Advice wanted on putting together a team

#21 Thanks very much Axel! I'll do that, and yes, I do intend to keep everyone working from location if possible, outsourcing some design work etc. on a per model type pay scheme or something along those lines to shorten development work, but without affecting the core team's ability to communicate effectively.

I'll see about getting a subscription to the magazine, Gamasutra and GameDev have both had some good insights, as have quite a few other websites I've spent time reading.

I lucky in the aspect that if we decide to end the project at any time I'm not going to lose my personal source of income (which is particularly good as I have 3 kids and a wife who'd kill me). But also, that the funding for this is coming directly from cashflow for another venture, so if we don't reach out deadlines, but believe in what we are doing, we can extend the deadlines without taxing anyone financially.

Anyhow, thanks very much for your advice Axel!

- Will

#22 Will - There's no writer on your list! o.O If you're going to make a game with a story, you need a writer, probably two. Also, for writers and concept artists whose work is usually finished long before all the programming, it's better to hire them as contractors than full-time staff. You may also want a secretary/technical writer to be in charge of recording and archiving discussions and keeping the design doc updated.

But just in case you aren't aware of this, most game development companies do not hre full-time staff or maintain an office for their first game, it's much cheaper to contract labor over the web. I am a writer and a concept artist, and I don't think I could sit down and produce for 8 hours in a row - my mind gets tired. I am most efficiently productive when I work part time from my home where I have all my materials and equipment set up just the way I like it, and there's peace and quiet to help me concentrate, and I can work for two hours, take a nap to recharge, and work for two more hours.

#23 Hi Mare,

I'm actually quite a good writer, and have access to a professional editor. So that will be the role I will play, as well as game designer. Certainly we intend to outsource quite a lot of element creation to reduce development time, but will employ our core team locally. Luckily we also employ some talented people in our company, so will also have access to their skills etc., as well as the ability to get them to do things such as update design docs etc.

As far as writing goes, because in essence we will have about 10 people working from the one office, it makes for great brainstorming sessions which I can develop into a script for further input.

Thanks for your input.

- Will

#24 Yeah,

That's what I like about doing concept art. You get to move from project to project very quickly in respect to the total development time.

There are plenty of good concept artists around here, and professionals too. If you have the money, I would suggest David King or Unit Studios; both are accomplished artists. Unit is working at Perception at the moment doing the concept work for the Stargate SG-1 game, so you may not be able to secure him, but I'm not sure what Dave is doing. I'm pretty sure he's up for contract work. Both have worked at Microforte for years, so they're both industry veterans.

Cheers,
Paul.

#25 Thanks very much Paul, I'll seriously consider getting in touch with David.

- Will

#26 Im kind of torn on the issue of full-time, local staff vrs distributed team. In general, the local staff will get a project done much quicker, have less communications issues, and possibly be more motivated. On the flip side, it costs a lot more, and theres still no guarantee of success. Ive personally had the dubious honor of participating in a failed local team, which really had no lack of skills...

Contract wherever you can, lisence content packs if at all possible. Not only will this save cash in the long run, it'll help keep your team from burning out. Long periods with little visible progress can make even the most motivated developers weary.

#27 Hi Travis,

We definitely intend to outsource a lot of design work and get hold of as many suitable packs as possible. Certainly in a project like this one, to have just two guys actually designing all the elements would be an extremely long development time. We will be outsourcing as much as we can our employed designers will spend more time doing key elements and characters, and piecing together elements, rather than designing them from scratch! I definitely think that's the smartest way to go!

I agree entirely, that the biggest failure (apart from finance) is a lack of progress which obviously leads to a lack of motivation.

Thanks for your input.
- Will

#28 Will,

Keep us updated with your progress, I know I would be interested in applying as an artist if a position became available :)

#29 No problems Paul. At the moment I've posted on the sumea forum for expressions of interest for any experienced Melbourne based 3D programmers, the game concept document will be completed by Tuesday, however, I'm heading off for a 10 day holiday on Wednesday before really launching into this. Once I return however, it will be all systems go, particularly if we have had some feedback from our post on Sumea. If not, we will have to advertise the position formally and see how we go from there. Our first priority will of course be securing an experienced lead programmer, once we have that, we can continue looking for the rest of the team.

