LE 3 speed :

[Canardia]

By the way ... inferring I am not intelligent by addressing someone personally is paramount to a personal attack You might want to think on that lol

I was only quoting Paulo Coelho Of course quotes are not personal attacks, because they are just quotes. You don't change what they said or assume anything about them.

[Pixel Perfect]

My personal goal is to finish the SCOT game and I don't think swapping engine's now and then will

get me any closer to that goal. A nice team and some hard work is what its all about.

 

I might be totally wrong, but I have to live with that then

I think that is what its all about. Good luck Roland and team!

[fallingbrickwork]

So for the last flopping time... stop putting people into programming and artist boxes..... There are only 2 boxes in the indie world... those who make games and those who talk about making games... Which box do you currently fit in I wonder?

 

This is probably the truest and most false statement for describing 'the indie world'. Yes, you need a leader that will see the project to completion who can see 'both sides' of the programming/art divide... but talent does fit into boxes, and far more than 2! Audio, marketing etc.

 

I don't like these personal attack type posts, but i have to say Scarlet you do seem to be 'way off line'. Yes, there are people in the indie world who can wear all the hats - i know personally that i have produced practically everything for my current game... but, i know i'm not the best at all the roles. I wish i had a modelling partner and a marketer/publisher. If you honestly think indie is about those who make and those who talk about it, you will NEVER succeed. Just take 'indie game the movie', FEZ wasn't 1 person, Super Meat Boy wasn't 1 person, Braid wan't one person - the artist was David Hellman i believe.

 

My point is, there isn't one right or wrong way to make games... but collaboration is essential in one way or the other.

[ChrisV]

Roland, on 01 February 2013 - 03:32 PM, said:

 

My personal goal is to finish the SCOT game and I don't think swapping engine's now and then will

get me any closer to that goal. A nice team and some hard work is what its all about.

 

I might be totally wrong, but I have to live with that then

I think that is what its all about. Good luck Roland and team!

That's exactly what it's all about. Having a good team, respect for one another, and having a good agreement goes a long way.

It might sound weird, but if you look at it, it's almost the same as in a marriage.

 

The typical I'm an artist excuse just seems to be a cop out for not wanting to do any code yourself.

I think some people will always have a harder time learning to program, than do art, and vice versa. It's usually a case of with which part of the brain a person thinks, left or right. There are also persons who are good at both.

I can program and also make art, but my coding skills are less good. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't 'see' or 'think' the way a great programmer 'sees' or 'thinks'. But, I do admit, that the more you do something, the better you get at it. And, everyone is capable of learning. The only difference is that some have less problems to learn something than others.

[Canardia]

There is not even a clear definition what indie is. LucasFilm is multi-billion company and is indie, another indie company made a movie which I think is the best movie of all times: "The Man From Earth" with a $10000 budget, any schoolboy who makes something free or commercial is an indie, people who make something which is free of all rules and habits is indie. Indie just means independant, and it can be indepandant of anything: money, culture, society, rules, ideas, people, or even it's own definition

[gordonramp]

Indie just means independant, and it can be indepandant of anything: money, culture, society, rules, ideas, people, or even it's own definition

My understanding of 'Indie' is.. "any form of popular culture (such as pop music from a group not signed to a major label) from outside the mainstream". So in a Gaming sense it is a Game Producer who is independent of the major Game producing companies and not of the mainstream.

[Canardia]

That's basically the same what I meant. LucasFilm did not want to follow the mainstream Hollywood rules (americans always win at the end, and the hero never dies), Indie game companies can make also other games than Doom clones like the CoD series, like MineCraft, 2D games, etc....

[YouGroove]

Yes programming to bring original gameplay or visual special features.

But that's not mandatory, you give some complete MMO tools and engine easy to use, if you have creative people and enought script power, a team could make some original MMO like :

Fly in ships , land on planet, walk/run and shoot ennemies, dig on undergound of planets, construct space bases etc ...

So even with standrad programming people can bring new gameplay( Fable 2 game, not incredible programming , but great ideas like social stuff, work mini games etc ...)

 

And yes there is lot of not so known indie games made by one people.

The examples put where more than one guy, but indie games with one guy, are a lot in mobile or IndieDB.

Minecraft at start was one guy also !

[fallingbrickwork]

Yes programming to bring original gameplay or visual special features.

But that's not mandatory, you give some complete MMO tools and engine easy to use, if you have creative people and enought script power, a team could make some original MMO like :

Fly in ships , land on planet, walk/run and shoot ennemies, dig on undergound of planets, construct space bases etc ...

So even with standrad programming people can bring new gameplay( Fable 2 game, not incredible programming , but great ideas like social stuff, work mini games etc ...)

 

And yes there is lot of not so known indie games made by one people.

The examples put where more than one guy, but indie games with one guy, are a lot in mobile or IndieDB.

Minecraft at start was one guy also !

