Huge game projects

[David]

Why do people with no development experience always try to tackle enormous projects that 'redefine the face of gaming' and break new ground in AI and all that?

What happened to 'hello world' and all the other steps between 'total newbie' and 'programming god'?

[OneSadCookie]

It's a question I'd like to know the answer to as well... We've had a real crop of them recently.

I suspect it's because people's ideas for games are spurred by the games they have most fun with, which tends to be the big-budget games from the big-budget developers. They think, "I'd like to do something like that but with this changed...", and bingo -- a big-budget idea.

I think a lot of people go wild from that point, too -- "this changed, and that, and the other thing..." and end up with something not only big-budget, but computationally infeasible.

That, and a basic lack of understanding of computer science theory (computability & complexity in particular).

It's been said before, but I think it bears saying again -- everyone's first game should be Pong.

[jamie]

perhaps they don't know enough not to tackle that kind of project until they do!

:)

after all there are so many games available, they must be easy to make right? (kidding)

[aarku]

You guys are making me feel bad.. hehe

I have suffered with this affliction by working on a game for oh... maybe 5 years now? Oh well, it is cool and slowly getting there. I'm plugging away at it now and then in between schoolwork.

But it's like I don't want to abandon it because I've spent so much time in it, and it isn't getting finished and now I have to port it to X on top of finishing it. Argh.

I am soooo just making a little arcade game after this. It'll be a cinch.

-Jon

[henryj]

It's similar to newbie's fascination with writing an engine. Ya can't tell 'em.

They just have to do it to realise what a pointless exercise it is.

I have suffered with this affliction by working on a game for oh... maybe 5 years now? Oh well, it is cool and slowly getting there. I'm plugging away at it now and then in between schoolwork.


5 YEARS!!! You must have to world longest attention span:)

[skyhawk]

OOH! I just got a revolutionary idea for a game that would change the UNIVERSE as we know it! It would be a game... in the 4th diminsion! (for those who don't know, the 4th diminsion is NOT time, but it is another diminsion like the previous 3 that is perpendicular to all 3, aka reality) and it doesn't really matter what the game idea is because people would be so blown away by the graphics in the game their minds would explodes whil their wallets would fly into my closet! MWA HAHAHHAHAHA

[Carlos Camacho]

You must be playing Black Shades so much David because you now have ESP powers. I was also thinking the same thing as of late.

My two yen. I recall when I was in JHS (long ago, in a galaxy far far away) that I too dreamed of making games and a company. I said prouldy to my mother, "I am now a game developer and CEO of my own game company." (She then said, "That's nice... now go clean the pool.")
I would spend 1/2 the day working on art for the game's tapes (no floppies back then.) And half the day getting little squares to move.

So, I encourage big dreams. That said, some people do need a reality check it seems. I agree that the way to making games is by starting small and building on what you learn. Too many people want to go from zero to Quake 7. Since we have "wise" people here, let us do our best to try to show them how to go about making their dreams of making games come true. If we keep turning away or slapping down people with dreams, we will never grow the community.

Switching sides (yet again). This is aimed at the people David is taking about....

If you have a "killer" idea, that will make up become down, day become night, minus become positive, then great. But don't be suprised if people ignore your posts. As an artist, I'm never going to waste my time with someone who might code the game to the graphics I make. (Did that, don't want to go there ever again.) For coders, they don't have time to waste on artists/designers who don't have a portfolio. So, SHOW links to what you are talking about, present your case in a logical/professional manner and aim for something that CAN be done, not something that REALLY requires 20 people and $3 million dollars.

I also want to say to designers/artists/coders. Make a name for yourself first. Release code, game assets, etc.. Then people who have talent, will seek you out.

