I think the perceived hostility comes from this: what you're asking is "I have a hammer and a Home Depot nearby, and I can hire day laborers. How do I build a house?" And what people are trying to say is "you don't just build a house man, there are permits and equipment to rent and plans to draw, and it takes forever and is super dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and you need a lot more than just a hammer." To which you reply "But I'm great at hammering things. All I want to know is how to build a house."
Your perception of the situation simply doesn't match reality- you're not asking the right questions. What you should be asking is "how do I get good enough at game development so that I could potentially make this game on my own someday?" There are many, many resources out there to help you with this if you attack it from the right angle.
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
Esh, I can't help but notice you live in France according to your location indicator. British English and American English have different grammar.
I live in France because I'm studying abroad (I'm American and I was born in Ohio, which has one of the most neutral dialects around). One of my two majors is Applied Linguistics. I'm a pretty good judge of language and grammar. It's not your grammar, it's straight up mistakes like misusing "it's" as a possessive pronoun. Your writing is very, very unprofessional, which is something you should be aiming for. When writing proposals, you need to use an appropriate "voice".
I'd like to say that there's nothing particularly wrong with making a bad game, if you are passionate about the process. You won't make money, but you'll probably learn something. Everyone starts somewhere. You will not find anyone (barring rich relatives) to fund this project, but I don't think that that should deter you from giving it a shot. The art is not great... but it has a kinda naive charm about it that, given further development of the world, could work in a goofy kind of way.
Best bet would be to(as others have already said): fully flesh out your idea. Right now you don't have an Idea, you have the inkling of what could potentially be one if you put about 100 times more effort into it. Your brief descriptions of generalized game mechanics are not ideas, but rather placeholders for what your Idea will hopefully attain.
If you look at any successful/professionally developed game on the market you will notice that the worlds, characters, props, mechanics, etc are highly detailed entities that are independently, fully thought-out and integrated elements that come together to form the ultimate Idea behind that Final Fantasy/AnyGame Universe. Characters have developed personalities & backstories, that integrate with the plot(which has an actual narrative structure). Right now, you have the initial bubbles on your flow chart with nothing connected to them.
Once you have this all figured out with a complete Idea, then you might be able to find some other passionate people willing to help you out.
But, just because it's incredibly hard to make a game doesn't mean it can't be done, all it takes is passion, dedication, and the acceptance of these concepts: you will likely make absolutely no money and your chances are pretty slim that anyone will even play it. Making a game is just like any other artform, you gotta make a lot of crap before you can ever approach making anything worthwhile.
Oh and lose the video of you drawing "scarlett". It's about 9 minutes too long and completely unnecessary, anyone can see how you drew it just by looking at the finished piece.
Zilo, in my perspective it seems a little more like.. having a cold and saying 'I feel sick' and being told 'take some cold medicine' then replying 'ok, just took some' then someone else walking in and saying 'Geez take some cold medicine' "I did" and someone else going "Damnit why don't you know to take your medicine??"
I'm running around trying to detail and work out the plans better, and fix things, and follow advise; but its stressful to be working on fixing something while people are sending in new replies with endings and side notes that imply they think I'm not following any advice given.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
Zilo, in my perspective it seems a little more like.. having a cold and saying 'I feel sick' and being told 'take some cold medicine' then replying 'ok, just took some' then someone else walking in and saying 'Geez take some cold medicine' "I did" and someone else going "Damnit why don't you know to take your medicine??"
I'm running around trying to detail and work out the plans better, and fix things, and follow advise; but its stressful to be working on fixing something while people are sending in new replies with endings and side notes that imply they think I'm not following any advice given.
There seems to be a real disconnect here. Our advice is "nobody cares about game designers, you need to learn to code or do all the art or something if you want the game to get made." In what sense have you done any of that?
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
Zilo, in my perspective it seems a little more like.. having a cold and saying 'I feel sick' and being told 'take some cold medicine' then replying 'ok, just took some' then someone else walking in and saying 'Geez take some cold medicine' "I did" and someone else going "Damnit why don't you know to take your medicine??"
I'm running around trying to detail and work out the plans better, and fix things, and follow advise; but its stressful to be working on fixing something while people are sending in new replies with endings and side notes that imply they think I'm not following any advice given.
Basically, here's what you need to do. Get a real skill (go to school!). Network (again, school!). Then work on what you're trying to do now. You have years ahead of you before you can do what you want to.
Zilo, in my perspective it seems a little more like.. having a cold and saying 'I feel sick' and being told 'take some cold medicine' then replying 'ok, just took some' then someone else walking in and saying 'Geez take some cold medicine' "I did" and someone else going "Damnit why don't you know to take your medicine??"
I'm running around trying to detail and work out the plans better, and fix things, and follow advise; but its stressful to be working on fixing something while people are sending in new replies with endings and side notes that imply they think I'm not following any advice given.
There seems to be a real disconnect here. Our advice is "nobody cares about game designers, you need to learn to code or do all the art or something if you want the game to get made." In what sense have you done any of that?
Oh well you see, I went into the DRAGON BALL Z dimension and used their hyperbolic time chamber to spend 4 months practicing my coding work in the last 2 hours-I cannot learn to become a professional programmer in two hours!! I'm fixing the things i CAN fix right now so my idea gets to a form that can be understood and worked with, as OTHER people have suggested. (just to be clear i intend this as a joke, not as screaming at you)
Anyways, Esh, School is basically out of the question for me; I live in the middle of nowhere, the college we have doesn't have any computer related majors at all, and I barely make enough to live on in the first place so I can't afford the immense cost of college. I don't work at a sewer plant because it's fun, its because its the only thing keeping me from the streets.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
There's no real excuse for any of that if you want to follow your dream. Set goals. This particular goal happens to be years in the future, but it doesn't mean you have to put it away. Long-term goals should drive you. If you're not really interested in the things that it takes to achieve those goals, it's not a dream then was it?