- Will

#30 "having a demo of some sort after 6, and a playable demo after 12."

How complex is this game? That's quite a long time. The first thing you should do is code up a playable prototype in some actual interactive form. For all of our titles I always sit down and codesketch a prototype first thing to get a feel for what the game will be. Of course the prototype and the demo are two different things but you should be able to make a prototype within a month and then a complete demo for a publisher within 3 - 6 months depending on the complexity of the game. I can't see just the demo taking 12 months unless it's an insanely complex game.

It surely sounds like your game is more complex than Aerial Antics and actually I just read that you'd also like to create the engine for that game as well. Anyway, I single handedly created a full 30 level game for Aerial Antics which was the pitch to Garage Games. That was the demo and it took 1 month by myself (using a pre-existing engine of course). The rest of the game took basically 6 months to create with 2 people, Adrian Tysoe who posted above and myself.

My advice to you would be to prototype the game using existing technology ASAP. Pitch that prototype to the publisher and explain that new technology must be created etc... for certain (and I assume logical) reasons.

I know for a fact that a game out on PS2/GC/XBOX right now called Future Tactics was prototyped/created completely (whole game was done) using the same tools we used for Aerial Antics. After the prototype they went to Renderware and went cross platform etc... Still the fact remains that the prototype will get you the funding, which will get you the rest of your team, which will get you the game.

#31 Hi Jeremey,

I think to get it to a stage where it is presentable from an independent developer to a professional publisher I would expect certainly 12-18 months. Simply because I'd rather do it right and get the result I envisage, than present something that I'm not confident really conveys the game, and that we are a reasonable way into the development process.

We definitely are not considering creating our own engine, and will be licensing a commercial engine for the entire process (at this stage looking at what options we can provide our lead programmer who will make the final decision...looking at Jupiter and Reality as the two main commercial engines).

We're in a position where we can fund the game development with existing cashflow for an unrestricted period of time, so although time is always a huge issue, we are budgeting to allow for a realistic time frame for the concept to be done right. It may be a relatively complex game, but the expectations if completed are quite large, and certainly those that have read our game concept have suggested if done properly we are on a winner.

Thanks for your input Jeremy. I certainly understand however, that once we get publisher funding or invester funding we will be in a position to really step up development and decrease our time frame, so we will be looking at securing this as early as is feasible.

- Will

#32 And you are talking about 12 - 18 months for the demo (when you say demo you mean just a prototype to sell the publisher on the game concept, or will this be like an alpha version of the game)? Hmmm... well if you've got the time then more power to you. It's certainly better to overestimate the amount of time needed. Of course you also shouldn't sell yourself short on what you think you're capable of but only you can know if you are actually doing that. Good luck!

#33 Thanks Jeremy.

Essentially we believe in the current market when competing with big developers - who have either publisher backing or cooperation early, or a large budget to work with - presentation of a commercial quality alpha version or at the very least a couple of completed levels/missions has more chance of getting good backing by a publisher. Of course if we have something ready earlier that we believe is that good we'll be presenting earlier - but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves with what may turn out to be unrealistic goals...best to overestimate the time than underestimate I think.

- Will

#34 Will, Just be careful as there aren't many publishers out there willing to take on games by inexperienced teams, or companies without already shipped titles.

I'd hate to see you waste 12 months on something no one is interested in, the Market can be really fickle and apart from Ubisoft and EA most pyblishers are struggling to stay afloat.

12-18 months is a really long time for demo, you should be able to do one in about 2-3 months and if a publisher is interested they will fund you for a few more months to bring it further.

You also risk the chance of submitting a demo, and the publisher telling you they don't like the setting and want a completely different look to their game, and then give you 6 months to redo some of the story, and the localization of the graphics. I've had to do that before.

