I think it's pretty important to have a rudimentary grasp of a pertinent discipline, if only to understand the scope and gravity of the tasks at hand. I say this because it's all too easy for people unfamiliar with game programming/asset generation to grossly underestimate the time and skill required to finish a project of non-trivial complexity and to do a good job in the process.
I remember working as a programmer for a corporate bank on my placement year building inter-department software tools rather than being at the coal face of implementing corporate IT infrastructure. My boss had literally no idea about programming in any shape or form and constantly assumed I was slacking off work as his daily list of arbitrary features created a backlog of many weeks as each "simple" feature took a great deal of time to implement. I can't really blame him, to someone completely ignorant of the field, any whimsical feature was a small matter of programming to him. It was only when he asked an experienced dev from another team to check out my "cover story" (i.e. the truth) to see if I was trying to give him a run round the houses that the dev informed him that yes, the time I had taken and reasons I had been giving him for the backlog were entirely consistent with the rough workload needed to implement the features.
What programmers want from a designer
From what I've seen after you have something that works lots of people of mid-low skill level are super excited about joining your project. After a community invests in your game you start to get people of higher skill level. Anything before that you're going to have to rely on people you already know.
I'll be more serious for this post.
I have a very specific group of games I would be willing to spend time on. I don't care about shooters, platformers, and various other kinds of games. So I guess first I would have to really like the genre. If I had a choice between an RTS and an FPS I would never pick the FPS. Following on this idea it would have to have a novel spin. No making Warcraft 3 clones for instance. I doubt that other programmers share my specific preferences but I would suspect that the general idea applies all around.
Passion and perseverance are also important. I want to know that if we hit a snag 3 months in my last 3 months weren't wasted and that the project will continue on. How much effort you put into things before I get on board tells me how much I can expect from you afterwards.
I still stand by what I said before. I would prefer the project lead to have some sort of programming skill be it GUI or graphics or physics or something. Alternatively he needs to be a really good artist.
Again though, if I'm not leading the project I absolutely have to be on the same page as far as the mechanics of the game with the project lead.
I have a very specific group of games I would be willing to spend time on. I don't care about shooters, platformers, and various other kinds of games. So I guess first I would have to really like the genre. If I had a choice between an RTS and an FPS I would never pick the FPS. Following on this idea it would have to have a novel spin. No making Warcraft 3 clones for instance. I doubt that other programmers share my specific preferences but I would suspect that the general idea applies all around.
Passion and perseverance are also important. I want to know that if we hit a snag 3 months in my last 3 months weren't wasted and that the project will continue on. How much effort you put into things before I get on board tells me how much I can expect from you afterwards.
I still stand by what I said before. I would prefer the project lead to have some sort of programming skill be it GUI or graphics or physics or something. Alternatively he needs to be a really good artist.
Again though, if I'm not leading the project I absolutely have to be on the same page as far as the mechanics of the game with the project lead.
To catch my attention a project would have to:
1. Be of a size and scope that seems appropriate given the apparent ability of the project starter. Simple things, like spelling errors, naive comments/questions that demonstrate poor understanding of the industry can have a major negative impact on your apparent ability. Having a good, professional looking proposal and generally coming across as a well researched, intelligent person is important, and a portfolio of past games or mods you've been involved with - even if they are very basic - is also a great positive.
2. Pique my interest as a gamer. It has to be something which sounds interesting and fun. It should have some kind of unique hook that makes it stand out from a sea of clones. This hook should not just be some silly gimmick - it should be integral to the core gameplay. Genre can make a difference here too - some genres simply interest me more than others.
3. Align with my interests as a developer. As a programmer, I need to be constantly learning new technologies and techniques, partly for my own career development, and partly pure personal interest - and I tend to use my hobby project time to do so. If your game involves technologies that are interesting and/or useful for me to develop and gain experience with, then that could be of great value. Of course, there has to be a certain amount of room in the project to accommodate any learning curve in order for this to work as a draw.
