Seeking dedicated team for ambitious game

Community Got Skills? Looking for Talent? Job Offerings
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About Coma:
To make a functioning team, I believe you must get to know the people before their work! You can be amazing at what you do but be completely nonfunctional in a group setting which is great for freelance but doesn’t fly in a team. Because of this belief, you get to know a bit about me before reading about the game in case you’d think we wouldn’t get along.

I am Krystin, online I go by Comatose. I am a 25 year old college student working for main a degree in animation and secondary in game design. I am pretty easy to work with and am rather quiet, I’d rather listen then speak, but I can step up if needed. If someone is doing something I don’t agree with in a work environment I tend to tell them instead of gossiping behind their backs. I can be a bit blunt in how I speak to people and can get irritated when people interrupt me when I get “in the zone” (don’t we all though?). I am a digital artist by trade and have experience in Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator and Paint Tool Sai, currently dabbling in Unity C# and working toward learning C++ for the Unreal Engine.

About the project:
The working title for said ambitious game is Cascading Heart. It will be a semi-open world game based in a modern fantasy setting which includes modern cities nestled in fantasy wilderness. The basis of the game is choice, the player will have the choice to kill or to be peaceful, to make friends with the NPC’s or not, etc.

It will play as a 3rd person action-adventure set up with optional first person camera. The goal of the game is to appeal to both males and females in the 15-30 age range.

Story synopsis:
In the middle of the school semester a second year student wakes up to find a masked man who knows their father at the door asking for them to talk before the school bus arrives. Outside they offer the teen the opportunity to have a life beyond the mundane routines of every other human. The teen then has a choice: abandon school and the prospect of having a stable career after to follow the stranger into a path of unknown or play it safe and keep within the bounds of their life.

Current Info

(30 Jan 2016)
I am nearly done with the GDD, it will be available to team members to read once finished.

I hope to be able to get a working demo of the game up in about a year for hopeful crowdfunding to pay the team for their work but until that point, unfortunately the positions will be unpaid. I would like to work with people in the Los Angeles area for weekly meet-ups on game progress but am open to working remotely as long as contact does not become an issue. Skype is a good way to keep in contact when remotely and locally working (until a studio office can be afforded.)

The team name is Dream Gear Games, currently looking into turning it into an LLC (name may have to change slightly due to the accessory company: Dreamgear) but it may be a little while before the team can become a tangible studio.
**
(10 Feb 2016)
Cascading Heart is being put on hold but I will continue to monitor this thread and update on it. While I fine-tune the mechanics and finalize character/creature designs I will be working on some separate and smaller games to raise money to pay the future team. You can still apply for positions and ask questions about the project but for now I will only be taking names and online contact information (email or just a message on the forums) for those who wish to be a part of the team. **

Seeking:

  • Programmers
    -working knowledge of C++ and the Unreal Engine.
    • Landscape/concept Artists
      -I have a general map and what the towns are based on but need someone good with landscape design to help out
    • 3D modelers
      -self explanatory
    • Riggers
      -character models need to be rigged
    • Animators
      -I can do some animation but it would be faster with more than one person
    • Script
      -Seeing as the game is highly choice-based there will be several dialogue trees that will be needed. I am working on the script but figured it couldn’t hurt to get another person or two on board.
    • Project Manager
      -I need someone experienced to help the team manage their time to meet goals. Currently I am filling in this role but I have no experience in management so someone who does have the experience would be better than me.

Contact:

If you think you are interested in a position and are willing to dedicate 6-8 hours a week working on the project feel free to contact me here, on Indie Teamup, or on Indiegamer. As soon as we have one person in each position we will work on setting up a time for progress meetings as well as going over what everyone will be expected to do (I may have a NDA made up to be signed if necessary)

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Hey Comatose1133, would you mind sharing your school’s name or contact info? I think I have a great idea for a new class they should teach there, I’m thinking of game development feasibility as a working title, though they may end up calling it start small, please, just start small just in case the kids don’t follow through then at least they get the gist of it from the title.

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We get a lot of threads here that are no more than “hey I have no skills, help me make an MMORPG” with this one they seem to have a game idea that while it’s a huge challenge it’s actually possible and they’re taking the right steps to get working on it. They have skills to contribute and they’ve been putting together a game plan to get it working. Really it’s something that can be done as long as people involved are disciplined and dedicated.

I would actually look for a concept artist to help in the early stages though. Help narrow down the look of the game and come up with designs.