Summary - Let's keep everyone's dream alive. As this community grows, we will no doubt draw on the many people who PLAY games or create MODs that want to MAKE games. For those that are dreaming big, take a moment to think hard on what you propose. Making a game isn't an easy task. Many components must be met in order to see it through. I should also plug Inkubator. A great place to get your feet wet before trying to conquer the world alone. Oh, my marketing side wants to speak: Don't make a "Company" until you are truly ready to call it, and run it like a "company." (I recall a post from years back.... "My new company is called "name", it use to be called "x-name", and WE started out as "x-x-name." But WE didn't like it, thus the two name changes. How many people in our company? Oh, just me. Na, WE haven't finished any games...." <-- that is a clipping I keep with me. (No, I didn't write it. ;) )

Cheers

[David]

One way to deal with feelings like "I want to make this game, but with x and x and x changed." Is just to make a small game with those changes.

Like black shades!
I was just playing some fps games and realised I wanted:
ïsome form of easy melee attack
ïless repetitive death/pain animations
ïmore 'satisfying' killing (if a game is an fps, then shooting people should at least be fun)
ïless lame gibbing (i.e. I think guts splattering that added together would be larger than the person being gibbed are a bit silly)
ïa working crosshair-less aiming system

So now that I made this simple fps with all these changes (at least I think so) I have all those things flushed from my system and can make a non-fps game :)

[jamie]

ah i feel so refreshed, the voice of reason!

:)

[David]

So anyways back to the point, I think if you are playing a game and have ideas that you think would improve it, then you can just make a game using those ideas and don't bother with all the millions of dollars of content.

And massively multiplayer rpgs are NOT POSSIBLE for anyone with a limited budget so that should just be purged from everyone's short-term plans :)

If your first game looks like it will take more than a year than you should probably re-plan it to take less, because
A) If you're anything like me you will get amazingly sick of working on your game after the first year or so.
B) New games will come out in that time period which will add that much more competition and raise expectations
C) Things like OS X might come along which require time
D) You get more experience out of writing a few smaller games than one large one.
E) First games are always pretty bad so it's better for it to be a small project than a large one.

[Michael]

I'm going to also speak up in favor of small games, for a different reason:

When I started writing my uDG entry, I said to myself, "I'd like to make a game where the player flies around a scrolling, tile-based maze being chased by enemies that move kind of like they did in that other game that I wrote five years ago..."

Then, I sat down and, in one afternoon, wrote a program that did just that. The objects were drawn with FrameOval and the walls with EraseRect, but it was still a functional mockup of what I wanted the gameplay to be. So in a few hours, I discovered that what I was trying to do was possible and wrote a program that gave me some idea of what would be required and what problems I might have.

Being able to write small games is also a great aid to creativity. Back when I was first learning to program, every week or so I would get another cool idea and say "I want to make an Invaders game" or "I think I'll make a Hamurabi clone" or "I just want to play around with these graphics liraries to see what they can do." So after I had only been programming for a year, I had written dozens of simple games and started others only to discover that they weren't feasible. And as a result, now if I want to write just about any sort of program, I have a general idea of how I would do the graphics, interface, etc.

[Darkgold]

Quick suggestion for those newbies who want a big rpg(not mmorpg, just rpg). Because that seems to be what they want to do. Go download METAL and do some stuff there for a couple of months. And if you still want to do it let me give you some advice...because I AM making an huge rpg...be very careful how you write the code for it, because if done wrong, you will have no hope of ever finishing it(unless of course this is a lifetime project). try programming something that builds the thing for you(I know this sounds wierd but I'm just really bad at explaining) this way you give the program some image files and a text file and builds the level for you. This is what I'm doing and it works GREAT. In fact it would only take a week to add an interface to it and have people able to make rpgs without any programming knowledge at all(this is what I'm going to do after I finish my game).
So you can either take my advice and do that or you can wait for me to finish mine and use that, if you don't mind waiting till summer.:p

[Justin Brimm]

The first thing newbies must realize is that, your not going to create a masterpiece that redefines gaming as we know it. That said, they should not feel discouraged, as it is these extravagant ideas and dreams that keep many going.

If your as new as new can be to the world of game programming, don't even attempt to make a simple game. Learn the basics of the language and run through every tutorial you can get your hands on. When your confident and competent enough to understand how your code works, yet still need help here and there, you can begin writing small programs that test what you can do.

