over ambitious begginers.... who is guilty?

#1 no ! ;P

#2 Been there, done that. =/

But, it's all a learning process.

-Eric

#3 ... ya :(

my problem is that nobody thought my project was good enough to join, so I had to cut most of the ambitous weapons I wanted (since I'm not a fabulous programmer yet, and I'm extremmely bussy doing everything else all on my own)

#4 My first game was written for a TRS-80 (Pong, btw). I think it turned out pretty well. It was much easier in those days, when you didn't get sidetracked by silly things like 'color graphics' or 'hard disks.' ;)

#5 Mark has a point, all of us "old school" programmers did not have all the distractions surrounding "eye candy" and the various API's and what not back in the day of Z80 or 6502 ASM :)

Unless you were writing for a C=64 you did not even really have to worry about sound, just how long the beeps were going to be!

So I have to say no, with extenuating circumstances.

Oh yeah I forgot, here was what you used to "export" your graphics back then. It worked with EVERY program and language.

#6 I think 21-6 fell into this trap as well with Myr, they found out that Myr was just plain and simple "HUGE" and thus went to fry smaller fish to get the exp/exposure/talent required to complete a "HUGE" title like Myr.

I agree with 21-6's appraoch, start small and work yourself up to making that "HUGE" game. Most of the chaps looking to make a MMO* have a rude awakeing in store for them, but it's all about the learning process.

-Ron

#7 I used to be a game programming fool with my TI99/4A!

Now I just dont program anymore. ;-) LOL

-Eric

#8 Jarrod,

That link takes me back. I remember designing UDG's (user-defined graphics) on the ZX-Spectrum (Z80) using that. I also remember having a folder where I kept the entry points for all my manually linked assembly subroutines for my games. I almost created a whopping 26K program once, entirely in assembly!

- Melv.

#9 Guilty as charged...and I'm a repeat offender.

Finally on the right track now...I think ;)

#10 Yeah, back in the day of my Atari 800XL I spent most of my time writing the tools to write the game. We didn't have Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, and the like. Plus, we only had maybe 4 colors to work with!! Things have certainly changed since those days...

Some people believe that if they have a good idea, people will flock to help them. They figure that an idea will fund the development of a game, not realizing that it takes pure grit to make an Indie game. Unlike MODding Q3, UT, or Half-Life, making an actual game requires a more in-depth knowledge of the engine and netcode and other stuff.

Without a team of dedicated people, the larger projects sound great until you realize you have to do all the work yourself. I found myself starting off with a great idea, but going to back to the basics once I realized how big of a bite I took. Lately I've been creating art and brushing up on Algebra and Trig so that I can implement this stuff.

It's a great learning experience for anyone. But I have to laugh everytime someone posts a message like:

"I have a great new game idea that will make you all want to be on my team. I can't program, I suck at using Photoshop, and a don't have a dime to give to anyone to help. But if you sign up with me, I'll make sure that you benefit from my game."

It's mostly just pie in the sky talk. It takes real ambition, a ton of ingenuity, a little luck, and some gumption to pull off an Indie title. Most people don't seem to realize this...

Okay, stepping down...

#11 Yeh, I've been guilty of it. We don't want to cut back on our ambitious project, so we're going the other route: a few small games we can get done and out "easily" (comparatively speaking), the procedes of which will go towards making more of the ambitious project doable, so less cuts have to be made. Sure, it delays the project by a few months (or even a year), but if the end result is much better, who cares really?

Also, by the time we get round to our ambitious project, Torque 2 will probably be done so we can make it even better. What? A guy can dream, can't he? :)

#12 My first game was on an abacus, I have you all beat.

#13 Darn!

I had a brilliant post all planned out, but that abacus comment is so much better than my witty little remark that I might as well not bother typing it. :)

#14 My first game was Hang man using C drawing console routines. No wait my first game was moon lander oww that was soo sweet, lots of assembly routines. back in the good old days of 8 bit colour palette. haha no wait my first game was guess the number, all text game where you could only enter one number as a response.

I personally think the having an over ambitious project that failed isn't anything to be asshamed about, you'll find that 90% of people here have worked on a failed project some time or other. Even fully funded projects sometimes die. Its the mark of all game developers. What's important is that you take that experience and realise what you can realistically achieve next time round.
Off course it takes some people quite a few time to realise this.

#15 I was working on a class project for my first big failure... We did a basic Use-case diagram and then promptly ignored it.

Went back to redraw it so it was concurrent with the application, and the neat little thing had turned into a hedgehog. Lines going every which way. To top it all off, the application was clunky and nearly impossible to use.

We learnt to plan ;)

#16 I must admit it, my first project was over ambitious. I think it's something that everyone goes through though, assuming they werent forced to start programming on those simple machines years ago... ;)

#17 I suspect that people who take actual classes in game programming are immune to the overambition bug as well (though I never took such a class).

They probably start you out on Pong or something, rather than letting you to try to do Quake 3.

#18 I guess you can say I was overambitious back in the year of '87 when I was learning Apple IIe Basic. Our assignment was to make a simple graphics program using the basic drawing commands to output to the screen. Most everyone went for a bout the same pattern style drawing but I decided to try a fully animated scene! Needless to say, I never finished it in time (the animated spiderweb did start to look sweet as hell though :P )!

I learned to plan too, figure out how a program should flow before going at it from scratch :)

Cheers!

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

#19 Steve: I wish those types of classes had existed before I blew 4 years and about $20K at university

#20 What really helps is to just be as technical as you can. And I mean REALLY technical. I've read some articles that basically pictured design documents as just sorta-kinda-necessary. They didn't even touch on technical documents, daily/weekly/monthly checklists, quality assurance, lists of foreseen problems... I could go on and on and on! YOU NEED THAT! In order to do a game that has a lot of content and complex code (ones that people like!), you need it.


BTW: I was actually inspired to be technical in learning drawn animation. (You have to call it "drawn" or something similar, because morons will think you mean 3D for some reason.) When you have a complicated sequence to animate, you need what animators call a "dope sheet." It helps, then, to realize that being technical has nothing to do with not being creative.