I have to chuck in my $0.02 worth here...
I''m holding down a full-time job as an embedded systems engineer with a Large Consumer Electronics Company. The nice thing about that is that it''s not something I have to/can take home, they don''t like me running off with $20K in-circuit emulators..! Despite this, I''ve just handed off an ALPHA of an open-source "no programming required" game development environment based on the Genesis3D engine. We had two programmers on the team (me being one), one artist/modeller, and one sound designer - ALL of whom had Real Life Jobs. Despite that, over the past 7 months we managed to get things to a decent point where we can drop it off on SourceForge and move on (well, SOME of us are, others are taking it forward to meet with the next release of Genesis3D Classic, the "bugfix version").
It IS hard, but if you don''t have too many outside commitments (or are willing to drop them for a while) you can pull it off. If you have a spouse/significant other that expects some interaction (or, worse, kids) you''re in for a SERIOUS uphill climb. Me, I passed on the whole wife/kids/house thing to write games (scary, huh?)... I can spend about 2-3 hours in the evening and about 12-16 hours on the weekend working on my title, I tend to average about 14 hours a week over the year (not including the usual crunch time) and that''s enough to produce a "small, casual gamer/diversion" type of title with a little assistance from my other team member (We''re down to two people at this point). Even with this I had to give up on writing a custom 3D engine and license someone elses to save myself 12+ months of time in the development cycle.
If you can find some way to get the family involved (copying manuals, helping with shipping CDs, etc.) it''ll take some of the load off you and possibly help keep everyone from feeling forgotten...
Just IMNSHO...
Can you help? (A call to INDIE devlopers)
Author
The big advantage I have, Is that, the job Im working at is
nights, and the way its set up I get about 4-5hrs average that
I can devote to writing code/studying books/whatever. (boses approval) also I''ll be able to manage 2hrs a day at home with
about 10-14hrs on days off. My wife will be helping with the
manuels/help files/readme.txt/customer service, My brother will be handling all the sound and some of the art. I''ll be programing and doing most of the art and everything else involved. My son will be my beta tester
. My family is devoted to this as much as I am. I appreciate the advice...its good advice.
Thank you,
.Aman.
nights, and the way its set up I get about 4-5hrs average that
I can devote to writing code/studying books/whatever. (boses approval) also I''ll be able to manage 2hrs a day at home with
about 10-14hrs on days off. My wife will be helping with the
manuels/help files/readme.txt/customer service, My brother will be handling all the sound and some of the art. I''ll be programing and doing most of the art and everything else involved. My son will be my beta tester
. My family is devoted to this as much as I am. I appreciate the advice...its good advice.Thank you,
.Aman.
Hey, Scarab, you sound a bit like me.
I have been working on my current game for over 4 years now (but it started out as a wild idea, and I had no idea then that I ever wanted to even consider selling it).
I also did a lot, and I am having so much fun it doesn''t bother me. At the height of my activity this was:
Full time Physics study
Part time (3 evenings/week) Computer science study
Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction (a little)
Maintaining a website for an old game (with 100 visitors daily, and a stack of email - see http://www.elmerproductions.com/sp)
Information gathering group for setting up a small business (one evening a month approximately)
And then of course, I was programming my game.
Currently I am doing a fulltime job, a little writing, still maintain the website, and program my game.
The good thing is that there seem to be mostly lousy TV programs at the moment over here, so that saves a lot of time (and I can work with the radio on very nicely!)
It''s all a matter of priorities. And in a sense I am in luck because my girlfriend is overseas, so that doesn''t cost me much time
(Of course I would much rather have that it did cost me time and she was here...) I also don''t have to run a complete household yet (even though I''m 23) so that saves additional time.
And as for the costs that are inevitably included in making games: they are really not that high. I have said before (somewhere) that I have invested less than $200 in my game, and that''s for all those 4 years developing, setting up my legal company (registered Dutch business).
And if you are prepared to shell out a small percentage of your sales income, you don''t need a merchant account yourself - you can use services like www.kagi.com and www.shareit.com. Of course not the best option if you want to go totally professional, but they are great to ''get a feel'' for how much your games would make. It allows you to experiment in a certain way.
If you are really looking for it (which is often hard) you can find a lot of good resources without paying a lot. Of course that doesn''t work if you are in a hurry, but if you have the time it''s certainly a good alternative...
Well, there goes another $0.02 of my money
Kind regards,
Maarten Egmond.
I have been working on my current game for over 4 years now (but it started out as a wild idea, and I had no idea then that I ever wanted to even consider selling it).
I also did a lot, and I am having so much fun it doesn''t bother me. At the height of my activity this was:
Full time Physics study
Part time (3 evenings/week) Computer science study
Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction (a little)
Maintaining a website for an old game (with 100 visitors daily, and a stack of email - see http://www.elmerproductions.com/sp)
Information gathering group for setting up a small business (one evening a month approximately)
And then of course, I was programming my game.
Currently I am doing a fulltime job, a little writing, still maintain the website, and program my game.
The good thing is that there seem to be mostly lousy TV programs at the moment over here, so that saves a lot of time (and I can work with the radio on very nicely!)
It''s all a matter of priorities. And in a sense I am in luck because my girlfriend is overseas, so that doesn''t cost me much time
(Of course I would much rather have that it did cost me time and she was here...) I also don''t have to run a complete household yet (even though I''m 23) so that saves additional time.And as for the costs that are inevitably included in making games: they are really not that high. I have said before (somewhere) that I have invested less than $200 in my game, and that''s for all those 4 years developing, setting up my legal company (registered Dutch business).
And if you are prepared to shell out a small percentage of your sales income, you don''t need a merchant account yourself - you can use services like www.kagi.com and www.shareit.com. Of course not the best option if you want to go totally professional, but they are great to ''get a feel'' for how much your games would make. It allows you to experiment in a certain way.
If you are really looking for it (which is often hard) you can find a lot of good resources without paying a lot. Of course that doesn''t work if you are in a hurry, but if you have the time it''s certainly a good alternative...
Well, there goes another $0.02 of my money
Kind regards,
Maarten Egmond.
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