Earlier I recommend against the viability of design documents at this stage of what you are trying to do, but that was hasty and wrong of me. The goal at this point shouldn't be to write a design document to advertise your idea to prospective programmers, artists, musicians, and writers, but rather it should be to get you thinking like a game designer. You need to think of it in those terms. You're jump ahead to "what skills my cool idea for a character should have" when you really need to think, explicitly, about what you want your game to be and how you need to make it be that thing you want it to be.
A design document is a necessary step anyway, but I think you should really start there.
There's no real excuse for any of that if you want to follow your dream. Set goals. This particular goal happens to be years in the future, but it doesn't mean you have to put it away. Long-term goals should drive you. If you're not really interested in the things that it takes to achieve those goals, it's not a dream then was it?
Patience.
yeah yeah patience how long is that going to take? XD Sorry no choice but to say that, the Frantics fan in me compels me. Anyways, I know it takes time, I'm willing to put in the work it takes to get there; but it is impossible to show proof of something as abstract as 'learning' The only way I can show for the fact that I'm listening to the advice given to me is that I'm following it.
I only wish I'd taken a before pic of what i had about the game when i first posted so I can show that I've put a lot of work over the last few hours purely into following advice that's been given to me so far. My main argument, which is hard to decipher because things get weird when I get defensive on a forum, is that I am actually trying to follow advice despite that some people imply I am not.
Also: I'm kind of afraid of getting too specific about the game mechanics because it will take a lot of tweaking, which I won't be able to do until I have a rough working model to test things on. The exact numbers and formulas have to work together to avoid total imbalance not just 'be there'
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
But you're not following advice. You're looking for the magical fast lane that takes a one-month-old game idea and some basic skills gained in your free time and turns them into a development project. That's just not realistic.
Seriously. Be patient, set achievable goals, and above all develop your technical skills. You can already draw better than most game designers I know, you'll never need to do sound. You may need to know some scripting someday, and you'll definitely need to master an editor or three before you know enough to start putting together a game.
It will take years. There's no magic to it, just work.
But you're not following advice. You're looking for the magical fast lane that takes a one-month-old game idea and some basic skills gained in your free time and turns them into a development project. That's just not realistic.
Seriously. Be patient, set achievable goals, and above all develop your technical skills. You can already draw better than most game designers I know, you'll never need to do sound. You may need to know some scripting someday, and you'll definitely need to master an editor or three before you know enough to start putting together a game.
It will take years. There's no magic to it, just work.
A lot of people have posted a lot of varied advice. And a lot of walls of text. In the time constraints of now about 4ish hours or so, there is only so much I can do. I've added several new pages to the 'site' at least tripled the amount of information on it based on questions asked and things pointed out, and have been here posting and answering questions as well. The parts that say 'it will take time' i understand, but passing time, and doing productive things while passing time are two different things, and I'm trying to do the second of the two.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
The reason your progress isn't clear is because your responses have the subtext of
Yea, I knew that already, but surely I'm missing something else
Nope. You're not. The fact that this thread continued without you saying
Points taken, thank you. I want to learn how design documents are made and want to become a better programmer/artist. What is my next step since higher education is, for right now, out of the question?
just continues to make us think that you aren't actually taking to heart the comments that are being said. Even more so, calling out Esh's comment because he lives in France. Even if he was a native francophone, you have no idea what his background is. He could be a published author telling you that your writing needs work, but you blew it off and took it as hostile/worthless.
Regarding idea men, they exist, but they have other job functions too. A large part of my job is creating a lot of original content. I was hired because I have a portfolio of past work and education in the field. I've also been active in design meetings, have had success with smaller projects, and now my ideas carry more weight. Ideas aren't the only part of my job, but to have your ideas even be considered you need to prove yourself.
I didn't say 'yeah i knew that already' to anything; I even searched my posts to be sure and I haven't. I've said thanks in my first reply, I've admitted to several mistakes, and started correcting them. Heck, I even said my 2D art needs some more work in my first reply and someone still later railed on me about my lacking higher art quality.
I 'called out' Esh mainly because he was insisting on being rude. His first post included a 'you should have run it through spellcheck' when i DID and my spellcheck had said everything was spelled fine. Then he claimed I barely had a high school level understanding of English. At which point I noticed he lived in France. I know personally that in the UK, English has different Grammar, as well as different spelling for several words, so I pointed it out.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
You can't take honest critique without getting extremely defensive and attacking those who are trying to help you. I predict this project will never get anywhere.
I didn't say 'yeah i knew that already' to anything; I even searched my posts to be sure and I haven't. I've said thanks in my first reply, I've admitted to several mistakes, and started correcting them. Heck, I even said my 2D art needs some more work in my first reply and someone still later railed on me about my lacking higher art quality.
I 'called out' Esh mainly because he was insisting on being rude. His first post included a 'you should have run it through spellcheck' when i DID and my spellcheck had said everything was spelled fine. Then he claimed I barely had a high school level understanding of English. At which point I noticed he lived in France. I know personally that in the UK, English has different Grammar, as well as different spelling for several words, so I pointed it out.
1) I said subtext, not text.
