some design briefs/docs/concepts ready, and better yet prototyped in some of the tools like Ben Apuna posted, they can feel more confident in your design skills.
what is likely to happen if you get a team together from scratch when you have nothing of the project done, is you'll have inexperienced team members, who may fight with each other, disappear from the face of the earth, produce poor quality work which needs redone over and over again, etc etc.. and you'll go through several teams. You should put the idea of forming the perfect team from the get go out of your head, unless you know them all in person (which doesn't seem to be the case)
PS- in case you haven't guessed, I'm speaking from experience here, both joining mod/game teams and starting them- and for each of the projects I started I already had a bunch of assets which people liked the look of. And things *still didn't go very well, due to the teams ever-changing lineup and my own inexperience.
Listen to Rooster. He speaks truth.
Your looking for a team of 4. That's a medium size indie game studio tbh. Start by yourself, for now. Get a solid design doc together for your idea/s and get some animatics and assets created. Then if your lucky you might be able to attract a coder. Until then start looking at how you might be able to get it moving if you don't get a coder (Quest3D, unity, UDK, etc). I think (and I havent looked into this, so correct me if I'm wrong) but you can request help on TIGsource. Artist looking for coders and vice versa.
I myself, am just about to start an indie game as well. Luckily I have a coder friend that has an engine, but I didn't approch the coder till I had a design doc to show.
Replies
That's what he said, right?
gah, that white.
8 months experience does not inspire a whole lot of confidence when asked to work for free.
but i wish you the best.
my advice is don't wait for your dream team.. get going and use your progress to attract team members, cos a wall of searing white text isn't going to do much for you
Alas, I was having formatting errors
To comment on Sectaurs' reply:
It is true that eight months experience may not be a huge amount, but this is a posting for people in a similar position to myself who may be starting out and simply want to make great commercial games, and an opportunity to be part of a team that can do that.
And it may be that side jobs would be required to support yourself during the initial stages, but there are the potential for investors in the future and other methods of gaining funds.
Like if you have level design skills, can you show some level designs you've made? maybe a breakdown of what you were doing? Got any GDD you can share?
Show some mechanics of stuff? A level in Little Big Planet, or a Starcraft 2 campaign?
Otherwise you just come off to be the Idea Guy, saying you have some experience in everything.
[ame]
My specialist subject is 3D modelling; it's what I studied in University and it's what I want to do in industry.
My latest ambition to start a development team has been fuelled by my game idea which I have been developing in my own time. I was advised when I discussed my options with industry professionals that he who designs the game should not adopt another role as well, that is why I wish to assist the main 3D modeller as opposed be it, as capable as I would be. And since I have the vision of the game and experience with providing designs for a company, I have decided to adopt the designer role. (As well as handle all business matters)
Don't get me wrong, I do have skill and experience, and take more than my word and visit my portfolio website www.duncangallienne.co.uk.
This is simply my way of breaking into the industry, and help others too.
Yes, that's an old first year project, I can assure you, my skills have greatly improved since. You wouldn't find that on my portfolio
I'm sure every one has old projects floating about
If you're leading a team, they will look up to you for your leadership and experience.
Building a game is not a simple task and you have to plan for a lot of the unexpected.
And trust me, in this industry, ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has a game idea they want to make and 'will be the next big thing'. The truly great ideas come from teams that have their shit together.
'What about Portal?' you ask? 'It was made by students!' you yell? Well, Portal wasn't Portal until it was taken in by Valve. Their experienced production staff really pushed that game to be what it has become today.
A game made by noobs will look and play like a game made by noobs.
If you can't program yourself you can get started with:
Construct
GameMaker
Stencyl
Huge red flag, nobody wants to work with an "Idea Guy".. They want to see that you've made progress and that you have real passion for the project, they want to see that whether there is anyone there to work with you or not, you will still see to it's completion by your hand or by a group's.
This is a very common type of group, it fails nearly 100% of the time.
If you truly care about the project, you won't be that guy, you'll get off of your ass and work with or without people.
But understand that I'm not making a team to develop my particular game idea, I'm making a team to simply make games with, and my idea would be something to start off with. If it turns out that the team would not feel as though we could profit from it, then we could move onto something else; something that the team would be happy in making.
I've been part of game jam's and a company, so I'm well aware of the developement process of making games.
So just to be clear, I'm not pitching an idea, I'm pitching the potential to be part of a successful team.
Which is an idea.
Build a team, build a game with them. There is still a lot to learn if it all fails. If it's successful then great.
Yes, I've been working very hard to develop my idea. I have made a Buisness plan of exactly how the compny would work which I have run through with buisness professionals.
And you seem to be getting me wrong again, I'm not simply an Idea Man. I'm a man with an idea, yes, but I would work as hard as anyone else to develop somthing which we could profit from using skills I have developed and learnt from industry. It wouldn't be so convincing if I simply advertise myself as a developer looking to form a team with nothing to work on.
Thanks a lot, It's a win win situation really. If the succeeds then, a successful business is born, but if it fails, the starting of a company can't be bad for the CV.
But alas, I feel as though my posting has fallen in amongst the wrong crowd
Thanks for all your helpful advice anyway
Not the wrong crowd at all.
We're honest, and that's what you need.
We won't sugar coat anything.