4. Have enough room in the design for some of my own creative input. This is another area where the way the 'designer' conducts himself can make a big impact. Coming across as a mature person with a welcoming attitude to ideas and an ability to handle criticism (and give criticism reasonably tactfully) is important.
1. Be of a size and scope that seems appropriate given the apparent ability of the project starter. Simple things, like spelling errors, naive comments/questions that demonstrate poor understanding of the industry can have a major negative impact on your apparent ability. Having a good, professional looking proposal and generally coming across as a well researched, intelligent person is important, and a portfolio of past games or mods you've been involved with - even if they are very basic - is also a great positive.
2. Pique my interest as a gamer. It has to be something which sounds interesting and fun. It should have some kind of unique hook that makes it stand out from a sea of clones. This hook should not just be some silly gimmick - it should be integral to the core gameplay. Genre can make a difference here too - some genres simply interest me more than others.
3. Align with my interests as a developer. As a programmer, I need to be constantly learning new technologies and techniques, partly for my own career development, and partly pure personal interest - and I tend to use my hobby project time to do so. If your game involves technologies that are interesting and/or useful for me to develop and gain experience with, then that could be of great value. Of course, there has to be a certain amount of room in the project to accommodate any learning curve in order for this to work as a draw.
4. Have enough room in the design for some of my own creative input. This is another area where the way the 'designer' conducts himself can make a big impact. Coming across as a mature person with a welcoming attitude to ideas and an ability to handle criticism (and give criticism reasonably tactfully) is important.
I don't have a lot of time to read this over in detail so I apologize if I'm saying something that is already stated. To me the biggest thing for a designer beyond the basic of a game that can be reasonably developed is sufficient detail. Programmers can determine how to implement the game rules but while we can design the details of game logic, that is a design detail, not an implementation detail.
If you want a programmer to work on a game for you its most important that you sell the project as being something he would be interested in. Most programmers do little projects themselves in their free time so working on a project for free doesn't seem like a horrible idea to us. If the project you want us to work on is to create a tick tac toe game then we probably wont be interested. There are programmers who like different genre and you need to find one who is passionate about the genre of game you want to create.
Programmers work in their free time because they like to improve their skills and learn new technologies. It's unlikely that you'll get one to work for free if he already knows everything so be patient and understand that there will be some trial an error with the programmers if you don't pay them.
Aside from that you need to give a programmer a reason to work on your project and not his own. What do you bring to the table? If you're not an artist or can't make music or any of those other skills that have been mentioned in this post then you MUST be able to gather people to do all of those jobs. A programmer will be much more willing to work for you if you have a team assembled that can do music, art, animation etc... There are some programmers that also enjoy doing the art, i'm not one of them, if you can provide all the artistic side of the game and give me a genre that I enjoy I'd probably work on the project.
Programmers work in their free time because they like to improve their skills and learn new technologies. It's unlikely that you'll get one to work for free if he already knows everything so be patient and understand that there will be some trial an error with the programmers if you don't pay them.
Aside from that you need to give a programmer a reason to work on your project and not his own. What do you bring to the table? If you're not an artist or can't make music or any of those other skills that have been mentioned in this post then you MUST be able to gather people to do all of those jobs. A programmer will be much more willing to work for you if you have a team assembled that can do music, art, animation etc... There are some programmers that also enjoy doing the art, i'm not one of them, if you can provide all the artistic side of the game and give me a genre that I enjoy I'd probably work on the project.
Author
This was all rad feedback, its always good to hear personal accounts. There are always common streams of thought but its great to hear the more personal draw to building games. If you've got more, keep em coming!
Author
[...]only does character animation... well, in my experience, the character modeling and animation is much easier to find talent for than things like environment art, and maybe we could ditch that guy and find someone whose skills are more well-rounded. Everyone wants to be a character artist it seems (just get on DeviantArt and see for yourself) [...]