2) "Some more work" is an understatement. Your artwork does not have a strong enough style. It is not a matter of putting a little more work into it. You need to develop your identity as an artist. This is not me railing on you, your art does not stand out. Bad art can stand out and totally work in a game, but it needs style. It needs identity. You've only shown very generic work.
3) Spellcheck is not style check.
4) He claimed that your writing was at the high school level, not your understand of the English language.
5) The language differences between other anglophone countries do not impact one's ability to communicate an idea. Again though, why does it matter where he lives? Answer, it doesn't. You have no idea of his, or anyone's background here. For all you know you have published authors, developers, project coordinators, and professional artists giving you their professional advice. While we shouldn't have to hold up our career cards to have our comments be respected, you need to listen to everything being said. If you don't understand a comment, ask for clarification.
You can't take honest critique without getting extremely defensive and attacking those who are trying to help you. I predict this project will never get anywhere.
There is a difference between Constructive criticism and Destructive criticism.
When talking about art: "Does this really look like something worth looking at" is NOT constructive criticism. That is destructive criticism. Constructive criticism would be "The lines on this picture need to be smoothed out more.. etc." You know.. actual advice.
Critique can in fact be given without adding in unnecessary mild insults, smugness, and "or you could just ignore me" side notes. That stuff is unnecessary and just reinforces the feeling of hostility that I've been TRYING to deal with while following as much advice as I can. I would very much prefer to just follow advice and learn; but people keep implying that I'm not trying regardless of the fact that anyone who saw what I had at first and looked to see what I have now would see that I have been trying to fix things.
It feels almost like you guys are so used to seeing people refuse to learn or admit to any mistakes that you aren't actually paying attention to what i'm saying and just assuming I'm arguing against your actual advice.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
You are spending more time typing in the forum than you are developing your idea. You do NOT have to instantly respond to every single comment. Ruminate over the comments, quietly develop your work, then come back after you've made about a day or two of progress. Then check back into the thread and note your progress. You'll be far more productive that way. The old adage about "game developers never read forums lol" is true, not because they are arrogant or ignorant, but because they are far too busy working to even have time to pop their head into forums all day. That's the kind of mental discipline you need to have if you want to get your project off the ground.
Dungeons of Dredmor is a great graphical roguelike, and the last patch just added mod support. It's relatively simple to mod, and might be a good starting point if you are looking to make a roguelike game with graphics. At the very least, you can get some working concepts to show to people.
There are many other good games that are easy to mod. You might want to start there. You need a working prototype, and a mod is the easiest way to do it, for video games.
The reason your progress isn't clear is because your responses have the subtext of
Yea, I knew that already, but surely I'm missing something else
Nope. You're not. The fact that this thread continued without you saying
Points taken, thank you. I want to learn how design documents are made and want to become a better programmer/artist. What is my next step since higher education is, for right now, out of the question?
just continues to make us think that you aren't actually taking to heart the comments that are being said. Even more so, calling out Esh's comment because he lives in France. Even if he was a native francophone, you have no idea what his background is. He could be a published author telling you that your writing needs work, but you blew it off and took it as hostile/worthless.
I was typing something but Skoal Cat pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I want to give my .02 cents as a computer science student who would be interested in doing the programming for a small game, and is specifically looking for an artist to collaborate with.
I will reiterate that you will never get a game made with just an idea. Every CS student I know has game ideas, me and my girlfriend, who is also a CS student have spent far too many hours pitching and brainstorming game ideas to each other. To assemble a team to make a game, you need to be bringing something to the table.
I didn't say 'yeah i knew that already' to anything; I even searched my posts to be sure and I haven't. I've said thanks in my first reply, I've admitted to several mistakes, and started correcting them. Heck, I even said my 2D art needs some more work in my first reply and someone still later railed on me about my lacking higher art quality.
What exactly are you looking for out of this thread right now? Because it seems like your initial question has been answered, the only person I see being hostile is you. Everyone else is being honest, brutally honest in some cases. You will never get anywhere with your attitude right now, because you will never improve as an artist if your not willing to take an honest critique.
My honest answer to your question, is ask it again in a year or two. You have an idea for a game, great! You are nowhere near ready to begin to make it. Making art for a game requires a massive amount of work. All I have seen is a single character shot, which is just the upper body and mostly the head. Make several character concepts, not just heads, full body. If you said you wanted your game to have a walking animation. Teach yourself to make a walk cycle. Go the library and get a book. I just googled how to make a walk cycle and several tutorials came up. You admitted you needed to work on your art. Good, now starting doing that, you don't need a team right now, you need to be better at art if that's what you want to bring to the table.
You can't take honest critique without getting extremely defensive and attacking those who are trying to help you. I predict this project will never get anywhere.
There is a difference between Constructive criticism and Destructive criticism.
When talking about art: "Does this really look like something worth looking at" is NOT constructive criticism. That is destructive criticism. Constructive criticism would be "The lines on this picture need to be smoothed out more.. etc." You know.. actual advice.
Critique can in fact be given without adding in unnecessary mild insults, smugness, and "or you could just ignore me" side notes. That stuff is unnecessary and just reinforces the feeling of hostility that I've been TRYING to deal with while following as much advice as I can. I would very much prefer to just follow advice and learn; but people keep implying that I'm not trying regardless of the fact that anyone who saw what I had at first and looked to see what I have now would see that I have been trying to fix things.
It feels almost like you guys are so used to seeing people refuse to learn or admit to any mistakes that you aren't actually paying attention to what i'm saying and just assuming I'm arguing against your actual advice.
