Many of you may know that I am making an RPG in directdraw, but I''m about (SOON!) to port to direct3d. In my opinion, it lies the foundation of many things to come. I mean, most people think that RPGs are the newbie game, and in most cases they are probably right. But I think that this game will , or if not already has, display good understanding of many key areas of game development. If you have not played Arean''s Wish, I suggest you download it in the GDS, but it''s not a very up-to-date copy, but that''s besides the point. No offense to any other game devers, but as I stated earlier, RPGs are the newbie games. I THINK (just from what I''ve heard on these forums) that when I am of age to get a programming job (I just turned 16), if all I show the game companies my RPG, I will not be hired. Now, I have about 2 years before I want to pursue this. I think that it will take 6-8 months to finish Arean''s Wish. So I basically have a year and a half to show game companyies that I''m the stuff they''re looking for (even though game companies aren''t looking for programmers, really). And no degree of talent in an RPG will impress them (I think). So, in the next two years, I have to make a game that will actually get me that slim possibility to make it in the game developer''s world. Now, I don''t HAVE to make a game, but I understand that if I say in my resume "I''ve made an RPG" it won''t impress them or if I only have a demo of an engine I have made, it won''t impress them. I need a game. I have a few on my back, but nothing so creative or new that those companies are looking for. There''s a few possiblities I see at my fingertips. I could get fans. What I mean is doing something that everyone is already interested in. For example, there is a company, Tierra. They are remaking the old king''s Quest games (my favorite) from Sierra ON-line. Hundreds, if not, thousands of people are awaiting their new game, King''s Quest II: Romancing the Throne to come out. They aren''t even selling it. But, one of the anonymouse game developers there are starting their own company that will actually be selling games made by him/her. Because he is so widely known, he will at least have people buying his products so that he can get in the game development world. And if he didn''t do this, who wouldn''t want to hire someone that did such an excellent job reviving a dead game genre? Secondly, I could make another type of game. Most of our games that we plan on making are games that most people wouldn''t want to play. My idea for our next game is an adventure game. We worked on it before Arean''s Wish but gave up until we had the budget to afford artists. You can see a few screenshots at www.seanet.com/~ncarter/spongefactory if you''d like. But thats not important. If I were to start working on my next game of a more popular genre, say strategy, maybe I would have more of a chance at impressing those companies. Or maybe one of those First person shooters. But, to me, this is less fun than designing a game with characters that you begin to understand and love. That''s why we''ve stuck to these "newbie" games. What should our company do in preporation (sp?) for the future? I need to make sure that I can create a solid game that other companies will actually make my talent seem like something those companies will WANT. Thanks for reading such a long post about such a small topic, but it''s important to me.

I completely agree with alnite. In fact, just to let you know, there are a LOT of companies out there that would never dream of attempting to do an RPG because of the massive amount of work it takes to create a good one! I know that my company won''t anyway

One thing to keep in mind is that each game genre has it''s own set of problems to overcome. A first-person-shooter will require a tight engine so it can deliver fast and furious action. A sports game may require advanced character animation components to blend the motion-captured clips together in a realistic manner. In that same way, RPG''s have their own set of sophisticated problems to overcome. Don''t sell yourself short, and don''t do work that doesn''t interest you just to get hired. Your dis-interest will shine through in your work because you don''t care about it as much.

I can''t speak for the rest of the world, but at my company you''d probably have a higher chance of getting a job if you can show that you have a fair amount of knowledge about making an entire game and then showing that you can do one thing rather well.

Keep doing what you love and I think you''ll do fine

-John

A few comments on your website.

1) Make sure the links work. (None of them do in the downloads page)
2) Make the site easy to browse. (Whenever I looked at a screenshot near the end of your list I needed to scroll down again)
3) Let people resize the screenshot windows. I tried to look at one of the ones for the flying game and it cuts off the bottom of the pic.
4) Just completely get rid of those scrolling things. Anything that you need to explain to the user is a BAD thing. Users love to "just know" how to use stuff.

Otherwise, that last screenshot looked pretty good.

-Greg