The last thing you need to hear right now is people saying 'go for it!' with absolutely no thought behind it.
This forum has lots of experienced game developers. Many of us have been part of teams like you want to start. We're sharing our experience with you. A majority of new teams fail. It's the reality of the situation.
The more experienced the team the better chance of success.
Your credit rating on the other hand, well, bankruptcy is a bad thing.
look at it this way: you will attract more talented people the more you have of your project done. It is highly likely that the people who come to you just from some text on a forum are going to be the very low end of the skill food chain. More experienced guys know:
1- if you've started a bunch of stuff on your own, it shows you're motivated and committed and won't flake out halfway through the project
2- the more content has been created, the higher chance of the project actually seeing the light of day
3- if you've got some design briefs/docs/concepts ready, and better yet prototyped in some of the tools like Ben Apuna posted, they can feel more confident in your design skills.
what is likely to happen if you get a team together from scratch when you have nothing of the project done, is you'll have inexperienced team members, who may fight with each other, disappear from the face of the earth, produce poor quality work which needs redone over and over again, etc etc.. and you'll go through several teams. You should put the idea of forming the perfect team from the get go out of your head, unless you know them all in person (which doesn't seem to be the case)
PS- in case you haven't guessed, I'm speaking from experience here, both joining mod/game teams and starting them- and for each of the projects I started I already had a bunch of assets which people liked the look of. And things *still didn't go very well, due to the teams ever-changing lineup and my own inexperience.
I'm looking for gradutes; people in a similar position to myself but with enough skill and ambition to make somthing.
Oh thank god, I thought you were pitching the potential to join a team headed up by a guy who has no business or product development experience composed entirely of individuals unable to work at a quality bar high enough to feel they deserve payment for their work.
But since the success is guaranteed, I will gladly join your project. Quitting my job right now to go join your successful team!
Looking forward to all the success!
That while the comments here seem sarcastic and negative on the whole, this is how people (i.e. your peers) are viewing your request.
You may want to take a step back and listen to some of the guys that suggest you have more to show than just text.
Having brought nothing to the table at the moment, you give the impression as a guy who has nothing to contribute. Start to build something and you will generate interest.
^
In it's most simple form, that's really all I was trying to say as well.
You probably know that making a game is a lot of work. Good! But it's almost always going to end up being about a hundred times more work than you initially expected.
And not only is it a ton of hard work, there are development pitfalls in every direction. Even if you slave away at your game, it's still entirely possible some tiny little detail you never even considered will bring your game to a screeching halt before you know it. Being experienced doesn't just mean you can contribute your fair share as an artist, but also means you know how to avoid those pitfalls. It shows you know how to manage a team and set realistic deadlines. And how to carry the project into a successful release.
So when you say you have no experience, and you want to start a team to make a game, you're generally only going to be able to pull in inexperienced talent like yourself. Why? Because as you can see in this thread, the guys who have been around the block once or twice know that an inexperienced leader results in a failed project nine times out of ten. And once you've invested weeks of work into something that never sees the light of day, you never want to see it happen again. That's why everyone is poking fun at you and giving you some shit, because it will take a lot of convincing on your part to show us you can pull something like this off your first time.
I've been there done that. I failed, learned some things, and moved on. More than once, actually. And I'm sure I am not alone here either. And as someone who's been in your position before, I'd recommend joining a team before starting one. You have less work to worry about, and you have a chance to see how things work before being told to run it all yourself. You don't open a bakery without knowing how to bake, and you shouldn't make a game without knowing how to make a game. That's just my own personal philosophy on the matter.
If you're brimming with passion about these great game ideas you have, excellent! That can fuel you to victory. But only if you're smart about how you do it. Otherwise, all that passion is going to go to waste and you'll have nothing to show for it. And that only makes it that much harder to try again.
Best of luck!
Want to make games? find your strong point within game development, master it, and find a job. That's the easy way to make games with a good and productive team. In the internet is very difficult to form anything stable and solid, with a real pipeline (all the members have their life and they may not have enough time or level of quality). "leader" fights aka "i rule on you and you do what i say" are present in almost all the mods/ue3 teams.
And when a project have a bit of light, greed will kill all, and as in my case, you will receive a kick in your balls unless if you are the "leader".
The worst thing you can do is to drag people to your dream (sometimes a shared dream), and then.. see how the years pass away without doing anything. If you can't accomplish a simple task on time, forget all. But of course, you can keep dreaming
To form a team, to attract people, you must have talent in anything related to game development, show your work!. If not, to our eyes, you will always be the "cool ideas guy" or the "random guy". Forget it and grow up, because making games is not easy.
Think it well...
This is gold.
Spell check never gets that one right.
When you are that far, to where you have a design document and gameplay, then form a team.
Listen to Rooster. He speaks truth.
Your looking for a team of 4. That's a medium size indie game studio tbh. Start by yourself, for now. Get a solid design doc together for your idea/s and get some animatics and assets created. Then if your lucky you might be able to attract a coder. Until then start looking at how you might be able to get it moving if you don't get a coder (Quest3D, unity, UDK, etc). I think (and I havent looked into this, so correct me if I'm wrong) but you can request help on TIGsource. Artist looking for coders and vice versa.
I myself, am just about to start an indie game as well. Luckily I have a coder friend that has an engine, but I didn't approch the coder till I had a design doc to show.