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I actually have over 70 creature designs along with the main 3 characters and about 10 npc’s sketched. I just need to touch up the player character’s character sheet and that will be ready to model. Landscapes and architecture is where my design skills fall short though I am not adverse to working on it until someone better wants to pitch in :slight_smile:

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cgiteach’s critique is that this immense project is not feasable by a small indie team, so the point is that comatose does/or wants not see the time and skill and teamsize that is required to create everything that is needed for the game.
So instead of incouraging her to add even more to their dreams (by concept art, which can be done easy/quick), I would advise instead to actually
build something of the existing dreams for the game.
Therefore dont make concept, but actually build e.g. one of those cities that you dream of.
By doing this, you will learn that dreaming up something is maybe 1/100 of the time and 1/1000 of the skill you need to actually make it in a game.

Also it’s not probable that you find skilled people who will work free for you 24-48 hours a week.

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I do see the time it takes to make a game that size, I estimate that it will be around 10 years in production with a small dedicated team working part time, 7 with a full-time team, on my own I figure it will be about 14-15 for just a stable version, longer for something complete. The one year I mentioned is just for a proof of concept build with minimal assets and just the ability to walk around and talk to NPCs.

I will start on building the actual world and working on mechanics using temporary assets once I am finished with the GDD which should be soon, I plan on working on the game even without a team even if it takes exponentially longer.

I do agree with the work week bit, I don’t know what I was thinking about that before you posted but it just confirmed my suspicions. I’ll be lowering that to 6-8 hours :slight_smile:

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Comatose1133, I would then suggest picking up any one of these titles:How The Mind Works, The Selfish Gene, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Thinking, Fast and Slow, or the more heavy The Ego Tunnel. These would be just a few, though any one of them might set you up to more rational thinking.
Games are entertainment products, usually for human’s entertainment. Knowledge of basic psychology is thus fundamental. I would start with some basic behavioral psychology first and perhaps then move on to business reading. Let me know if you need suggestions on that topic. To get through a dozen books or so would take you 2-3 months tops, considering doing something else on the side. **If you plan to invest close or over a decade in production **please take a couple of months to do some reading and afterwards reflect back on your proposition.

To the others offering feedback, he’s talking about having a GDD and then quite a handful of concept work though I’ve skimmed through a few lines of text and haven’t seen one pixel outside my forum’s color theme palette; he also claims to be a Digital Artist, with no 3D package experience wanting to make a 3D game, so what are we talking about?
I’m seriously considering building up a forum post that might be eligible for a sticky to help people like the OP. What I’m lacking short of is time(of course) but more importantly statistics. I think basic math can help a lot here. If someone’s willing to help me out on sourcing the last 100 forum threads opened like this one and pursuing the respective OPs to determine where their project ended up, perhaps linking to their threads so people can see how close they match each other and what the odds are.

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I am not a 3d artist, I am an artist who works in digital medias such as photoshop thus a digital artist. I do have experience in making some 3d models but my current computer can not run Maya or Blender with any kind of smoothness (built-in graphics are terrible) I will admit that I haven’t been able to do any sort of modeling for the past 2 years because of this issue. I have built a small game using the Unity engine but it had no goal other than jumping over things and running around on a confined map as a horse, if you need proof I can upload and post it for you though it was my first attempt at using Unity and the animations don’t play correctly.

I will take your advice though and hold off on Cascading Heart for the time being. I’ll be working on at least two much, much smaller games alone to raise funds and pay an actual team with that revenue but I will be pursuing this game to completion.

I will continue to look for team members to add to a roster for calling upon when I have the funds to start it up so I’ll keep checking back on this.

ps. I’m a girl :slight_smile:

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You truly have too much time on your hands if you want to spend it pointing out the flaws of others…

teak

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One thing that is extremely important in life and that is to learn. If you have a dream to make a great game, then do it and on the way learn everything you can. That includes making GDD’s, team management, etc. Read books (a great book is The Art of Game Design)… watch and read tutorials. When you run into negativity and people saying you can’t do this or that, just nod your head and continue. Always stay positive and that will help people assist with your endeavors.

Good luck to ya!

teak

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nice describe of future game, good luck)

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Comatose:

I have a dream of making a massive game, like you. I get the passion you have. And since you have said you are putting this project on hold it seems you are willing to learn and adapt with hurdles that come your way, which is pretty awesome in my opinion.

I want to throw out some thoughts to consider. I am not saying you can’t achieve this, or you should give up. What I’m gonna write starts out kinda negative sounding but I promise the end is much more positive!