Working as a start up game developer means you have almost no bargaining power, so your going to have to be really lucky to get there at all.

#35 I just want to echo what Jeremey and Adrian are saying by adding a one line snippet of wisdom:

Work expands to consume all available time.

The time to produce a working prototype and a good demonstation level sounds a bit long to me. I am thinking that with an experienced, small team, you should be able to get a fully working prototype with a polished 'demo' level ready to show in 6-8 months (worst case scenario).

#36 Thanks Joe and Adrian, I'll adjust our timeframes to aim at a 6 month demonstration!! Fantastic feedback and I really appreciate it. It's also nice to hear, that publishers are willing if they believe you have a good idea, but want some changes to it, offer suggestions and re-evaluate the game later on down the track.

Thanks very much!

- Will

#37 My development style is obviously very different from what others posting are suggesting, but I am having excellent success with it so far. My budget is pithy and would pay for 2 artists and 1 programmer for 1 month. That's 40 hours per week, x 4 weeks, x 3 people = 480 manhours. Not much when the goal is maximum quality and amount of original content.

Basically, I have broken the project into smaller pieces, then broken those into even smaller pieces, and am contracting out for each individual piece. For example, skyboxes and ground textures is one, enemy animations is one, main character animations is one, level clutter objects is one, character concept art is one, etc. After figuring out exactly what pieces need to be done, and how much I can afford to pay for each piece as compared to my total budget, I then found individuals willing to work for those flat amounts as freelance independant contractors and selected the ones among those interested with the highest quality work. I offer nor imply no percentage of the profits -- the reward is mine alone, but the risk is also mine alone. I could lose my entire investment and am the only one not getting paid.

I have people helping me from all over the world that I will probably never meet. But by building my game incrementally "brick by brick," I always have full and total control over not only the content but the budget. There is never time for things to get out of control, or go in the wrong direction, all the while "bleeding" money. It is working excellently for my "micro" project and I prefer this far and above having in-house employees. It is very efficient. By doing this there is no wasted time because there is no "meter running" -- if I want to take a month off to re-think a core gameplay element, or hot-swap out an artist whose style just isn't working, or cruise down to California for a vacation, it's easy and painless.

My first instinct was to build my game with a complete design document first, then go to step 2, then to step 3, etc. That's great in theory, but in practice I am finding not so clear divisions between the various steps -- and you always think of new things as you get further into development, things you could have never thought of prior, just looking at a piece of paper. Making any art form is definitely an organic process and by contracting out the work piece by piece there is maximum room (and time) for changes and re-thinking, fueling creativity and originality. This is how my development "house" is going but I'd be the last to espouse one "right" way to develop.

As a final sobering thought, cruise on over to www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/. There you will find hundreds upon hundreds of games that look awesome -- and most that you will never see on store shelves, never will play, and never will hear about. Despite the seemingly lucrative profits, the game industry is highly competitive, so the less money you risk on a first project the better. Why make one game when you could make five, each better than the one before building upon your actual experience?

There is no getting around the fact that you can't throw money at a game to make it good. If a game has a radient soul but a rough exterior, it will be played and loved all the more than a game with no soul but a beautiful exterior. Blair Witch (the movie) was made for a dime and made millions. Blair Witch sequels cost millions and hardly made a dime. The first movie had zero production value compared to later ones, but the first movie also had character compared to later ones. It was original and like nothing seen before. It clicked. Sometimes success is a bit like lighting -- you can't exactly predict it, no matter how thick or well written your game plan is. If your game isn't successful you want to have resources left to be able to jump right into making the next one.

It sounds like you have things under control but I wanted to give my two cents and experience.

Good luck and happy gaming.

#38 Hey Joshua,

Thanks very much for the information. Very interesting to see how differently people tend to attack one objective.

At this stage, we're pretty well decided how we are going to go about it, but outsourcing particular elements is definitely one of the strategies we intend to use to shorten our development time. We'll have our key players employed full time, and outsource quite a lot of artistic work.

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with it. Best of luck with your game!!!

- Will