Originally posted by chromekatana

Originally posted by Omnifish

 approach someone at a convention with a simple demo.  

Talking about conventions, there is, apparrently, a game developers conference going to be held March 25-29. I don't really know the details of it since I don't follow conventions and the like. And I think registration is stil open till March the 20(?).

The about page is here-

http://www.gdconf.com/aboutgdc/

 It's to bad you don't have a playable demo but I think you could still learn a few things at a event like this.

 

Another website you may be interested in is here-

 

http://www.fastgraph.com/makegames/contents.html

 

It is kinda a 'get started' or 'how to' page about game developing.

 

And finally, here is a magazine about game developing

http://gdmag.com/

 

I only just googled around a little bit, so I don't know how relieable this stuff will be. Wish you luck though!

Checking them out

Thanks alot

Originally posted by Grahor

Originally posted by Robokapp 

while likely true, you might be wrong. No point in crushing him.

I have a couple of friends (artists) who have designed, developed, created and even printed their own card game, wasted on it years of their lives and all their savings - only to end up with the game nobody ever bought because they had no idea what's that thing "marketing" is and how it all works.

 

Hell, I have a dear to my own heart design of my own game, which, one day, I will surely try to turn into a prototype, then pre-alpha, then, gods willing, may be, fingers crossed, some kind of a beta, if I'll find an artist I can kidnap and keep in my basement while he'll be working on game's art resources (because I have a snowball's chance in hell to be able to afford a real game artist otherwise). And I'm a pretty good programmer myself, so at least from this side it's covered.

 

But precisely because I'm kind of sort of working in the area, or at least in the general vicinity, I have a slight idea of the iterations of game's development. That's why my own design is kept in the dark closet of my heart.

 

People who ask those kinds of questions on the forum have no chances, period. It's better to stop them now while they haven't yet wasted significant portions of their lives.

Meaning that you couldnt achieve it doesnt mean others in your situtation cant

Get over it and stop bashing stuff, you are saying you cant afford a real game artist, I designed everything an artist has to and all I need is someone to code stuff, that part I dont know

www.gamedev.net Would be a good place to start.

My advice, Keep the details of your idea secret and talk about your 'systems' in an abstract manner.

Originally posted by seigard

I designed everything an artist has to and all I need is someone to code stuff, that part I dont know

Each person here will have a different takeaway from that statement based on their familiarity with game design/development.

---

Originally posted by adam_nox
No one listens to ideas and says great, sign me up, just look at these forums for proof. I

---

They do when you use the right key words.

#DAoC #3 Factions #Sandbox #Player Housing #SWG #Full Loot

If you want your game to actually be made, you basically have two options:

1)  Make it yourself.

2)  Provide enough money that you can hire other people to make it.

Everyone else in the entire world who is able and willing to make a computer game has ideas of their own that they like better than your ideas.  That's why their ideas are their ideas and your ideas are not their ideas.

Originally posted by Distopia
Worse comes to worst you could always create a mod. Skyrim's creation kit is perfect for fleshing out an idea as well as gauging interest to it. You might even pick up some knowledge of engines and how they work, as well as some light scripting info. Just a thought.

  Excellent idea ---^

Skyrim, Dungeon Seige, NWN, Titan Quest... lots of RPGs have come with some powerful tools you can use to try out your ideas.

Another approach is to just do a mock version of your ideas if your goal is to showcase it to get people to come on board with you and help. You could use Source Filmmaker to create a scripted demo of what the features would be like. This would actually be the path that would have the lowest learning curve for you. You would just have to get past the "someone is going to steal my idea" nonsense.

Originally posted by seigard

Originally posted by Grahor

Originally posted by Robokapp 

while likely true, you might be wrong. No point in crushing him.

I have a couple of friends (artists) who have designed, developed, created and even printed their own card game, wasted on it years of their lives and all their savings - only to end up with the game nobody ever bought because they had no idea what's that thing "marketing" is and how it all works.

 

Hell, I have a dear to my own heart design of my own game, which, one day, I will surely try to turn into a prototype, then pre-alpha, then, gods willing, may be, fingers crossed, some kind of a beta, if I'll find an artist I can kidnap and keep in my basement while he'll be working on game's art resources (because I have a snowball's chance in hell to be able to afford a real game artist otherwise). And I'm a pretty good programmer myself, so at least from this side it's covered.