You said you are an artist. I am an artist as well. :smiley:

Let’s pretend someone came up to me and said “I no basically nothing at all about art, but I have a vision of this amazing mural in my head, and for the next 2 years I am going to draw it. It’s going to be super detailed and a massive under taking, but I’m dedicated, and I wont stop til its done.”

If I heard that I would imagine this person setting out with his/her mural design. But then they learn about art along the way, or they look at what they’ve done, and not like it, or run into problems. This would lead them to learning about composition, color theory, and proper anatomy. So they forge ahead. But as they learn, they realize they should have set the mural up differently. They’ve already drawn some people in the mural that don’t look right. The farther the get in the mural, the more they want to redo to it. Maybe 6 months in, they stop and realize, the mural is too sloppy and the quality in parts is too low for them to ever achieve their vision, so they scrap it.

So, after I imagined that in my head, my advice would be that if they really have this passionate vision and they want to make this beautiful mural, then they need to learn the fundamentals of art and get some experience. And the same is true for you - I believe before you finished your game, you would have learned so much that you would decide to scrap your project or TOTALLY revamp it. Instead I would suggest learning much more of the basics.

See, I told you the beginning is negative! And, you already stated that you were putting your idea on hold, so if I was just saying that, I would be an A@@hole!

Now for the positive feedback.

I think you SHOULD work on your game, kind of. Watch this:

I think you should write up a GDD for a very small game (not to sale, just to learn, and to eventually demonstrate to others an idea of what your game would be like.). Like, one small level. It would be a small taste of your dream idea. So I am going to spitball here a bit, since I don’t know much about your idea. I’m gonna say you want something like:

^— So something like that, but that fits better in your world.

So bam, you have a simple game to make! But its going to take a long time, since you are inexperienced. But, the time you spent wont be wasted, because much of what you will learn doing this small game will help you greatly when you make your bigger game.

Then, making your game. Follow these steps:

  1. Make a list of every task you will have to accomplish: NPC/ogre/main character/cat models. Environment. AI. Music. Animations. Combat. Dialog. Etc.
  2. Cut everything you can. If you finish the bare minimum, you can add in other stuff. That means cut the music. Cut the NPC. (Write a couple paragraphs the show up at the beginning of the game). Cut the choices down to two.
  3. Figure out which things you don’t have to do yourself. (there are free graphics out there for a natural environment, same with a model for the main character, ogre and cat.) Basically do everything you can to cobble together this game as simply as possible.
  4. Rank the remaining in order of absolute importance.
  5. Start making your game!

If you get this far, you might get stuck. Maybe you don’t know how to make your game! If that’s the case, put your simple game idea on hold, and learn. Here are a couple of tutorials on making the very basics of a 3rd person game. Do those. Do other tutorials.


  1. Make your game! If you finish your very simple game, you can then look to your big dream project, and re-evaluate how you want to tackle it, with everything you’ve learned. If you don’t finish your game, because you get stuck, and you are in too deep, then put the project on hold, and start out smaller. Make a Pong clone, or an Asteriods clone, or just keep following a bunch of Unreal tutorials until you’ve learned enough to make it.

Here area couple more videos I would suggest watching. (not tutorials, just short videos about making your first game.)

Ok so maybe you are thinking: “I cant make this game myself, of course. I don’t know programming, or 3d art etc. But I am going to get other people to do that stuff, so it’ll work out. Plus, I am going to learn it as I go, and get help from the people I’m working with!”

Well, my response to that is in my next comment, because this is getting too long!

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"Gathering a team to build your game"

Ok, so this is future advice for if you end up attempting to make your full game down the line.

Side note: I am assuming you want to make this game, because you have a passion for this specific idea. you love it. If you mainly want to make money, ask for a list of better ways to go about it. If you mainly want to learn, go join someone else’s project to learn on. And/or do a bunch of tutorials (I can give you a huge list of very high quality tutorials). Some other reason I haven’t thought of? No? OK so assuming you ARE very passionate about this specific idea and world, and you want to eventually get a team to help you build it, then read on.

You have this great idea for a game right? And you want to see it made? Ideally mostly how you envision it in your head more or less? The problem is, almost EVERY SINGLE game developer has a dream game they would like to see created. Their love of games is what got them into game development, no matter what area of game development they are in, whether its programming, 3d modelling, or even marketing or journalism.

So think to yourself, why should/would people choose to work on your project?

  • You seem motivated and hard working, which is excellent.
  • I am going to assume you have spent a lot of time planning this game, and its awesome and people would love it.
  • You put a good amount of effort and thought into your post, and it shows.
  • You listened to concerns people raised, and changed your plans to fit the new info you got. (this is the best thing to me)

That’s the good points you have going for you.

