Do You Have What It Takes To Produce A Game?
No offense, I know a lot of people who start out a mmorpg with a month of experience! We even see those "Gimma da linkz for doom3 making program!!11" type people everyday on forums! So, first you need to make sure you have piled up enough experience.
If not, you should finish some tiny projects like a pong, galaxian, then small projects like tetris then medium ones like mario only after these processes, come here and try to make a commercial project.
Above may sound discouraging but if you jump to a commercial game right away it will both spend your time and your money.
Also it will effect your game career as it will be a huge letdown and lose of self confidence.
Only experience itself won't take you so far.
To be successful you need the tools of the trade, money, time, determination and dedication.
And most important of all, you have to love what you do.
If you really blend your passion into your game the gamers will love it too.
So let's get into details a bit; A) Right Tools; You may already know, tools are the applications you will develop your game in.
I will break them to branches per purpose.
1.
Producer tools 2.
Programmer tools 3.
Artist tools 4.
Music / Sound tools 1.
Producer Tools Well, producers use a lot of tools.
As a producer you need to write a good design document.
For that, I recommend html knowledge as other Microsoft Word - like documents may have comparability problems and simple notepad won't be sufficient.
Instead of writing, you may want to draw something to give the impression of what you want for artist and coders.
You can use Gimp as it's free or you can buy photoshop / paintshop pro.
You can download a free ToDo program too.
Or you can ask your coder to create one specific for your need as it's a simple task to create such an application.
If you work in an office or garage, you may want a board to write daily tasks or to-do there.
It may prove useful while brainstorming too.
Well you need more than these tools, which are your tools since you born.
Your brain, your creativity, your faith in project, your leadership, your relations with others...
This list goes like this.
2.
Programmer Tools An indie programmer doesn't need a lot of tools.
An advanced IDE will suffice the programmers needs.
For instance, I use Blitz3D but to be honest default IDE su**s.
So I've downloaded IDEal named free IDE which is great.
But of course you have to select the suitable language and the suitable engine for you game.
3.
Artist Tools There are numerous types of artists.
2D artists, 3D artists, Animators...
Each of them use different kind of software and those softwares may vary.
2D artists usually use Photoshop, but let's assume you are a new indie group, you can use Gimp.
It's free and a lot of people use and recommend it.
It will be also great if you can buy a drawing tablet.
3D artists can use 3DStudioMax, of course if you can afford its huge sum of licence fee.
(3500$?) Milkshape3D is a cheap and a good solution for overall needs, modelling, texturing and animation.
If you want something free, you can give Blender a try.
I used Wings3d when I was a solo developer.
It's really easy to use and finally there is Gmax from Autodesk (Author of 3dsmax) which is a free tool much like 3DStudioMax alas it's no longer supported by Autodesk.
Animators can use Milkshape and Blender too but if you want something animation specific, there is Character Studio, Fragmotion and Pacemaker.
4.
Music / Sound Tools Well I'm not an expert here so I'll just list the programs I know.
Fruity Loops, Reason, Cool Edit, Ableton Live, GoldWave.
That's all I know.
You can do a little research on them and find which is suitable for you.
B) Time; In today's world, time is everything.
You can't get anything done without giving it needed time.
If you have everything but time, you just can't do.
So before you start producing a game think twice if you will be able to commit you precious time to the project.
It will be hard if you already have a job, because you have to sacrifice your holidays, weekends for the game.
So make sure you'll have enough time.
C) Money; Depends on your project's scale, you'll need some amount of money.
You have to pay for artists, web hosting services, advertisement, application licences and it goes like this.
The most important thing is "do as much as you can at lowest expenditure.
" D) Passion; I kept the most important to the last.
It is simple, If you don't have a great passion for games, you can't make them.
At least you can't make games that people will play.
Ask yourself; oDo you play games everyday? oHow often do you read game related magazines / websites? oDo you have a handheld gaming console that you take everywhere? oHow much money do you spend on games in a year? oDo you really want to make a game? oHave you ever bought a new graphics card for a specific game like FarCry or Doom 3? It is possible to multiply the questions.