A character artist I might agree but few are willing to put in the effort to rig and very few can or will decently animate (hence the terrible animation in countless games). A large minority of DeviantArtists animate. I find Indie games tend to run and hide from animation all together for the most part, but even major AAA projects with beautiful character models don't get a decent animation polish like it should. Many are motion captured and then cleaned up with a dry eraser, leaving lots of odd poses or jitter that they often cover up with terribly sped up timing. Its a shame really. I couldn't agree more that great 3D environment artists are hard to come by but I think that that's more to do with the fact that it often turns into an architects job instead of just a modeling gig. However environment artists, like character artists are easy(er) to come by (many that can paint a unique character can paint a lovely environment since perspective skills are used for both). Could be that you have different experience then me but I would say there is a pretty good distinction between those that have graced the world with there Deviant collection and those that rig and bash out a couple thousand frames per day.
Author
The more important questions are:
1) Are there programmers who would spend a few hundred hours writing unpaid code for someone else's game (and not for himself)?
2) Would you be willing to spend a few hundred hours coding someone else's game for free?
Question 1 is to make sure that this is actually feasible: that it is not a waste of time trying to get someone to code your game for free. And the responses to Question 2 will allow you to zero in on what exactly is needed to get someone to code your game for free.
IMHO I don't think this will work. Are there really programmers who would code for hundreds of hours for free on other people's game project? (specific to games, open source software is very different)
This is why I kept the time frame wide in that statement, a few dozen hours on a project seems feasible for a hobby project to me as an animator. I could spill out a rig or two and/or enough animation over the span of a month and feel happy with my contribution to a project. I can only assume a programmer wouldn't be all that different. I can only imagine I'd be willing to do more cumulatively over a longer period of time if the project was to my interest maybe even landing my hours in the hundreds but its hard to say (ive never explored that project yet). But I'm mostly curious about what draws people to the project in the first place. We all know we're going to have to sink hours of work into a project if we like it and agree to join in the fun but its the hook or bait that I want to know about. I want to hear about the projects that you as programmers couldn't ignore and why. Why you looked at a classified add and couldn't resist sinking X amount hours into the project. Especially with free projects.
As I don't program I can't answer question 2, which is why I jumped in and asked the question. I know the reasons why I would animate for a project, and I know why I would want to help design a project, but until I understand programming to be anything other then mathematical poetry in a language I don't understand, I will not be able to explore question 2 properly let alone answer it. So we are here. Sharing.
[quote name='Legendre' timestamp='1348488771' post='4983192']
The more important questions are:
1) Are there programmers who would spend a few hundred hours writing unpaid code for someone else's game (and not for himself)?
2) Would you be willing to spend a few hundred hours coding someone else's game for free?
Question 1 is to make sure that this is actually feasible: that it is not a waste of time trying to get someone to code your game for free. And the responses to Question 2 will allow you to zero in on what exactly is needed to get someone to code your game for free.
IMHO I don't think this will work. Are there really programmers who would code for hundreds of hours for free on other people's game project? (specific to games, open source software is very different)
This is why I kept the time frame wide in that statement, a few dozen hours on a project seems feasible for a hobby project to me as an animator. I could spill out a rig or two and/or enough animation over the span of a month and feel happy with my contribution to a project. I can only assume a programmer wouldn't be all that different.
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The problem with programming is that you really want one person to hold things together for the duration of the project, an artist can make one good animated model and have made a good contribution, if you swap out the lead programmer you will lose a lot of time getting a new one up and running. (I've inherited a few mid sized projects at work and it took a bit over 50 hours just to get a decent grasp of the codebase. (Good documentation and clean code can make this less painful, but in a semi amateur project it is very unlikely to happen and could get far worse). Thus the first programmer you get will most likely have to dedicate several hundred hours to the project. (This is why programmers are reluctant to join projects that hasn't been started) (If a project has a good lead programmer i could join, get a bunch of reasonably sized tasks and complete as many as i feel like and then leave without feeling guilty about it)
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