If you don't understand why your art needs work, then respond with "Maybe I don't see it, what is this design missing?"
The advice of "look at other games" is just that. Look around yourself, look at games, look at posters, look at other art that is living and breathing in the world. Look at it with a critical eye and ask, "Why does this work? What are they doing different from what I am doing? Can I copy this? What would happen if I drew my character in that style? Would it change them somehow?"
What exactly are you looking for out of this thread right now?
At this moment I just want people to stop assuming that I'm bragging about anything. I've barely given myself any credit for any of my 'skills' and talked more about my flaws, yet the way some people are acting you'd think they were trying to tear me down for claiming that one of my 'skills' was perfect.
Skoal: The 'critique' my art got was after I said my art needs improvement already, and his post was basically a harsh way of saying my art needs improvement, but without anything about what about the art needs improving. That is totally unnecessary, it doesn't say anything I didn't already know, doesn't tell me how to improve, its just complaining.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
I'm not assuming your bragging, I don't believe anyone else is either. I think you do not understand the massive endeavor and commitment that making a game entails. I am telling you, that based on what I have seen, you do not need a game design team. You need to work on your fundamental art skills before you even begin to think about applying those to a game.
JWashke on
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I'll second @evanismyname because you have some kinda thoughts on some parts of a game, but not enough to actually make it into a game. It looks like you're just trying to jump the gun, and you're not doing it in a 'good' manner. Like, you're taking shortcuts and not really listening to the advice given here. Two or 4 hours spent here is nothing compared to the months that you'll spend doing the designing and planning and coding and prototyping and failing. You have some ideas, but no cohesive stories. Adding a few more pages to your angelfire website doesn't make it any more of a design document. You still haven't thought out everything.
Telling me what the text boxes kinda look like is nothing. Draw it out. Draw it and change the styles around. This is your world and your characters, and it doesn't look like you have that really planned out, other than an image that took less than 10 minutes to draw. That's not very inspiring on any level.
Do characters have a conversation in the box on the bottom of the screen, a la Final Fantasy, and their portraits appear on the left and right sides and change as the conversation occurs? Does the background change for each character? Does the font? Will there be a tone to imitate their talking? Is it voice acted?
You don't have any of that. "Stuff happens in a box" means nothing. Is this a pop-up box, and I have to hit the Enter key or click the OK button each time? What are you imagining. That shit should be there.
You know all those pics you see of people posting possible drawings of characters and whatnot (you know, the concept art) that sell in the collector's edition with all the artwork of what the characters and cities and weapons and vehicles and NPCs and stuff looks like? Do that. Draw everything. Experiment with what everything will look like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI5-GZkKBDQ
You should also consider learning a lot more about storytelling. What is the motivation for the characters in the game to do what they do? What motivation do I, as a player, have to keep playing the game? What is happening in the world? What makes your world different than anyone else's?
What is it about Bioware's games and their storytelling that they do differently that makes their games awesome (cuz it certainly isn't their technical prowess)?
To keep what Drez has said, here's more stuff to read, if you're serious about designing games. Well, or anything. It's pretty much the same basic concept.
Regardless of what you think of Richard Garriott, I think there's a few things in his interview here that you should consider. Especially about game design. Read it. The guy wrote games when you were a kid, if you were even alive (I was in diapers when his first games were coming out, I can only guess at your age). I'd like to think that a guy who has more experience in a certain field than I have years on this planet at least kind of knows what he's talking about. http://www.industrygamers.com/news/game-industry-legends-richard-garriott-de-cayeux/
Here's a guy who's made games and isn't as, uh, full of himself. Read that. The whole thing. Take your time. Read it twice, and another hundred times after that. http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html
Spend some time with the CRPG addict: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/
Considering he's playing CRPGs chronologically, you can see from everything how stuff works. I imagine you'll be along the lines of some of the older top-down square tile-based RPGs (shot in the dark, I honestly have no idea and there's never been any indication of this kind of thing either), so you can learn from this what to do and what not to do. I think it's a great "show, don't tell" on games and game design in general.
What exactly are you looking for out of this thread right now?
At this moment I just want people to stop assuming that I'm bragging about anything. I've barely given myself any credit for any of my 'skills' and talked more about my flaws, yet the way some people are acting you'd think they were trying to tear me down for claiming that one of my 'skills' was perfect.
Skoal: The 'critique' my art got was after I said my art needs improvement already, and his post was basically a harsh way of saying my art needs improvement, but without anything about what about the art needs improving. That is totally unnecessary, it doesn't say anything I didn't already know, doesn't tell me how to improve, its just complaining.
I didn't notice anyone saying you were bragging about your skills. I saw a bunch of people saying "This is what you need to do to get to my goals"
As for art critique, go post your art in the Artist's Corner. I guarantee you will get excellent art critique there.
Ron: my talking about time isn't saying i'm trying to cram everything together as fast as I can.. but rather than in such a short period of time I cannot be expected to have fixed every problem given to me. Basically I'VE been saying that I need more time. XD
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
What exactly are you looking for out of this thread right now?
At this moment I just want people to stop assuming that I'm bragging about anything. I've barely given myself any credit for any of my 'skills' and talked more about my flaws, yet the way some people are acting you'd think they were trying to tear me down for claiming that one of my 'skills' was perfect.
Skoal: The 'critique' my art got was after I said my art needs improvement already, and his post was basically a harsh way of saying my art needs improvement, but without anything about what about the art needs improving. That is totally unnecessary, it doesn't say anything I didn't already know, doesn't tell me how to improve, its just complaining.