These small programs don't need to be anything special. They can test animation routines, or physics and collisions to any other number of things. You keep working on these small little applications until you have fairly good knowledge of what your doing, and then you can begin working on small games. Don't expect to create anything ground-breaking, or even that exciting (aside from your joy of creating something that works) right away, or even anytime soon.

Create a small space invaders type game, or a board game. Even though these games may be small, it doesn't mean you can't think up something new that hasn't been tried to much before; every time you finish one, access what you learned and then move onto something a little harder and a little more ambitious than the last.

Make sure you keep all your code from all these little projects, for you never know when you can just reuse it again. Eventually, when you have a couple notches under your belt, try to create a small game that you plan on actually releasing. Once you've made some money (not as easy as it sounds) and have a couple games out, you can try even more ambitious projects, although you must remember to not get so ambitious as to tackle something that you can't do on your funds and by yourself.

If your lucky, good at what you do, or both, you might eventually reach the point where you can actually hire someone to also work on projects with you (make sure they're fully competent in whatever they do).

What it all boils down to in the end is how much commitment and patience you have, along with how well you can program and do whatever else you do.

[Carlos Camacho]

Great posts by Michael and jbrimm.

I think we need an article called "Learn to crawl before you walk". Take the advice of the two people above, along with Davids... make the case on HOW to go about becoming a game developer. The two (or three) should email each other, make an outline, write the sections and then send it to me. It is the ONLY way we can help "these" people who want to be General before even going to Boot Camp. with said article, we can simply post "Read this article first...."

Anyhow, we always need content. So get to work boys and girls.

[FCCovett]

"Yexi" took me almost two years to complete, and it's not half of what I wanted it to be when I first started it.

I've been directing corporate presentations that cost tens of thousands of dollars for over 6 years, with at least 5 people working together on a given project (coders, copywriter, proofreader, producer, art director, voice artist, sound engineer, music composer, etc...).

For "Yexi", I tried to get a team of friends to collaborate at first, but it turned out to be a nightmare. It is my opinion that, if you are not paying high salaries to a competent team of skilled professionals (and they understand that your are the boss), you are better off flying solo. ;)

Well, if you aim for the stars, you might end up hitting the moon... or just shooting out your own foot. :)

[KittyMac]

Originally posted by Shivers
Sure it will take hard work and time.

Oh, and don't forget money :)

I agree with the general concensus of this thread, which to sum it up in my own words is that you should start small and then work your way up (as with anything in life, once you think about it). Also, don't expect there to be gobs of other people out there ready to jump on the boat with you... more than likely they're already caught up in their own projects and wouldn't jump on the boat with a complete stranger anyways. Therefor, for all of the "artists seeking programmers" and "coders seekings artists" out there, you should lessen your seeking and begin experimenting in these areas which you are unfamiliar. If you're an artist but know nothing of programming, then pick up one of the BASICs and give it a go. You probably won't become the next great programmer, but you will develop an appreciate for what can and can't be done, and which can be done easier than others. Also, for all of the coders out there, pick up a drawing/modelling program and try to create the assets yourself. Sure, you'll end up with the infamous "programmer art", but this will be a great starting point for when you manage to rope in that great artist you'vre been looking for. Besides which, if in the course of coding your game you notice a small problem with the assets (ie, the anti-aliasing is slightly off causing an aweful smudge in a certain animation), you should have enough experience to go in and fix the problem without bothering the artist. Remember, big companies who hire people want well-rounded people for a reason... it is our experiences which make use who we are, and the more and varied experiences you have the more valuable you become.

Oh, and I'd like to respectfully argue David's statement "And massively multiplayer rpgs are NOT POSSIBLE for anyone with a limited budget so that should just be purged from everyone's short-term plans." Although its true that a MMORPG should not be considered for a short-term project, there are plenty of MMORPGs created from limited budgets (Arcane Arena comes to mind). In its simplest form, a MMORPG is simply a multiplayer game with a dedicated server, so as long as you can afford the bandwidth and the server the rest is up to you.