 

The phrases 'Complete MMO tools and engine easy to use' should never be uttered together. No small team, let alone an individual developer will make a MMO.

 

Yes, there are indie games made by one person, but the majority aren't. I don't believe Minecraft is a good example.... is there any non-programmatically made art in there?! and even that is more than one person now i believe.

[Rick]

Depends on how you view what an MMO is. I can make an open world where many people could log on and do a couple quests. I'm pretty sure there are a couple specific MMO engines out there that allows you to set that up in mins! Just because someone might not find it engaging or interesting doesn't mean it's not an MMO or that it's not a "finished" game.

 

Minecraft is a great example of what indie's should be doing I think. Make some basic rules that let the players be creative. It's much faster than trying to create some story and complex gameplay.

[Josh]

"Complex gameplay" reminds me of this:

http://www.eurogamer...-scenes-of-doom

 

The ideas this designer had are awful. It reminds me of my DarkBasic days:

"You are a soldier in the UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) assigned to the military research base on the darkside of the giant moon Tei Tenga," reads a draft press release - and already there are significant differences. In the finished game the UAAF is changed to the UAC and, while the name Tei Tenga still appears on computer readouts, Doom is actually set on Mars' moons.

 

 

"You and four friends are having a game of cards in the hangar bay," Hall writes, describing the opening cut-scene Doom never had. "Meanwhile, the research team are doing experiments at the anomalies found on the moon. There is a flash of horrible light and two gates open at equidistant points on the moon's surface... Every awake [sic] is quickly killed. One reaching for the alarm button has his hand chopped off!"

 

A cut area called The Officer's Club, for example, is described in the design document as a private bar where players could find "a neat collector's pistol (if we can have weapon quality)". There was no other purpose for the area - the Club was an optional stopping off point for those who wanted to explore and who'd collected a dismembered hand that could fool the biometric locks.

 

I think there's a tendency to imagine bigger and bigger ideas, while writing less and less code, because making grand announcements about your idea is more fun than actually coding it, and facing the reality that your first project is going to suck.

 

Design is about making decisions, whether you're coding a game, a desktop application, or even writing music. You have to be the one to make those decisions, no one else will. That means when your FPS weapon firing doesn't feel satisfying, you have to look at other games and figure out exactly what it is that makes them feel right. That means when your zombie looks unconvincing, you have to figure out how to fix it. If you spread all that care and attention to detail over too broad a scope, you won't be able to make the important things work right.

 

One thing I am looking forward to is how the Lua scripts in Leadwerks 3 will provide a lot of basic mechanics for both Lua and C++ games. Everyone will be able to figure out how to make a button unlock a door, or make a switch spawn a bunch of enemies. This kind of stuff used to be reserved for only the top coders, and their code was not reusable. Now we can all access it, without it adding any complexity into our game code. It will fill the "gameplay vacuum" where people sit and think of grander and more unrealistic ideas, and give everyone something fun to participate in. Once I started writing entity scripts, it became pretty fun for me because I can add a little bit of code that will get reused hundreds of times in different ways.

[fallingbrickwork]

Depends on how you view what an MMO is. I can make an open world where many people could log on and do a couple quests. I'm pretty sure there are a couple specific MMO engines out there that allows you to set that up in mins! Just because someone might not find it engaging or interesting doesn't mean it's not an MMO or that it's not a "finished" game.

 

Minecraft is a great example of what indie's should be doing I think. Make some basic rules that let the players be creative. It's much faster than trying to create some story and complex gameplay.

 

I thought we were talking about collaborations and team work?!

[YouGroove]

Yes , it exists indie games that don't require incredible programming , just a good 3D engine and some original and top idea for example.

Here is none example of original game :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8InnuIYGzg

[Pixel Perfect]

Cool idea but interesting to see the make up of the people behind this:

 

ATUM has been developed by a group of 3rd year students at NHTV IGAD, The Netherlands as part of the University's Gamelab, a one-day-a-week workshop that simulates a development studio environment. The team, consisting of an average of 10 members, worked on this project for 42 days.

 

Seemingly written with 'The Venture Capitalist's game engine we dare not mention' here are some of the key team members:

 

 

Thomas Buijtenweg

 

Lead Designer, Vision holder and professional coffee drinker.

"Our game is like an ogre, ogres have layers"

 

 

Jendrik Illner

 

Lead Programmer since the very first prototype. He was the only programmer on the team

for long stretches of time, therefore worked on all parts during the evolution leading

up to the final product. We're also not sure if he's a demi-god or not.

 

 

Malte Langheim

 

He was involved in developing the game's distinct visual style and feel. He was usually found behind his desk, or running around in his very own 2D world.

 

Thomas Buijtenweg appears to be an experienced game developer with several games behind him.

 

I would say a perfect example of team work with lots of programming as well as artistic input guided by an experienced game designer.

[knocks]

figjam!

[Guest Red Ocktober]

yup... yup...

 

--Mike