Ask Slashdot: How To Find Expertise For Amateur Game Development? 188
New submitter es330td writes "I'd like to write a program that takes the old cannon game to another level, but instead of the path being a simple parabolic arc, the projectile will move through a field of objects exerting gravitational attraction (or repulsion) and the player will have to adjust velocity and angle to find the path through the space between launch point and the target.In an ideal world, this would end up as one of these Flash based web playable games, as that would force me to fully flesh it out, debug and complete the app. I doubt this will ever be commercial, so hiring somebody doesn't make sense, and I wouldn't learn anything that way either. I have been programming for almost 20 years, but the bulk of my work has been in corporate programming, primarily web (Cold Fusion, ASP & C#.Net,) or VB6 and then C# Windows GUI interfaces to RDBMS. I have never written a graphics based game, nor have I ever written something using the physics this will require. Once upon a time, I could program in C but I think I would be much better off to work with someone rather than try to roll my own unless good books exist to flatten the learning curve. Any advice on how to proceed?"
Re:Moron (Score:5, Insightful)
Er no they're not. I'm an expert amateur photographer. I do not make a living doing it, but I take works of art compared to professional wedding photographers.
Just do it yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless you're providing some kind of financial incentive, I'm not sure why anyone would want to do it for you. But fortunately, what you're describing is doesn't sound particularly difficult. If you want to learn from the experience, you should really just do it yourself. You could put something together in C/OpenGL pretty quickly (there are lots of tutorials on the web for getting up and running with OpenGL).
Well what is your purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
First you say this:
hiring somebody doesn't make sense, and I wouldn't learn anything that way either
Ok. So you're looking at this as a learning experience. That's great. But then you say this:
Once upon a time, I could program in C but I think I would be much better off to work with someone rather than try to roll my own
So you're looking for someone to do this for you and not learn any coding.
I think you need to consider why you want to get involved in this in the first place. If you want to learn game programming, that's great. Go do it. If you want to learn project management, that's good too, go do that. But first I think you have to figure out what your goal here actually is.
I will tell you this though. Until you narrow down your scope and figure out exactly what you want, the dithering is sending up some flags. You have an idea, you say you're not interested in money, yet you want someone to write a game for you based on an idea you have, and you're not willing to pay anything to get it done. Jaded old programmers like me hear this kind of a thing and mentally translate it into "I want you to write a program for me so I can get rich from it without doing any of the actual work."
Re:Just do it yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
The whole post doesn't make any sense. He wants to make a simple non-commercial game for the purpose of learning, but he doesn't want to have to figure out how to program it and would like to find someone who already knows how to do it to write it for him. Wha?!
Go For It (Score:5, Insightful)
Although truly "new" ideas are a rare breed - don't be deterred. Build this yourself using all your skills and use it as a lesson. If you use a group, it might be more fun but just don't sub-out the interesting parts. Learn about them.
Start with the core and work outward
- movement of an object in space
- applying single-point and universal gravity
- collision detection
- concurrent animations
- 2D crash physics
- some graphics
Then story out something to power some gameplay
- characters / features
- scoring
- co-op/vs online ideas
Of course, the core has been done - but really this is for you to learn the basics. Once you do this, someday you can go from an actually novel idea to a game in less time. Who knows, down the road you may have a really good idea. My best wishes go out to you to persevere!
Re:20 Years? (Score:2, Insightful)
It really depends what they've been doing. I know lots of programmers who've been doing nothing related to physics or hashtables.
As with everything though, his answer is in a book. Really any half decent book on games will give him the info he needs.
Re:Just do it yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
The whole post doesn't make any sense. He wants to make a simple non-commercial game for the purpose of learning, but he doesn't want to have to figure out how to program it and would like to find someone who already knows how to do it to write it for him. Wha?!
I don't think he's looking for someone to write it for him, he's looking for someone to guide him and point him in the right direction so he doesn't spin his wheels doing something one way that's going to lead him to a dead end. Maybe he'd learn more by doing it all on his own. Or maybe he'd learn bad habits that are hard to correct later.
Congratulations! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're well on your way to recreating Slingshot [wikispot.org]!
Anyhow, if you're looking at this as a learning experience, XNA seems to be the thing where you could put your skillset to work the fastest. Python also seems like a good choice, if you're willing to learn it. As for graphics/physics/whatever, there should be libraries to help you, and surely some other Slashdotter will drop a few names shortly.
Re:Moron (Score:5, Insightful)