Plan for Andy "Doomed Toast" Verstraeten
by Andy "Doomed Toast" Verstraeten · 11/17/2005 (1:07 pm) · 2 comments
hi everbody hope you're having a nice day,
ok so it's every game/programming hobbiest's dream to start his or her own little company and do the fun stuff he normally does and
make money. So i've been thinking about some things i could do to make some money on the side(i'm currently still in high school btw).
I realise that doing something with multiple people is probably going to be difficult unless we live near each other and have exactly the same goals and input. Ok one of the problems is can you form a company when you're under 18 in belgium or can it just been seen as a student job or something. If you have experience with this please send in your toughts.
Ok so starting out with a full fledged indie game like many of the great ones here on garagegames might be a bit too far out and would take a long time to develop by myself and altough i'm pretty descent in most fields of game design i'm probably not profiscient enough to do everything from sound over textures and model to programming it would probably make my head explode.(and we don't want that cause it's very difficult to get those brainmatter stains out of the carpet).
Oh i know the answer=>outsourcing, and you're right outsourcing would be great buy some content packs put up some work for freelancers and i'd be set. The only problem is outsourcing costs allot of money.
So i'm thinking to get it all started i'm going to create some kind of middle-ware product=>map editor,modeling app(give me your toughts on what would be most usefull to you as a torque user and game developer in general). I'm pretty good with wxwidgets and opengl so that shouldn't be a problem.
Another thing i might give a shot is creating small cheap but fun flashgames. Your toughts on that are welcome as well if any of you ever tried that.
And last and the one i still have the most questions about is i'd probably do some freelance work to fill up the gaps but i'm not sure where to look for job-offers.
I hope you don't think i'm a complete loon and if you do please comment on why
cheers andy
ok so it's every game/programming hobbiest's dream to start his or her own little company and do the fun stuff he normally does and
make money. So i've been thinking about some things i could do to make some money on the side(i'm currently still in high school btw).
I realise that doing something with multiple people is probably going to be difficult unless we live near each other and have exactly the same goals and input. Ok one of the problems is can you form a company when you're under 18 in belgium or can it just been seen as a student job or something. If you have experience with this please send in your toughts.
Ok so starting out with a full fledged indie game like many of the great ones here on garagegames might be a bit too far out and would take a long time to develop by myself and altough i'm pretty descent in most fields of game design i'm probably not profiscient enough to do everything from sound over textures and model to programming it would probably make my head explode.(and we don't want that cause it's very difficult to get those brainmatter stains out of the carpet).
Oh i know the answer=>outsourcing, and you're right outsourcing would be great buy some content packs put up some work for freelancers and i'd be set. The only problem is outsourcing costs allot of money.
So i'm thinking to get it all started i'm going to create some kind of middle-ware product=>map editor,modeling app(give me your toughts on what would be most usefull to you as a torque user and game developer in general). I'm pretty good with wxwidgets and opengl so that shouldn't be a problem.
Another thing i might give a shot is creating small cheap but fun flashgames. Your toughts on that are welcome as well if any of you ever tried that.
And last and the one i still have the most questions about is i'd probably do some freelance work to fill up the gaps but i'm not sure where to look for job-offers.
I hope you don't think i'm a complete loon and if you do please comment on why
cheers andy
#2
11/18/2005 (7:30 am)
Thx for you fast responce i think you have some good ideas,i first was thinking about creating a modeling application but that would be a whole lot of work not prototypable in two weeks,so i reveiced i into a sort of easy to use paint directly on the model texture creator. Wich is something i wouldn't hesitate to pick up for a couple of bucks. I realise there are very advanced applications like this but they are very expensive so i'll try to create this geared more towards indie use. Next week i'm getting my new laptop,i'll see that as the start of the prototyping fase. again thx for the great responce 
Torque Owner Alan McCosh
i felt much the way you do now when i was your age, and had some similar ideas on how to reach my goals.
1) don't let your age get the in way of what you want to do. if you have spent a couple of years toying with game ideas, writing code, learning new skills, and you're still pumped to work in this field, GO FOR IT. the work isn't always glamorous and fun, but doing something you love cannot be traded lightly.
2) start with a project you think can be prototyped in less than 2 weeks, be it a game, a middleware system, etc. one of the most difficult aspects of indie development is the lack of an end in sight. you might start pounding away at some project, and after a month it still isn't doing what you had originally intended. this can happen for any number of reasons, but especially when you are working on your own, it is a good sign that the project's scope needs to be toned down a bit.
3) when you have reached 'prototype' status, put up another .plan and some screenshots of your work. the GG staff and community are more supportive than just about any other group i've seen online. they will let you know what needs work, returning contructive criticisms.
4) if you make it this far, and you're willing to put in the time/effort and make the changes that will really make your product shine, go for it. spend some time every week and look at previous versions of your product, notice the changes you have made, feel the progress in action. the key at this point is to finish your original goals. make something that you can come back to in a year and show someone, 'yeah, this is an example of my work. it works.' even if it isn't world-smashing, the finished product is the number one priority.
I've spent many years swaying back and forth between the games industry and mainstream software development. I only wish i had started finishing projects 8 years ago, when i was in your shoes.