Cheers,
Rocco

[GoodDoug]

Let me thorw in my 0b00000010 cents as well...

wrt RPGs, those games are all about three things, content, content and content. That means lots of time spent in asset creation, story and dialog writing and level design. Unfortunately, many newbie devlopers believe that an RPG is great, because the coding can be (relatively) simple and they'll have an outlet for their creative ideas. However, most will not finish because they get bored/frustrated/sidetracked because the amount of content is frankly overwhelming. That's why RPGs, which may seem like a good first step, are really a bad way to start making games. Not to say that a first time developer can't do it, but that it takes a bit more effort than you initially believe, and a lot of that effort is pretty tedious.

In the end, finishing one game is worth much more than having hundreds of really large unfinished games. Use that metric to help you decide what to make. My advice is almost always to make a puzzle game of some sort. You wanna do an RPG someday? make a maze game to get movement and interaction down. You wanna make an FPS someday? make a 3 D puzzle game (3D sokoban anyone)

I'll shut up now...

[KittyMac]

Originally posted by Shivers
I dont think that money is totally essential for a game dev group. If the team leader sets standards for each person, they are up to their own devices to get the software or hardware to do that. As long as everyone only works part time, in order to keep a job and money flowing in, I dont see why you need a huge budget.

Whether the money comes from a central source (ie, the corporation?) or pitched in by each of the members, it is still a financial commitment. Also, requiring that people only work part time is also a financial hit, since they lose half of their income (and for people with families can be downright impossible). So, as much we all want to "just be able to work together and create a huge game in our (spare) time", you cannot factor out the money people are going to have to either fork up or do without. Money, whether from a single budget or from the individual developers, IS an essential consideration for any team, game dev or not.

Cheers,
Rocco

[FCCovett]

At some point, either feelings get hurt or too many compromises are made, so money is a tool used by the head of the project to curb the ego of team members who think they know better.

Of course, there's always the slim change that everyone in the team will be very mature and commited to the project, regardless of financial expectations. I am yet to see that happen.

[David]

Oh, and I'd like to respectfully argue David's statement "And massively multiplayer rpgs are NOT POSSIBLE for anyone with a limited budget so that should just be purged from everyone's short-term plans." Although its true that a MMORPG should not be considered for a short-term project, there are plenty of MMORPGs created from limited budgets (Arcane Arena comes to mind). In its simplest form, a MMORPG is simply a multiplayer game with a dedicated server, so as long as you can afford the bandwidth and the server the rest is up to you.

The mmorpgs that I mean are everquest-like rpgs with hundreds of thousands of users, you would have to pay for a lot of servers and connections and all that. I don't mean MUD type games and things like that, which are feasible.

[hyperzoanoid]

"im going to make the best sidescroller ever!"
that was me a year ago when i picked up a book of learning cocoa. Yes my game is what i intended it to be but now looking back i should have done things a bit differently.
A) Learn the API you want
B) then start coding

one of my former team members asked me in march if i was taking on a project too large. I said to him, "The bigger the project the more i will learn. To make a game like this will require skills, and to develop it i will need to develop myself. I will gain so much out of this."

probably sounds cheesy but everything has gone according to plan so far.:D

[FCCovett]

If you take the time to read the postmortem of most games, you're going to realize that the two major problems in any project are poor planning and poor team management.

[Feanor]

The newbie-to-pro-game-designer disease is maybe partially the result of the way you actually can go from nothing to something in so many other artistic fields that don't require so much labour just to get your point across. Take movies first -- while we who love action and science fiction and all that would love to just start making extravaganzas, for some reason it usually doesn't send people into fantasy land thinking they can actually do it. They KNOW it takes all kinds of people and money and backing and the whole gamut of infrastructure. So the movie newbs make cool script-driven stuff and use cheapo cameras and still manage to surprise us over and over again.

Books of course just require one person's dedication and time, no real equipment or technology, so it's ever more shocking when someone bursts on the scene.