Even if that was the case, aren't you just pointing out one person who said something (subjectively) harsh or at least unhelpful? You're saying the bulk of us are being meanies, and that's just irritating. If one person out of ten is being unhelpful, why don't you spend time talking to and asking questions of the other nine people you think are helping?
Ron: my talking about time isn't saying i'm trying to cram everything together as fast as I can.. but rather than in such a short period of time I cannot be expected to have fixed every problem given to me. Basically I'VE been saying that I need more time. XD
So what is it you want from us? You know you need more time to work on stuff. What are we doing here?
Hey guys, I want to learn to make video games. I know I need to improve my art and become a better coder, but what else do I need to do?
Improve your art and become a better coder, also look at all of the other things involved in game design and production.
I know I need to be a better artist and coder, but what else do I need to do?
largely because the 9 who were helpful, were good at being helpful, and I understand what they said the first time they said it, and went to work on fixing some of those things.
For example: One of Ron's posts last page I replied to as many of his questions as I could, then said I would put that information into the site to further detail it. I didn't complain at him, or anything, I just followed what he said.
Skoal: I'm sorry if that's what I sound like; but that's not what I'm meaning. I'm working on my artwork a few hours a day.. aside from today since I've been writing nonstop. I am actually, actively working on improving my artwork. I don't think I've said no to any advice given to me so far; aside from not saying anything because far too much has been said for me to reply to. I've got the creating a design document page bookmarked, and am listening to the videos Ron posted a few minutes ago.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
The things you can change in a few hours are not the most important things that you need to work on. Its a matter of priorities.
Yes, I think the problem is, it feels, to me, like everyone is assuming I don't intend to take any of the long term advice, and I want to prove that I do, and the short term advice I can do I want to do to show I am taking advice, which then apparently is getting me told that I should be focusing more on the long term advice; which I can't show for, and I am fairly sure right now my saying that is being taken to mean that I don't want to because it doesn't feel like progress? I just want it to be clear that I am trying to follow as much advice as I can.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
Yes, I think the problem is, it feels, to me, like everyone is assuming I don't intend to take any of the long term advice, and I want to prove that I do, and the short term advice I can do I want to do to show I am taking advice, which then apparently is getting me told that I should be focusing more on the long term advice; which I can't show for, and I am fairly sure right now my saying that is being taken to mean that I don't want to because it doesn't feel like progress?
Esh (...), I know my writing is above high school level. I've been to High School. I've passed High School, and my writing SAT score came back as a fair bit above average when I took it.
The things you can change in a few hours are not the most important things that you need to work on. Its a matter of priorities.
Yes, I think the problem is, it feels, to me, like everyone is assuming I don't intend to take any of the long term advice, and I want to prove that I do, and the short term advice I can do I want to do to show I am taking advice, which then apparently is getting me told that I should be focusing more on the long term advice; which I can't show for, and I am fairly sure right now my saying that is being taken to mean that I don't want to because it doesn't feel like progress? I just want it to be clear that I am trying to take as much advice as I can.
We're not your teacher at school, we're not looking for signs of progress or expecting you to hand something in for approval. You asked for help, it was given. Now go make a great game and we'll take a look when it's done. Even if it takes 5 years, we have nothing better to do than hang around help/advice so we'll be here. If you have no further questions then the thread is done for now.
I think the point you're missing is that this is where you basically stop posting in this thread for a while, and then when you feel you have something meaningful to show maybe a month from now, then you update this thread and then let people give you feedback. The updates you've made to the website don't really help at all. You still have pretty bad spelling and grammar and it still doesn't convey anything that anyone's going to care about. Walk away, put in some work, and come back when you actually have something to show the forum and then be prepared for more criticism.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Oh, I forgot Jason Rohrer. He made "Inside a Star Filled Sky", which I think is an awesome game. I think he has some great ideas on games and game design. http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/
So really we have a big thread here of people trying to answer the question in the title: "How does one form a game design team without being raged at?" What perhaps we should be answering is the related but slightly different question, "How do I, galdon, form a game design team without being raged at?" This would be a different set of answers. The answers to the first question are all over this thread. The answers to the second question will be something like "you have to stop being defensive and interpreting every piece of criticism as either a direct insult or an opportunity to point out that the person giving the critique is wrong because they don't understand precisely what you are trying to say."
We all thought you were getting raged at for the normal reasons (you want to make a game but you can't do anything other than design it, you want other people to do the work for you, you know nothing of game design but are convinced that you can do it) but it turns out that instead of (or more likely in addition to) all of that rage, what you're actually getting is rage from people who take time out of their day to help a stranger on the Internet, but instead of getting a "thank you," they get "you live in France and my SAT scores are high" or "you are wrong about me, I actually have other skills" or "all of this stuff you said is not helpful because I don't want to believe it" or "stop yelling at me for not taking your advice, I'm definitely taking your advice despite showing signs of not having understood it at all!" and stuff like this.
The rage you're getting from us is the rage you get when you try to form a game team: it's rage from people who just can't get through to you because every legitimate criticism is to you not an opportunity to grow but a hole that has to be patched over with an excuse.
Esh is the only person I complained at, and only because he basically did a "not perfect? Its barely tolerable" sort of thing. Plus forum posts are hardly a real example of writing ability; there's almost no proofreading and mostly written off the top of my head.
