Forming a team: Part 1

Hello again every one!

Last time we talked about making a proof of concept before we touched a computer. This allowed people to test and play your game and work out some early kinks. If you missed out on that go ahead and read that post. It will help you prepare for this one. Go ahead, I'll wait.

…..

All set? Excellent, lets move onto the next big challenge that myself and many other devs face; Finding a team of dedicated developers to make your game come to life! This topic gets me a bit excited as it is a difficult task that feels like you are climbing a never ending mountain, but once you reach the summit all that hard work really pays off and you feel ever more ready for the next summit!

First things first – produce as much stuff as possible!

No one wants to invest time and energy in a project unless they can see they're get something out of it. You have a job because you know you'll get paid. You go to school because you know you'll get an education that will benefit you in the long run. You join a dev team because you can see the value in the product.

Many of you probably want to join Bethesda, or Rockstar or what have you; Because you have seen what they can create. They may have even inspired you to strike out on your own and start your game. But you probably wouldn't care much about any of these places if they just came up to you and said something along the lines of “Hey dude, I wanna make this huge open world game that has tons of monsters and guns and towns where the player travels around trying to put together a broken world! But I currently don't have any assets or art to show you and I haven't programmed any of it, so you can't play it yet.”

You would probably laugh and move onto the next help wanted add. Those of you who do stay will quickly realize just how much work and rework will be needed all with little guidance or reward.

Same goes for every one looking at your help wanted ads. No one will invest their time if you haven't even invested your time. And I mean a ton of your time. You'll need to climb most of this mountain on your own, I'm sorry to say. But no one will care about your project until you prove yourself and it's merit.

Alright, alright, enough with the sad llama. I get I need something to show, but what do I need? The long and short of it is everything. I did say this is a seemingly never ending mountain after all! But let me break this down.

Artists, this is for you – programmers, you're next.

Artists, you'll need character designs. Character turn arounds, sprite sheets or models (you know, depending on if you are making a 2D or 3D game – obviously). Create your menu's and GUI as well. Now here's the big thing. Since you are an artists and not a programmer the best way to show off your game is to animate it. Yes, you'll fake the game play and everything. Got a computer game that requires a cursor? Better be animating that into your 'trailer' too. You'll need to show any given programmer that is interested in helping you exactly how the game will operate and why.

This animation you'll be making is essentially a trailer and a tutorial. You'll be teaching programmers and the various other members of your future team how the game works. You'll show as much aspects of the game as possible – everything if you can. This video should be easy to understand and lay out as much info as possible. The more confused the programmer is the more unlikely they are to help you.

To give you an idea here is a first draft of what I made for Fleet Calamity. In this video I'm trying to teach some one who has never played the game how to make it function and how it generally should look. Take a gander here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrR_ta-L27I

Now the programmers turn!

Programmers, you'll need to produce your GUI and menu's- even if it is just temporary art or simple boxes. Something that shows the look and feel of how one would navigate through the menus. In addition and more importantly you'll need to actually produce an Alpha (or better) version of your game. Characters and environment can be sparse and made of blocks and random shapes or stand in art. But an artist needs to be able to jump into the game and play it to see what it is you're trying to accomplish. This version of the game should be easy to access and set up without any programming experience. The more time some one else has to put into just getting your game to work the less interested they are in helping you.

Are you a programmer and an artist? Then you should be doing all of the above.

Start with your strength and boost your confidence, then move onto the harder stuff.

I suggest starting out by mocking up an Alpha build. Get the basics in there and see who bites. As you are searching for people keep buffing up your video/game until you absolutely can't go any further alone.

Sure enough people will still have questions about your product but they will be much more concise, such as 'Ok, I saw you opened that menu, but can I open a second one as well' and/or 'were you going for a more noir atmosphere or just dark and dingy?' - you know, more about making sure they understand the full idea. They should never be asking 'so what is it about?' or 'why am I [the player] doing this?' Those questions should be answered just by watching and/or playing your video/game.

This will be the largest hurdle thus far. You'll be working alone, only getting feed back from what you share on social media and from testing your physical prototype. This will be a real test of how much do you want this game. 

With Fleet Calamity I spent about a year working 2-5 hours a day nearly every day before I got that first draft of a video. I made 80+ models all of which are textured, menus, and GUI. I also tested frequently and updated my GDD as I went along. I also created over 400 cards, made business documents, financial documents and marketing documents. I did ask for help through out, but no one lasted more than a week. It was only recently that I found a programmer that stayed on for a couple of months, but he left as life got in the way. I am now again looking for a programmer, but I'm further up the mountain than I was before and my resolve has been honed and refined ever more as I made my climb.

I believe you can make your dream game, but the road will be long and unforgiving. If you stick with it you'll reach a reward that very few others have obtained. Also, as a side note. Start small! Don't make a huge open world game as your first game. That kind of scope is too big to chew. Start small and build up to that awesomely huge game!

But all of this is just scratching the surface. There is much more, such as connecting with communities, where to look for help and joining game jams. I feel I should break this up into a two-parter as these posts are getting long and I'm sure you don't want to spend hours reading.

Next time I'll discuss connecting with your peers and getting yourself out there. In the mean time please feel free to leave comments and give your opinion about this topic. Also I'm open to suggestions for future topics!

Hope to hear from ya.

Take care everyone!