Something about games isn't like those creative forms, however, since the technology, though in some ways cheap to acquire (just study and read and practise on your single computer), is very expensive and immediately marketable, and it is now impossible to have one-person do everything games, unlike eight or ten years ago.

You need management, co-ordination, technical savvy, and discipline like crazy. It's really half suicidal. Because the damn things have to function, unlike art which just sits there or flows by. Interactivity is just too damn hard if you want cinematic quality. It's twice as hard as a movie in some ways, and most groups have 1/2 to 1/10 the people (maybe 1/50th?).

[w_reade]

Dedication... a long, somewhat preachy, but nonetheless heartfelt diatribe.

Yes, if a small, unfunded team has enough dedication, the can make the world's best game. The trouble is that dedication tends to wane after you've worked for a year or so and you realise that you'll need to keep working at this rate for the next four years if you want to have all those "essential" features, and by that stage someone else'll probably have released something that makes your game look like a cheap me-too, even with all the features...

Can you really guarantee that all the team members will be on board for the duration? I think most developers with any experience at all will be familiar with overambitious projects that end up going nowhere, and projects of this scale set the mental alarm bells ringing automatically, whoever the developer is. When they have money and a publisher, and nasty little no-complete clauses, they have a chance of keeping even the most disillusioned employees, so the project may well get finished... but it's rare when the final product lives up to the initial hyperbole, however big the budget.

There's a temptation to think that people are just attacking these projects because you're new, and that they think you'll never finish them because you're new, but the fact that you're new is not relevant. I think we can be safely expected to criticise anyone, new or old, who goes around with unrealistic plans and expectations - we want you to make games and we'd love to help you.

The best advice people can give is what they're giving - make something you have a realistic chance of completing. The only assumption we make about you is that you don't have godlike powers - hardly rash or insulting, really.

So, please, if you want to make a game... make a small game. You'll get more wisdom, happiness and fame than by doing the same amount of work to produce 3.5% of what'll be the Best Game Ever, once I've added in the AI and realistic physics, and the levels, and... anyway.

A good place to gently divest yourself of some illusions is the postmortems section of this site, where you may get some impression of how much work goes into even a simple-looking game, and then perhaps the postmortems on gamasutra, where you'll see some of the problems encountered in the course of the bigger projects... and then look at your game. Whatever your paradigm-shifting videogame is, it's probably a great idea, but it's inevitably a bad project to start off with.

Pong-with-a-twist is. If you're that good, you can probably knock a pong clone off pretty quickly, right? Even if you do manage to do it fairly quickly, you will learn the invaluable Hofstadter's Law:

It always takes longer than you think, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

...and an awful lot else, all of which will help you immeasurably when you want to make bigger games.

<steps down from pulpit, looks embarrassed>

[OneSadCookie]

*standing ovation*

[Josh]

Amen. w_reade should be a spokesman. :D

About a year ago a Windows programmer and I were going to work together to make a game that would have both a Windows and Mac version. I had been programming games for about 2 years at that time and he for about 3 months. He came up with an original game idea and, from what I understand, it was pretty good. Problem came when he fails to, 1) give me ANY kind of design doc, 2) look at the quality of modern games, 3) learn from my mistakes, 4) start small. Prior to this he had never made a complete game. :[

To make a long story short, I get very confused and quit and he ends up with a convoluted game. Moral of the story being this: when you first begin programming, start small. We all have dreams of grandeur but Ambrosia was not built in a day :D Make little games: pong clones, tetris, solitare, something, just don't plan to renovating the face of gaming with your first game.

[OneSadCookie]

And if logic isn't good enough for you, how about an example?

Bungie started with Pong. Pong with a twist -- their version was called Gnop.

Imagine the world today if Alex Seropian had started out by saying, "I'm going to make Halo", or even "I'm going to make Pathways into Darkness" -- either way, he'd still be stuck in his garage, having passed over Jason Jones as "thinking too much in the present". There'd be no Marathon, no Myth, no Halo... the world would be a bleak place :(

It only took a few games for Bungie to ramp up to "challenging the face of Mac gaming", but they were fairly crucial steps, providing much-needed experience and capital...

