[quote name='mekk_pilot' timestamp='1342203026' post='4958851']
So I'm not just a guy who is coming in here with some half-baked idea and wants everyone to do all the hard work. I mean, design is work, I know because I've done it.

Design is actually the easy part of game development. And I think deep down you know that. If the programming and art were easier than design, you would already be doing it.
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I think it's more because I'm not really talented at art (although I have a good eye and have won prizes for photographs), and I didn't take comp sci in college, therefore programming would be something totally elective.

I submit this to you: if design was easy, why do most games suck? Maybe programmers are a little arrogant thinking they can do it all? I know everyone wants to design. But actually doing it takes skill and iteration. Yeah, I know I'M a little arrogant, but I've probably spent a couple of hundred hours designing and testing what I've finished. 90% of the ideas I see on this site are crap, totally derivative or just foolish. There's a reason Game Designers are the rock stars of the actual industry, because they're the ones probably most responsible for a game being fun or not.

Great Design can redeem a game even if the gameplay is buggy or the graphics look 5 years old. Poor design will damn a game that looks good and is bug-free.

Design IS the game.

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[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]Design is actually the easy part of game development. And I think deep down you know that. If the programming and art were easier than design, you would already be doing it.[/background]

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Care to explain how you came to this conclusion? Not only is it terribly false, but no matter how good your programmers and artists, a crappy game design will land your game in the waste bin. A classic example of good game design is Starcraft. It's been around for over a decade, yet so many games have utterly failed to emulate it. You think designing that was easy? Just make the classic 3-race structure, give them some unique units, make it flashy and you're good to go? Even after the game's release, it took them 2-3 years to flesh out the balance of the game. Their job was not easy. There is a reason Blizzard is famous for its games.

OP: My advice to you is to play Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. It's a very simple, yet enjoyable game that shows you how far game design can go. The programming for that sort of thing is absolute cake, and finding an artist willing to boost his resume (aka: willing to work for cheap or free) should not be difficult. Obviously, the game didn't make the creators into millionaires, but it did get played by over 400,000 people. I'd call that a success.

He said design is easy, he didn't say good design is easy. In a sense programming is not the hard part. Assuming you don't want AAA speed optimizations.

However programming is the tedious part. You have a big complex game with lots of interconnecting parts and that is why you spend months weeding out tiny little logic errors that make your game totally unplayable.

The reason design is easy is that its FUN. Game design, especially when you discuss it with other like minded people, is just fun. Not balancing, which is arguably not game design, but deciding on features and mechanics. Just like the idea for a novel is fun, but do you think actually writing a novel is fun? No. No one will ever, ever, ever write your novel unless you pay them a lot of money, even if your idea appears to be really good. Unless you are James Patterson. Can't remember the last time he wrote his own novels.

Do a thought experiment:
If you could just type your idea into a text document and have a computer make it, would you?
If you could just drop a list of objects and a theme and mood and get a fabulous art library, would you?
If you could click a button that is called make up an idea, and then you had to program and model to make that idea a reality, would you?

That's why game design is the easy part. You do game design because its fun, you do programming and modeling because you have to to make a game.
Sure I really enjoy certain aspects of programming. I like writing some C++ and seeing something happen on a screen. But a lot of the time its just tedious typing, even if I know what I want to write in C++, the actual typing of it is not fun.

A billion people have game ideas. How many of them make a game? Someone who has a CS degree has probably made some pretty serious software.

LOL, I got -1'd for pointing out a fact.

However programming is the tedious part. You have a big complex game with lots of interconnecting parts and that is why you spend months weeding out tiny little logic errors that make your game totally unplayable.

I will grant you that, and in fairness to the poster I semi- went off on, that's probably what he meant.

All I meant to say was that I've done the table-top thing, I've done the card game design, and balancing that shit was WORK. I'm not saying I didn't have a little fun doing it, but having fun and doing something productive aren't mutually exclusive.

Well I did forget one thing. Ideas are more common than programming skills, but one needs more than one programmer per designer and furthermore up to a point increasing programmers is beneficial to design and thus finances, whereas more designers is not a beneficial addition.

This is similar for artists. There are simply more designers than programmers, even if you look at a 1:1 ratio, which is not at all reasonable.

You may need 10-100 programmers in a game, you do not need more than 1-5 designers.

Well I did forget one thing. Ideas are more common than programming skills, but one needs more than one programmer per designer and furthermore up to a point increasing programmers is beneficial to design and thus finances, whereas more designers is not a beneficial addition.

This is similar for artists. There are simply more designers than programmers, even if you look at a 1:1 ratio, which is not at all reasonable.

You may need 10-100 programmers in a game, you do not need more than 1-5 designers.

I've always liked the long odds. =)

[quote name='AltarofScience' timestamp='1342336286' post='4959206']
Well I did forget one thing. Ideas are more common than programming skills, but one needs more than one programmer per designer and furthermore up to a point increasing programmers is beneficial to design and thus finances, whereas more designers is not a beneficial addition.

This is similar for artists. There are simply more designers than programmers, even if you look at a 1:1 ratio, which is not at all reasonable.

You may need 10-100 programmers in a game, you do not need more than 1-5 designers.

I've always liked the long odds. =)
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Well this wasn't about it being impossible. I am just explaining why designers who cannot program or do art have little chance to get help in making their games. Also of course for everything you designed, the code is even more complex. For card and table top games physics and your brain take care of what programming normally does.

For instance you just set the hp and damage of a Magic card and then the player applies it. But for a computer game you have to write code to do that. You need graphics and physics and math and priority libraries.

That was a response to wootforwoot about legendre, not saying you cannot make a game design.

I say go for it, even if you fail (as many of us have - by never completing a game), you will earn alot along the way.

I am in the process of writing a mario-style platformer. Initially it was a complex 3D thing. Worked on it for months and realised I couldn't pull it off (yet). So, now I am working solely with sprites in 2D and so far the results are exactly what I am after.

So, in short, give it a crack!

With my card game and my programmer friend, I'm just like "Look, there might not even be a market for phone apps in the 2 years it's going to take me to learn to program and sprite this fucking thing. Just take this completed, tested design and make it and give me 25%"

Does that sound so unreasonable?

Admittedly, my "big one" isn't a completed tested design, but what I guess I'm really asking is, how can a designer get programmers and artists on board?

I'm beyond what I can do with a standard deck of cards and PnP and dice.