Hello GameDev.net,

Sadly this is my first post ever here. I have been trolling around just clicking around here for awhile and well I figured its time to start talking to people about issues I am having in game design and where to go from here. Most the time when I have a problem I usually don't ask people for help mainly because of the pride thing as well as the occasional 'search google newb' attitude people have. Let me start off with a little about me first so you know the background.

I have been a gamer since I was a wee little tot. I remember skinning oldschool games, editting and creating maps, creating custom SC1 maps, working on various flash games and well dabbling in VB.net and some C++. I am no beginner to programming. I sadly though don't posess the knowledge of programming needed for creating intricate applications. I started off as a web programmer becoming fluent in php/asp/javascript(ajax/json)/MySQL. I started to dabble in some VB.net and made a leap to Python instead. I started to have some issues with Python mainly because my old knowledge from prior languages started to make me get confused. I tried to focus on the win32 aspect of Python development rather than a tornado server setup so I could try to differentiate Python from web. Unfortunatly I struggled and a friend reccomended I go to a strict language rather than a flexi which could be used in both worlds. He reccomended LUA as a scripting and to practice. I have become fluent in LUA and decided to make little games in World of Warcraft, card games, a few puzzle/sliding blocks, and a simple platformer which now crashes in the newest build of WoW. However it was all in LUA. I decided to reach out and try to learn some C++. I am struggling quite a bit but am not ready to give up yet.

My problem is simple. I guess because I cannot bring a significant role to the table of a group such as programming or art I would be considered an 'Idea Guy'. No one wants to be that. I actually have a game that I have been working on, story, storyboard, concept art, sketches, puzzles, how-to thats over 100 pages worth of documents on conception of and thoery of the game. I want to build a team for this game however approaching people with "Hey I have this idea for a game" never is the best way to do it. I have created some concepts in flash and have a knowledge for how its supposed to work in programming, how I would like to see it designed, as well as how to accomplish it.

Its almost like I am just this idea guy, but sadly I am not.. I suck at art and my programming skill is not where it needs to be. So Gamedev, what is a fellow game enthusiast to do? Do I continue to just try finding people, or do I have to just sit here idea'ing away on this idea. I hate being that 'idea' guy but I want to be able to push myself somehow into a better name than just that guy with the idea.

Thanks,

-Mayple

Develop your programming skills. Or your art skills. Or any skill that is useful and relevant to game development. Once you have such a skill, you will have something to contribute to a team. Unfortunately, an idea guy is not worth much to a programming endeavor. There are far fewer programmers, artists, level designers, etc., than there are ideas.

What you should do specifically depends on your goals. The biggest distinction willbe career or hobby. If you want to form a career around this, you should seriously consider college for a relevant field. If a hobby, you can fiddle with things on your own time.

Do you want to own a game studio? If so, take some business courses, or try to get a job in a game studio (any job) so you can start to see how things are done as a business. Do you want to code or do art for an existing game studio? If so, work on those skills and start assembling a portfolio. Do you want to be a game designer? You can try to get work as a game tester and work your way up.

Take a look at the breaking in section, or the business and law section. Sloperama has some great articles that I think you will find useful.

what about useing the UDK ( 1.3 GB ) or Havok,
they should automate a lot of the work for you (physics graphics and such, but you still need to create the models and such)

I hate being that 'idea' guy but I want to be able to push myself somehow into a better name than just that guy with the idea.

Why don't you go for a career in games, you know, get a job in games? It's a lot easier to get people interested in your ideas after you've shown yourself to be a hard working teammate.

Start simple and build up your skills from there, instead of trying to create a very complex game on your first go. Simple games can be finished quickly and they will help you build your library/resources so that you can build more complex games more quickly in the future. You have to be okay with spending time on learning the stuff too!