[calumr]

I agree completely with most of what people are saying here, but I'd like to point out that it will almost certainly be easier to create bigger games in the future. With more engines like Quake, Crystal Space, Unreal etc. becoming more and more open, making major gameplay modifications will probably become a lot easier.

Is it not likely that the languages used will become more high-level, thus making it easier for newbies to create games that are just as complex as their commercial counterparts?

Years ago, only the bleeding edge development companies could do decent 3D games. Now, anyone can do it (with a little knowledge of C) in a few days. The same could be said about sound & networking - there are libraries available that can do all the hard work for you now, or at least show you how it's done.

Maybe in 10 years people will be posting messages to the iDevGames forum saying "Yeah - start off with something simple like a Deus Ex clone".

[Justin Brimm]

I just realized that I only touched the surface of this in my post earlier and nobody else has done much more than skim over it as well... ahem *stands on soapbox*

As important as it is to start small, never give up your dreams and plans of games that would 'change the face of gaming as we know it'. Without these dreams of grandeur, when your finally ready to do what you had dreamed about oh so long ago, you won't. If you have no dreams or plans of pushing gaming forward, then you won't, plain and simple.

All the people who do push gaming forward are the same people who a long time ago, realized that they would have to work they're way up a steep hill to produce what they dream about, but that didn't stop them from dreaming, for they knew that one day, they might just see their baby come to life.

One important thing to remember however; you will most likely not see your dreams ever become reality, if you submit yourself to working for others, unless you have a tight-knit team, where everyone throws in their ideas. You will not be the guy who creates the killer game if you work for a large corporation or even a small one, if your just another programmer working to get something done.

Some people can take the path I'm taking; the currently lone wolf who does everything himself and plans on creating his own company, and eventually have people work for him. This is arguably the hardest road to trot, yet the most rewarding to take. If you are not up to it or really don't want to do that, you can become part of a small company and make sure your opinions are heard; in the end, it's up to you.

I'm sure there's more, but it's really late (3:30AM) and my brain isn't wide awake, so I'll leave it at this.

*Steps down from soapbox*

[Damian]

Start by producing clones with a twist. There's no point exactly recreating pong, but if you can create a pong where multiple balls have to be bounced away from the drain or some other variation, then you can put some of yourself into the game. You produce a unique, interesting product and still learn. Instead of trying to make the ultimate 3D sword fighting game or whatever, try a version of space-invaders where the player is a dragon who roasts knights. Start small but use your creativity.

[FCCovett]

You should try to make something like Yexi in your first game:

. Ships that fly at any speed from 0 to 180,000 times the speed of light;
. All objects exert gravitational pull;
. The hit power of particle weapons decreases geometricaly with distance;
. The stellar sectors can be generated randomly, and the number of stars and planets is determined according to a bell curve dsitribution (the center of the galaxy is more populated than the edges of the spirals, the galaxy is NOT spherical);
. Six-degrees-of-freedom, quaternion-based rotation system.
. Six multiplayer scenarios for up to 8 simultaneous players, with motion prediction system;
. In-game chat (public and team);
. Teletransport of troops, ordnance, cargo, and fuel;
. Fierce A.I. that dog-fights like a Top Gun and uses real-world engagement tactics;
. Sleek interface for the cockpit instruments;
. Homing torpedoes;
. Escape pods;
. Variable radar signature based on how much energy is diverted to weapons, sensors, shields, and engines.
. Frame-rate independant collision detection system;
. It is playable...

and the list goes on... <insane laugh> :)

[Sta7ic]

::taking notes:: Start small, recreate classics with twists, consider the content and coding load before shooting the moon with your foot. Or was that shoot your foot with the moon...

Anyway, why not take an impressive idea, pare it down into seperate workable modules like weapons and maps and characters, use these modules to create something smaller than your original impressive idea as a morale booster/working example, then redouble your efforts on the original (but now changed becuase you've had experience and wrote content) impressive idea?