 

But precisely because I'm kind of sort of working in the area, or at least in the general vicinity, I have a slight idea of the iterations of game's development. That's why my own design is kept in the dark closet of my heart.

 

People who ask those kinds of questions on the forum have no chances, period. It's better to stop them now while they haven't yet wasted significant portions of their lives.

Meaning that you couldnt achieve it doesnt mean others in your situtation cant

Get over it and stop bashing stuff, you are saying you cant afford a real game artist, I designed everything an artist has to and all I need is someone to code stuff, that part I dont know

You are not a professional game artist. Your "stuff" is worthless.

Have you actually done even the simplest game design?

"A game design is much more than a game idea. It’s a detailed specification for how the game should work. What does each button on the controller do? What does the HUD look like and what do each of the pieces do? How does enemy AI work? What pickups can players gather and what do they do? The game design describes every part of the game and tells how all the parts fit together to create a fun game."

Read this, please. At least. That's the person who actually makes games for a living describing how you can even start about thinking about may be making one day your game. http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=151

This is his explanation on why nobody, not a single game developer in the whole world, is even remotely interested in your game idea: http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=783

Make a film out of it. At least you may be have a passing familiarity with what the process of making a film involved. You don't have any with games.

I was going to go into the tired line of how everyone has an idea they think is good.  Instead, I'm going to point you towards various things to research:

C++, C#, VB.net, HTML, PHP

Unity3D, Truevision3D, Unreal Engine mods, Modding

Game Design, Game Development, Game Postmortem

Design Document, Technical Document, Game Proposal

Game Development Failures, Game Development Costs

I suggest you research each and every one of the things above.  You want to design a game, right?  Have an understanding of what everything is -from best programming language to what 3D engine would work best- so that you're not only are an 'idea man' (which everyone thinks they are)  but also someone that has a skillset that can actually get the work done.

WTH are people talking about patents for.   The only thing patentable would be something like server architecture, or something else that is an ACTUAL intellectual product(the raw idea behind the code, not the game design).   Your game design is a "dream" it's not patentable, and no one cares about it.

Literally it will not be stolen.   Anyone capable of stealing your ideas has far better things to do than read your game doc.   Anyone capable of stealing your idea is beholden to their own/teams ideas/designs.   And even if it was "stolen" it wouldn't be because a design doc its a fluid document, it changes as the team: implements code/art, tests the game, sees the real demo.  

If a game looks like it's initial design after you're done with your game, you're doing it wrong.   I've seen games go from 2d sidescroller, to a top down game in a weekend.   Because as the designer it's your job to change and move people based on playtesting and what the team does best.

Patents aren't relevant to protecting game IP.  The main protection is copyright, which means that someone else can't take your exact source code or your exact game files or whatever and reuse them as their own.  They could look at how your game plays and make something kind of similar, but that requires all of the work of actually making a game, and they'll probably find a bunch of things that they want to change along the way.

Trademarks are also relevant.  No one can make a Warcraft game except for Blizzard, no one can make a Pokemon game except for Nintendo, and so forth.  However, generally no one would be interested in infringing upon trademarks unless your game is a hit.

Regardless, you should worry more about how to get your game actually made before how to prevent it from being stolen is relevant.

Originally posted by Grahor

This is his explanation on why nobody, not a single game developer in the whole world, is even remotely interested in your game idea: http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=783

One quote I'd like to grab out of that link because it's so good:

"There’s a big difference between needing ideas within a game and needing ideas for a game. Notice that Kojima asked his developers for ideas about MGS, but he didn’t ask them for ideas about what game to make. They knew they were making MGS."

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Grahor

This is his explanation on why nobody, not a single game developer in the whole world, is even remotely interested in your game idea: http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=783

One quote I'd like to grab out of that link because it's so good:

"There’s a big difference between needing ideas within a game and needing ideas for a game. Notice that Kojima asked his developers for ideas about MGS, but he didn’t ask them for ideas about what game to make. They knew they were making MGS."

 I have to agree.  Ideas are a dime a dozen and if someone doesn't understand that, they must not have many ideas.

Also; http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_221/6582-Why-Your-Game-Idea-Sucks

Find out how copyright laws in your contry work, then publish everything in internet and try to get some game devs to look at it. You won't need to worry about anyone copying your idea, copyright will give you enough protection.