Like many here, I am an aspiring game developer, and this journal is my attempt to give something back to the community. The purpose of this journal is to detail my trials, tribulations, and lessons learned as I progress in the development of my upcoming game, entitled "The Village and the Nation." For those interested in a little more information about the game itself and where it currently stands, feel free to check out my wordpress page here:
http://infinityelephant.wordpress.com
For my initial entry, I am going to talk a little bit about who I am, what my experiences are, and what I hope to accomplish by keeping this journal. For the most part, I intend to use this journal to talk about game development, both technically and creatively, as I myself go through the process of creating a game as a (mostly) one man team. So without further adieu...
Introduction:
I have been kind of a hobbyist/dabbler in game design for many years. I've had many half hearted efforts at creating a game, many false starts where I got in over my head and gave up on whatever project I had in my head at the time, but also some small successes. I have successfully created a lot of the basic clones that people often make when they get started. I've made pong, breakout, snake, and a mario-like sidescroller that was reasonably playable. I also made a text based RPG that I dabbled with for a long time. I'm not sure whether you would call it finished, or if it would even have a finishing point, but it was playable. I just had a kind of continuous process of coming up with a new feature to add, adding it, working out the bugs, and then moving on to another one. There was never a grand vision, it was all about learning.
About a year ago, and for various reasons, I arrived at the conclusion that I would need to be changing careers. I'm in my 30s, and for the moment I have a steady, stable job, but its not a career. And so, I set about learning what I felt I needed to learn to launch towards a career in Game Development. In February of this year, I started down the path of creating a full game for release to others. I have committed myself to doing things the "right" way this time around. Before I ever wrote a line of code, I created a design document. I drew sketches and concept art. I drew class diagrams and planned out the technical aspects of my game. I knew much if not all of it would change, but I gave myself a solid starting point.
The point of this game, if you're wondering, is to use as a springboard. I have no delusions of grandeur, I know that this project will not make millions... heck, it likely won't make any money at all. But I intend to finish it, and release it into the wild. I intend to use this experience to either, find myself a real job, or, if the stars align, start my own studio.
The Point:
So, now that you know just a little bit about me and where I am coming from, I'm going to explain why I wish to keep this journal here on gamedev. Thing is, I'm no expert in anything really. I am somewhere between complete novice and intermediate in most of the areas necessary to game development. I thought long and hard about whethere there was some topic on which I could write an article, as a sort of payback to the GameDev community who has helped me so much. I concluded that no, I really shouldn't be writing articles just yet.
On the other hand, I believe that my first hand experiences as someone who is in the process of developing his very first real game could definately be valuable. I will talk about the stumbling blocks and how I overcame them. I will point out various resources that help me, and give advice as to what I find to be most helpful to the beginning designer. I will also talk about my successes, and how it feels when you actually do make forward progress.
In short, I am here to give keep a log of the day to day process of creating a game from the point of view of someone who has never done anything of this level before. I am going to commit to a minimum of one update per week, though I hope to update more often than that as time permits.
As for you, dear reader, as me questions. Let me know how I'm doing, and by all means I would love some constructive comments on how I might present myself better. Until next time!