But anyways, i'm going to take Druhim's advice now and go ahead and stop talking for now and get back to working on the game and my art.
galdon on
Go in, get the girl, kill the dragon. What's so hard about that? ... Oh, so THAT'S what a dragon looks like.
Your website for the "game" however should be a strong example of how you can write clearly, effectively, and creatively. Your website completely fails to instill any interest or confidence in the "game".
I'm going to go in a somewhat different direction and suggest that you check out Inform.
It is a system for creating interactive text adventures. I suggest you create a few text games to get your mind wrapped around designing something interactive and fun. Continue to refine ideas about your dream game while you create smaller games. Inform uses a programming language that resembles regular English, but when you get down to it, you will find it is much more "programmy" than it first seems. It will help you develop logic skills you need when you are actually programming your game or scripting levels/events inside of it.
Basically, you need to work in small chunks. I'm suggesting you make tiny, easy to make games as an alternative to just taking more classes or practicing art.
If it makes any difference to you, I am a developer at a large studio that has released hugely successful games. I never took classes beyond a few at community college. All the skills I have were learned because I wanted to create something. Get free software. Do tutorials.
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Your perception of the situation simply doesn't match reality- you're not asking the right questions. What you should be asking is "how do I get good enough at game development so that I could potentially make this game on my own someday?" There are many, many resources out there to help you with this if you attack it from the right angle.
I live in France because I'm studying abroad (I'm American and I was born in Ohio, which has one of the most neutral dialects around). One of my two majors is Applied Linguistics. I'm a pretty good judge of language and grammar. It's not your grammar, it's straight up mistakes like misusing "it's" as a possessive pronoun. Your writing is very, very unprofessional, which is something you should be aiming for. When writing proposals, you need to use an appropriate "voice".
Best bet would be to(as others have already said): fully flesh out your idea. Right now you don't have an Idea, you have the inkling of what could potentially be one if you put about 100 times more effort into it. Your brief descriptions of generalized game mechanics are not ideas, but rather placeholders for what your Idea will hopefully attain.
If you look at any successful/professionally developed game on the market you will notice that the worlds, characters, props, mechanics, etc are highly detailed entities that are independently, fully thought-out and integrated elements that come together to form the ultimate Idea behind that Final Fantasy/AnyGame Universe. Characters have developed personalities & backstories, that integrate with the plot(which has an actual narrative structure). Right now, you have the initial bubbles on your flow chart with nothing connected to them.
Once you have this all figured out with a complete Idea, then you might be able to find some other passionate people willing to help you out.
But, just because it's incredibly hard to make a game doesn't mean it can't be done, all it takes is passion, dedication, and the acceptance of these concepts: you will likely make absolutely no money and your chances are pretty slim that anyone will even play it. Making a game is just like any other artform, you gotta make a lot of crap before you can ever approach making anything worthwhile.
Oh and lose the video of you drawing "scarlett". It's about 9 minutes too long and completely unnecessary, anyone can see how you drew it just by looking at the finished piece.
I'm running around trying to detail and work out the plans better, and fix things, and follow advise; but its stressful to be working on fixing something while people are sending in new replies with endings and side notes that imply they think I'm not following any advice given.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Basically, here's what you need to do. Get a real skill (go to school!). Network (again, school!). Then work on what you're trying to do now. You have years ahead of you before you can do what you want to.
Oh well you see, I went into the DRAGON BALL Z dimension and used their hyperbolic time chamber to spend 4 months practicing my coding work in the last 2 hours-I cannot learn to become a professional programmer in two hours!! I'm fixing the things i CAN fix right now so my idea gets to a form that can be understood and worked with, as OTHER people have suggested. (just to be clear i intend this as a joke, not as screaming at you)
Anyways, Esh, School is basically out of the question for me; I live in the middle of nowhere, the college we have doesn't have any computer related majors at all, and I barely make enough to live on in the first place so I can't afford the immense cost of college. I don't work at a sewer plant because it's fun, its because its the only thing keeping me from the streets.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Patience.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Earlier I recommend against the viability of design documents at this stage of what you are trying to do, but that was hasty and wrong of me. The goal at this point shouldn't be to write a design document to advertise your idea to prospective programmers, artists, musicians, and writers, but rather it should be to get you thinking like a game designer. You need to think of it in those terms. You're jump ahead to "what skills my cool idea for a character should have" when you really need to think, explicitly, about what you want your game to be and how you need to make it be that thing you want it to be.
A design document is a necessary step anyway, but I think you should really start there.
yeah yeah patience how long is that going to take? XD Sorry no choice but to say that, the Frantics fan in me compels me. Anyways, I know it takes time, I'm willing to put in the work it takes to get there; but it is impossible to show proof of something as abstract as 'learning' The only way I can show for the fact that I'm listening to the advice given to me is that I'm following it.
I only wish I'd taken a before pic of what i had about the game when i first posted so I can show that I've put a lot of work over the last few hours purely into following advice that's been given to me so far. My main argument, which is hard to decipher because things get weird when I get defensive on a forum, is that I am actually trying to follow advice despite that some people imply I am not.
Also: I'm kind of afraid of getting too specific about the game mechanics because it will take a lot of tweaking, which I won't be able to do until I have a rough working model to test things on. The exact numbers and formulas have to work together to avoid total imbalance not just 'be there'
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Seriously. Be patient, set achievable goals, and above all develop your technical skills. You can already draw better than most game designers I know, you'll never need to do sound. You may need to know some scripting someday, and you'll definitely need to master an editor or three before you know enough to start putting together a game.
It will take years. There's no magic to it, just work.