If you really feel like you are in love with video games then you got the needed passion.
If not, you should finish some tiny projects like a pong, galaxian, then small projects like tetris then medium ones like mario only after these processes, come here and try to make a commercial project.
Above may sound discouraging but if you jump to a commercial game right away it will both spend your time and your money.
Also it will effect your game career as it will be a huge letdown and lose of self confidence.
Only experience itself won't take you so far.
To be successful you need the tools of the trade, money, time, determination and dedication.
And most important of all, you have to love what you do.
If you really blend your passion into your game the gamers will love it too.
So let's get into details a bit; A) Right Tools; You may already know, tools are the applications you will develop your game in.
I will break them to branches per purpose.
1.
Producer tools 2.
Programmer tools 3.
Artist tools 4.
Music / Sound tools 1.
Producer Tools Well, producers use a lot of tools.
As a producer you need to write a good design document.
For that, I recommend html knowledge as other Microsoft Word - like documents may have comparability problems and simple notepad won't be sufficient.
Instead of writing, you may want to draw something to give the impression of what you want for artist and coders.
You can use Gimp as it's free or you can buy photoshop / paintshop pro.
You can download a free ToDo program too.
Or you can ask your coder to create one specific for your need as it's a simple task to create such an application.
If you work in an office or garage, you may want a board to write daily tasks or to-do there.
It may prove useful while brainstorming too.
Well you need more than these tools, which are your tools since you born.
Your brain, your creativity, your faith in project, your leadership, your relations with others...
This list goes like this.
2.
Programmer Tools An indie programmer doesn't need a lot of tools.
An advanced IDE will suffice the programmers needs.
For instance, I use Blitz3D but to be honest default IDE su**s.
So I've downloaded IDEal named free IDE which is great.
But of course you have to select the suitable language and the suitable engine for you game.
3.
Artist Tools There are numerous types of artists.
2D artists, 3D artists, Animators...
Each of them use different kind of software and those softwares may vary.
2D artists usually use Photoshop, but let's assume you are a new indie group, you can use Gimp.
It's free and a lot of people use and recommend it.
It will be also great if you can buy a drawing tablet.
3D artists can use 3DStudioMax, of course if you can afford its huge sum of licence fee.
(3500$?) Milkshape3D is a cheap and a good solution for overall needs, modelling, texturing and animation.
If you want something free, you can give Blender a try.
I used Wings3d when I was a solo developer.
It's really easy to use and finally there is Gmax from Autodesk (Author of 3dsmax) which is a free tool much like 3DStudioMax alas it's no longer supported by Autodesk.
Animators can use Milkshape and Blender too but if you want something animation specific, there is Character Studio, Fragmotion and Pacemaker.
4.
Music / Sound Tools Well I'm not an expert here so I'll just list the programs I know.
Fruity Loops, Reason, Cool Edit, Ableton Live, GoldWave.
That's all I know.
You can do a little research on them and find which is suitable for you.
B) Time; In today's world, time is everything.
You can't get anything done without giving it needed time.
If you have everything but time, you just can't do.
So before you start producing a game think twice if you will be able to commit you precious time to the project.
It will be hard if you already have a job, because you have to sacrifice your holidays, weekends for the game.
So make sure you'll have enough time.
C) Money; Depends on your project's scale, you'll need some amount of money.
You have to pay for artists, web hosting services, advertisement, application licences and it goes like this.
The most important thing is "do as much as you can at lowest expenditure.
" D) Passion; I kept the most important to the last.
It is simple, If you don't have a great passion for games, you can't make them.
At least you can't make games that people will play.
Ask yourself; oDo you play games everyday? oHow often do you read game related magazines / websites? oDo you have a handheld gaming console that you take everywhere? oHow much money do you spend on games in a year? oDo you really want to make a game? oHave you ever bought a new graphics card for a specific game like FarCry or Doom 3? It is possible to multiply the questions.
If you really feel like you are in love with video games then you got the needed passion.