Thing is, as I said in my last post, I have an idea for a game. I would say I also fit those four criteria as well. And I have seen many other posts from people that seem to meet those criteria. So you have A LOT of competition. I mean A LOT. So you want to make your project attractive to people. How do you go about doing this? There is a lot of ways. And since you have said that you are going to make some much smaller games before you return to your epic one, then you have time to plan it out. I am going to throw out some ideas for the time being.

-You could try to get a bunch of complete noobs working on your project.
— But with a bunch of noobs, they will flounder. Everything will grind to a halt. Someone would have to teach them how to do SO MUCH that production time would be 50 times longer than it should be.
— Also the noobs would move on to other projects much quicker on average I bet. Once they learn enough from you to work on their own project, they are gone. That would also leave half finished work that is confusing, and has bugs etc. Just a massive nightmare.
— Also, you have to give the noobs a reason to pick your project over others.

  • You could get more experienced developers on your team.
    — But again, why will they choose your project? They have seen many projects come and go. They the bigger a project is, the more likely it wont be finished. and they know that the less experienced the people in charge are, the less likely it’ll be finished.

OK enough of the negative, I wont to throw in some proactive ideas about what you can do to prepare for the day that you start up this project again! When people read your thread asking for team members, you want them excited to join.

- Have something (a prototype playable level with placeholder everything, a fleshed out story line, concept art) to show people at the very start of your project.

In your future thread, you can show a very simple prototype(visually the prototype doesn’t have to look like your end game at all), like what a described in my last post, with the ogre. Also have some concept art to demonstrate the mood of your game. If story is important to your game, link to a more fleshed out story line. There are other things I haven’t thought of, but basically these things show that you’ve put actual hard work into your concept and not just a bunch of thinking. Plus people can tell more what your project is going to be and they can get excited about it.

- Demonstrate knowledge and experience.

By demonstrating that you have some knowledge and experience, it soothes the fears that the game will never be finished, and other related fears revolving around the theme of it ending up being a huge nightmare. Showing a prototype is a good start. I have very little experience myself, so you would want to research more what else to do. On thing is to join another project run by a knowledgeable person so see how a game development team is managed. How they work together, workflow, etc.

- Make people believe your project wont be abandoned after years of hard work

You might get some noobs to join a more or less doomed project, but the people you really want on your project, those with some experience are a little cynical and skeptical. They probably dont want to join a project that they think is doomed to fail. Address the fears and objections they would have. If you don’t yet know all of the fears and objections they would likely bring up, that’s a major sign your project is doomed to fail :smiley:

I eventually plan to make a similar thread, asking for volunteers to help on my beloved game idea. But before I do, I am going to follow all of the suggestions I gave you, or at least nearly all of them. I want to learn a little bit of each part of the process for making a game before I try to have a hand in leading a full project. I feel like the person at the top, overseeing the others needs to know how each part of game development works, and how they all fit together to flow smoothly.

So my step one is to make a simple little game. Alternatively, I could work on someone else’s project, but I think I will be more inspired if I am working on something of my own. I wouldn’t mind working with another person would would either be willing to teach me, or learn alongside me, assuming I felt they were a good fit. But outside of that, I will learn alone until I have something under my belt!

OK, there is everything that was in my brain! Good luck on your journey!

PS: I am VERY new to game development. I may have given some bad advice. take what I say with a grain of salt, and if someone else out there actually reads what I wrote and thinks I gave some bad advice, please point it out!

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One last thing. If you want some really good resources on UE4 for complete noobs, let me know, because, as I am a complete noob, I have been really searching for the best tutorials and resources to learn with, and have compiled a pretty good list.

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**I would like the same as well. **

One to my real point.
I’m trying to become a game designer but I don’t know where to start. I have some skills in c++ and some art skills as well. I was trying to create my own open world futuristic rpg game by myself but didnt get that far because it’s just to hard. I’m a college student as well. My idea for a game was similar to a borderlands type game but has elements Gundam, Destiny and Warframe. I would love to see if I can join you. Message me if you would like to.

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If you are looking for a dedicated team for a representative game, I can advise a guide about the dedicated development team model.

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Hello,

I am Brian. I am a 3D artist in character creation, props, and knowledgeable on rigging, and animation in both Maya and Blender. I do create 2d illustrations of characters. My portfolio is at wolfmorality.artstation.com and also Charge attack animation - YouTube for an animatic short. I am available any time of the week so dependability and trust is what you get with me. My skype is sniper “dot” raven if you need to message.