A lot of people have posted a lot of varied advice. And a lot of walls of text. In the time constraints of now about 4ish hours or so, there is only so much I can do. I've added several new pages to the 'site' at least tripled the amount of information on it based on questions asked and things pointed out, and have been here posting and answering questions as well. The parts that say 'it will take time' i understand, but passing time, and doing productive things while passing time are two different things, and I'm trying to do the second of the two.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Regarding idea men, they exist, but they have other job functions too. A large part of my job is creating a lot of original content. I was hired because I have a portfolio of past work and education in the field. I've also been active in design meetings, have had success with smaller projects, and now my ideas carry more weight. Ideas aren't the only part of my job, but to have your ideas even be considered you need to prove yourself.
I 'called out' Esh mainly because he was insisting on being rude. His first post included a 'you should have run it through spellcheck' when i DID and my spellcheck had said everything was spelled fine. Then he claimed I barely had a high school level understanding of English. At which point I noticed he lived in France. I know personally that in the UK, English has different Grammar, as well as different spelling for several words, so I pointed it out.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
1) I said subtext, not text.
2) "Some more work" is an understatement. Your artwork does not have a strong enough style. It is not a matter of putting a little more work into it. You need to develop your identity as an artist. This is not me railing on you, your art does not stand out. Bad art can stand out and totally work in a game, but it needs style. It needs identity. You've only shown very generic work.
3) Spellcheck is not style check.
4) He claimed that your writing was at the high school level, not your understand of the English language.
5) The language differences between other anglophone countries do not impact one's ability to communicate an idea. Again though, why does it matter where he lives? Answer, it doesn't. You have no idea of his, or anyone's background here. For all you know you have published authors, developers, project coordinators, and professional artists giving you their professional advice. While we shouldn't have to hold up our career cards to have our comments be respected, you need to listen to everything being said. If you don't understand a comment, ask for clarification.
There is a difference between Constructive criticism and Destructive criticism.
When talking about art: "Does this really look like something worth looking at" is NOT constructive criticism. That is destructive criticism. Constructive criticism would be "The lines on this picture need to be smoothed out more.. etc." You know.. actual advice.
Critique can in fact be given without adding in unnecessary mild insults, smugness, and "or you could just ignore me" side notes. That stuff is unnecessary and just reinforces the feeling of hostility that I've been TRYING to deal with while following as much advice as I can. I would very much prefer to just follow advice and learn; but people keep implying that I'm not trying regardless of the fact that anyone who saw what I had at first and looked to see what I have now would see that I have been trying to fix things.
It feels almost like you guys are so used to seeing people refuse to learn or admit to any mistakes that you aren't actually paying attention to what i'm saying and just assuming I'm arguing against your actual advice.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Dungeons of Dredmor is a great graphical roguelike, and the last patch just added mod support. It's relatively simple to mod, and might be a good starting point if you are looking to make a roguelike game with graphics. At the very least, you can get some working concepts to show to people.
There are many other good games that are easy to mod. You might want to start there. You need a working prototype, and a mod is the easiest way to do it, for video games.
I was typing something but Skoal Cat pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I want to give my .02 cents as a computer science student who would be interested in doing the programming for a small game, and is specifically looking for an artist to collaborate with.
I will reiterate that you will never get a game made with just an idea. Every CS student I know has game ideas, me and my girlfriend, who is also a CS student have spent far too many hours pitching and brainstorming game ideas to each other. To assemble a team to make a game, you need to be bringing something to the table.
What exactly are you looking for out of this thread right now? Because it seems like your initial question has been answered, the only person I see being hostile is you. Everyone else is being honest, brutally honest in some cases. You will never get anywhere with your attitude right now, because you will never improve as an artist if your not willing to take an honest critique.
My honest answer to your question, is ask it again in a year or two. You have an idea for a game, great! You are nowhere near ready to begin to make it. Making art for a game requires a massive amount of work. All I have seen is a single character shot, which is just the upper body and mostly the head. Make several character concepts, not just heads, full body. If you said you wanted your game to have a walking animation. Teach yourself to make a walk cycle. Go the library and get a book. I just googled how to make a walk cycle and several tutorials came up. You admitted you needed to work on your art. Good, now starting doing that, you don't need a team right now, you need to be better at art if that's what you want to bring to the table.
If you don't understand why your art needs work, then respond with "Maybe I don't see it, what is this design missing?"
The advice of "look at other games" is just that. Look around yourself, look at games, look at posters, look at other art that is living and breathing in the world. Look at it with a critical eye and ask, "Why does this work? What are they doing different from what I am doing? Can I copy this? What would happen if I drew my character in that style? Would it change them somehow?"
Skoal: The 'critique' my art got was after I said my art needs improvement already, and his post was basically a harsh way of saying my art needs improvement, but without anything about what about the art needs improving. That is totally unnecessary, it doesn't say anything I didn't already know, doesn't tell me how to improve, its just complaining.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Telling me what the text boxes kinda look like is nothing. Draw it out. Draw it and change the styles around. This is your world and your characters, and it doesn't look like you have that really planned out, other than an image that took less than 10 minutes to draw. That's not very inspiring on any level.
Do characters have a conversation in the box on the bottom of the screen, a la Final Fantasy, and their portraits appear on the left and right sides and change as the conversation occurs? Does the background change for each character? Does the font? Will there be a tone to imitate their talking? Is it voice acted?
You don't have any of that. "Stuff happens in a box" means nothing. Is this a pop-up box, and I have to hit the Enter key or click the OK button each time? What are you imagining. That shit should be there.