(everyone got that?)

It only took 72hrs, counting sleep, food, finals, and Diablo 2, to code together a simple weapon editor that has text file I/O. It's taking a little longer to reverse-engineer a base item class (and item editor) using the weapon class and an in-progress armor class.

Breaking projects down can help -- even the absurdly huge ones. "Code reusability" should be more than a buzzword, and IS more than a buzzword when you use the same header in three different projects. Aren't templates fun?

-"Sta7ic" Matt

[geezusfreeek]

Here's how I envision a "good" newbie's way of thinking (not just for game design, but for anything): Keep your goals high, your expectations low, and your plans slightly above your expectations.

A good art form from which to make a metaphor of this is music because it is one in which it is very easy to see what you can and cannot do. Just because a beginning musician cannot play what a professional musician can does not mean his dreams should be abandoned (keep your goals high). However, the only way to learn is to take his limits (keep your expectations low) and push beyond them (keep your plans slightly above your expectations) every time he begins to learn some new music.

Mind you, most programmers are pushing their limits almost every single time they make something new due to the fact that there is so much information to know, so, in this case, the main focus of a newbie designer should be not to push limits, but to stay within them.

[Zwilnik]

Programming is very much like building with Lego.
You cannot build something that you don't have the parts for.

When designing a game (or any programming project), design it knowing what skills you have available to you (whether it's your own on a solo project, or your team on a large project), preferably deciding upon resources (engine, artwork etc) you already have specifications for.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't be learning and expanding your capabilities during the project, but anything you don't start the project with is going to take a lot more time and introduce a lot more risk to the project.

Thus, a newbie programmer/designer, should design a game that uses the skills and code they have, complete it and learn how finishing a game works. You can then try for a more advanced project where you expand your skill set a little.

You'll also have to admit when a project is out of reach. By the time a solo game programmer can complete a Deus Ex scale project on his own (as an actual project, rather than just a mod or conversion), we'll have moved onto holodecks.

[monteboyd]

This may have already been said but to me it seems like some of the over-enthusiastic posters ready to make the next big thing need to go through the experience of trying to make their dream come true to realise that it's not going to happen.

When I was trying to write games in various BASICs on the Amiga I used to want to write games like the ones I was playing in the arcades. It took me a lot of failed attempts to realise that I was aiming too high. I feel like I may never have learned the lesson properly without the trying, I can imagine not wanting to listen to people trying to tell me I couldn't do it.

It's all part of the learning experience really.

[applekid]

Here's how I envision a "good" newbie's way of thinking (not just for game design, but for anything): Keep your goals high, your expectations low, and your plans slightly above your expectations.

I'm a newbie to programming. I want to be that "CEO of the greatest game company." But after all the programming I learned, I discoved that creating that blockbuster-hit game would be harder then I believed. And as I learned more about progamming and game design, the more I thought the way geezusfreeek thinks of a "good" newbie. And from experience, that's what I believe is right even now. For newbies, there's nothing more satisfying then getting the computer to display text, show a graphic, make a sound when you commanded it to. But the fact is, something complex as a game takes patience and must be learned. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither will your first dream game. I think we all went into programming thinking we'll make the greatest game ever, as long as your interest was in gaming. For some of us, that's a reality, but for others it's still a dream and it shouldn't die. I go into my computer science class hoping I'll learn as much as I can so that I will one day be able to create my dream games that I have been designing for a while without code.

So for my fellow newbies, please, believe in yourself, don't let your dreams die, learn everything you can about game design/programming, make many attempts at many kinds of program, and have patience with what you learn, it will indeed payoff when it's all over. Look at all the game companies sprouting up. Look at those games you have on your computer or in your game console. They went through what we are going through.

And thanks a lot to all you that have spoke on this topic in the forum. It has given me some inspiration and hope. Now I definitely know where to start. You need a good foundation before you can build anything on top of that. Hopefully we'll see me having my big game company... just not anytime soon. ;)

[Josh]

Good attitude to have, applekid. ;)