Guys


Straight to the point, I am NO Designer, Developer, Musician or Artist. The things I can do is writing a good story` and oh oh and I have got a new gaming concept!
For years I am walking arround with an idea to morph 1 of my story`s into a NextGen Adventure Game and it is time to take Action.........

Need some info from you guys, because I need to hire some specialists for my new company

Type of game:Adventure PC/Xbox (New and never seen gaming concept NextGen Adventure 2D/3D)

Question:

Professionals: Please tell me if I miss a person, I want to hire 1 or 2 Developers/programmers, 1or 2 Graphical Artists and a Musician the Musician I am planning to hire as a freelancer.
Skills: I have no Developer Skills, but how can I judge if a developer is good before hiring.
Software: What kind of software should I buy? Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max and what kind programming software to buy!

Please ask away bad or good no problem for me, this way I can learn!

Best regards
MK

Thanks for your comment

I am not worried about the managing part because i am also doing it in my current job also in the IT so that is why I take the risk.
It does not matter if you are running a IT Company or a Restaurant.. if you set your goals and add some love and dedication to the company then you have 50% of your product ready.

So if I add the right employees then it will succeed

I will check the link that you gave me and thanks for the quick response.

Hello there and welcome on the forums.

There are some questions that need to be asked first, because the kind of developers you need will vary with the type of the game that you will develop. For example, if you plan to make a 2D game, you won't need 3D modelers nor animators and you'll want programmers with a different kind of experience; the opposite is true for a 3D game.

Also, it is a fine idea to manage a team but in my experience, if the manager doesn't have some experience himself in at least one domain of game development, the team may have a hard time. It is not always the case, but it is always good for you, and your team, that you know a bit of a programming language, so you can understand what does coders will talk about, or that you know how to use a 3D modeling program. It will facilitate communications between you and the developers and if you are the producer, it will be a lot easier for you to communicate your ideas more clearly and easily. Therefore, I really encourage you to take a look into one domain of game development.

That being said, I'll now answer the questions you asked.

Professionals: Please tell me if I miss a person, I want to hire 1 or 2 Developers/programmers, 1or 2 Graphical Artists and a Musician the Musician I am planning to hire as a freelancer.[/quote]

While you are beginning your project, you should have a small team, because you are actually working on a concept. Unless you have everything sorted out prior to start the prototype, you'll need only a handful of developers to help you out think about everything, art and technical wise. I don't believe you actually need a musician when you start, but still, in the other hand, it might be a good idea to start talking about the music style of the game early. It's all your choice.

Therefore, I would suggest that one programmer and one artist would be fine to beginning, as you will mostly talk about how things will be done in your game. For example, you will talk with the programmer which language should you use and which libraries fit your needs; with the artist, you would talk about which direction the art should take, what artistic style will the game have. Will it be cartoon, fantasy, sci-fi, etc.

Now you actually asked for a full team. Points of view vary here, but I believe that the artist/coder ratio should be around 3:1. Again, it depends of which type of game you will be developing. So if you are, for example, going for a big 3D role-playing game, your team might consist of:
-3 programmers;
-3 modelers;
-1 animator;
-2 concept artists;
-2 texturer;
-1 2D artist;
-1 designer;
-1 musician.

And so on. You have to remember though, that the more your team will the grow, the more difficult it will be for you to manage it. Keeping a team small is always the best. Making some rules to ensure that communication are well established and maintained through your team is highly recommended.

Skills: I have no Developer Skills, but how can I judge if a developer is good before hiring.[/quote]

You have to look out for several things depending of the type of developers you want to get.

Artists are, in my opinion, the most straight forward: just ask for a portfolio and judge. if it's a concept artist, try to see if you like his drawings. If it is a 3D artist, same thing: check if, for a character modeler, the body anatomy is respected (depending of the art style you want: for a cartoon game, body proportions might matter less). In any case, the artist must know how to use really well a 2D/3D drawing package and must be able to take criticisms and comments fairly well. It is the same for musicians.

Programmers are a bit tougher, because it depends of the game style (2D/3D game). In both cases, the coder should know:
-how to use the programming language you chose to develop your game in;
-ability to solve problems;
-know OOP principles (if the language is object-oriented).

For 2D:
-Know how to use the 2D library used;

For 3D:
-Strong math skills (Vector, matrix and (optional but recommend) quaternion maths);
-know how to use the chosen engine/api;

There might be more things, but I can't get it on the top of my head right now

Software: What kind of software should I buy? Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max and what kind programming software to buy![/quote]

In my opinion, you shouldn't software for your developers, they should provide it, as they will be used to what they'll use. You just have to be sure that everything is compatible between them. For example, if your game will be cross-platform, make sure that the compilers support it. Make sure that the 3D modeling packages the artists will use can all export to the model extension you've chosen to work with, and so on.

The only software you may have to provide is the 3D engine if you wish to use a commercial engine.

Speaking of which, you should hold a tight budget, especially if you're starting out. There are a lot of free, open-source and powerful libraries for you to use, such as SDL, SFML, OGRE which are easy to use and flexible.

I hope this helped you out, if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask.

@Tom Sloper

Thanks for your time to write a reply. I will look into that.

@Nevadaes

Ohw man, that is what I called an answer ;-)
I found your answer awesome, I have added your reply in my business plan.

After I have converted your reply I think I will have more questions and I will post them here....

Thanks guys for helping me!

@Tom Sloper
Thanks for your time to write a reply. I will look into that.

@Nevadaes
Ohw man, that is what I called an answer ;-)
I found your answer awesome, I have added your reply in my business plan.

After I have converted your reply I think I will have more questions and I will post them here....

Thanks guys for helping me!