You know all those pics you see of people posting possible drawings of characters and whatnot (you know, the concept art) that sell in the collector's edition with all the artwork of what the characters and cities and weapons and vehicles and NPCs and stuff looks like? Do that. Draw everything. Experiment with what everything will look like.
This is what I'm seeing from your posts:
You should also consider learning a lot more about storytelling. What is the motivation for the characters in the game to do what they do? What motivation do I, as a player, have to keep playing the game? What is happening in the world? What makes your world different than anyone else's?
What is it about Bioware's games and their storytelling that they do differently that makes their games awesome (cuz it certainly isn't their technical prowess)?
To keep what Drez has said, here's more stuff to read, if you're serious about designing games. Well, or anything. It's pretty much the same basic concept.
Regardless of what you think of Richard Garriott, I think there's a few things in his interview here that you should consider. Especially about game design. Read it. The guy wrote games when you were a kid, if you were even alive (I was in diapers when his first games were coming out, I can only guess at your age). I'd like to think that a guy who has more experience in a certain field than I have years on this planet at least kind of knows what he's talking about.
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/game-industry-legends-richard-garriott-de-cayeux/
Here's a guy who's made games and isn't as, uh, full of himself. Read that. The whole thing. Take your time. Read it twice, and another hundred times after that.
http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html
And more still. Here's what not to do. Take this shit to heart.
http://www.designersnotebook.com/Design_Resources/No_Twinkie_Database/no_twinkie_database.htm
Spend some time with the CRPG addict:
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/
Considering he's playing CRPGs chronologically, you can see from everything how stuff works. I imagine you'll be along the lines of some of the older top-down square tile-based RPGs (shot in the dark, I honestly have no idea and there's never been any indication of this kind of thing either), so you can learn from this what to do and what not to do. I think it's a great "show, don't tell" on games and game design in general.
I didn't notice anyone saying you were bragging about your skills. I saw a bunch of people saying "This is what you need to do to get to my goals"
As for art critique, go post your art in the Artist's Corner. I guarantee you will get excellent art critique there.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
Even if that was the case, aren't you just pointing out one person who said something (subjectively) harsh or at least unhelpful? You're saying the bulk of us are being meanies, and that's just irritating. If one person out of ten is being unhelpful, why don't you spend time talking to and asking questions of the other nine people you think are helping?
So what is it you want from us? You know you need more time to work on stuff. What are we doing here?
For example: One of Ron's posts last page I replied to as many of his questions as I could, then said I would put that information into the site to further detail it. I didn't complain at him, or anything, I just followed what he said.
Skoal: I'm sorry if that's what I sound like; but that's not what I'm meaning. I'm working on my artwork a few hours a day.. aside from today since I've been writing nonstop. I am actually, actively working on improving my artwork. I don't think I've said no to any advice given to me so far; aside from not saying anything because far too much has been said for me to reply to. I've got the creating a design document page bookmarked, and am listening to the videos Ron posted a few minutes ago.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
:^:
Yes, I think the problem is, it feels, to me, like everyone is assuming I don't intend to take any of the long term advice, and I want to prove that I do, and the short term advice I can do I want to do to show I am taking advice, which then apparently is getting me told that I should be focusing more on the long term advice; which I can't show for, and I am fairly sure right now my saying that is being taken to mean that I don't want to because it doesn't feel like progress? I just want it to be clear that I am trying to follow as much advice as I can.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
We're not your teacher at school, we're not looking for signs of progress or expecting you to hand something in for approval. You asked for help, it was given. Now go make a great game and we'll take a look when it's done. Even if it takes 5 years, we have nothing better to do than hang around help/advice so we'll be here. If you have no further questions then the thread is done for now.
http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/
We all thought you were getting raged at for the normal reasons (you want to make a game but you can't do anything other than design it, you want other people to do the work for you, you know nothing of game design but are convinced that you can do it) but it turns out that instead of (or more likely in addition to) all of that rage, what you're actually getting is rage from people who take time out of their day to help a stranger on the Internet, but instead of getting a "thank you," they get "you live in France and my SAT scores are high" or "you are wrong about me, I actually have other skills" or "all of this stuff you said is not helpful because I don't want to believe it" or "stop yelling at me for not taking your advice, I'm definitely taking your advice despite showing signs of not having understood it at all!" and stuff like this.
The rage you're getting from us is the rage you get when you try to form a game team: it's rage from people who just can't get through to you because every legitimate criticism is to you not an opportunity to grow but a hole that has to be patched over with an excuse.
But anyways, i'm going to take Druhim's advice now and go ahead and stop talking for now and get back to working on the game and my art.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChq0-eLNiMaJlIjqerf0v2A? <-- Game related youtube stuff
http://galdon.newgrounds.com/games/ <-- games I've made. (spoiler warning: They might suck!)
It is a system for creating interactive text adventures. I suggest you create a few text games to get your mind wrapped around designing something interactive and fun. Continue to refine ideas about your dream game while you create smaller games. Inform uses a programming language that resembles regular English, but when you get down to it, you will find it is much more "programmy" than it first seems. It will help you develop logic skills you need when you are actually programming your game or scripting levels/events inside of it.
Basically, you need to work in small chunks. I'm suggesting you make tiny, easy to make games as an alternative to just taking more classes or practicing art.
If it makes any difference to you, I am a developer at a large studio that has released hugely successful games. I never took classes beyond a few at community college. All the skills I have were learned because I wanted to create something. Get free software. Do tutorials.