Hi everyone, I want to contribute with the community with a post I did about how to start developing indie games. This is something I compiled and I am following to make games in LionInnGames.
First to say this is no easy task, it's better to start with some simple and small game and the scale it up. I learnt that the hard way.
You will find resources for learning to program (in Javascript, C#), and two routes the 2D one with XNA and the 3D one with Unity 3D. Also an extra section about doing 2D indie games with Unity 3D and some plugins. And some business stuff that is required so you can make some coins.
You can see the whole Roadmap To Develop Indie Games and resources here. Hope you like it and feel free to give feedback in the comments.
EDIT: Since the feedback received here from other members I changed in the post the word "Roadmap" for "Resources and Links" since the links it's the most useful information.
The Roadmap To Develop Indie Games
I'm not really sure what the point of this diagram is. It doesn't seem like it actually conveys any useful information, and might just add confusion. The lists seem to have some useful links, though.
Hmm... It's a good looking chart. - I like the colours you used very much.
But: before you compiled it, did you check that everything made sense?
I have a hard time figuring out what sort of chart it is, but I'm sure that it's not a flowchart.
For instance, are 3d in photoshop and 3dsmax prerequisites for getting started with unity3d?
And if i pick programming foundation, I get to use C#, but will then have to start out by working on game #2?
The links available on your blog are really cool, though. ;)
But: before you compiled it, did you check that everything made sense?
I have a hard time figuring out what sort of chart it is, but I'm sure that it's not a flowchart.
For instance, are 3d in photoshop and 3dsmax prerequisites for getting started with unity3d?
And if i pick programming foundation, I get to use C#, but will then have to start out by working on game #2?
The links available on your blog are really cool, though. ;)
Thanks for wanting to contribute and help others! Have you actually released any games, commercial or otherwise?
You asked for honest feedback, so here it goes: This seems to be a case of the blind leading the blind - that is, someone who is still trying to figure things out, giving his opinion and spreading it around as good advice, despite the advice not actually being good (but the one spreading it hasn't actually followed it long enough to find out that it's not good). We've all done that before, so don't feel too bad about that!
There are two sources of real knowledge: 1st hand experience (whether from practice or application), and 2nd hand experience passed on by others (who themselves gained it through practice or application). Unfortunately, the internet has dramatically increases the amount of people who think of something, but don't have experience, and spread around poisoned 2nd hand 'experience' where the 'experience' doesn't actually come from actual experience (and is just guesswork or something they got from someone else who got it from someone else who didn't fully understand what was being said).
A 'roadmap' is a map to a road someone has traveled. Here you are guessing there might be a possible road here, but haven't actually traveled down it, and are "mapping" a land you aren't familiar with, simply by guessing where the roads must be. Try mapping a foreign continent without seeing it, by just using hearsay from third parties and guesswork to fill in the gap. Imagine if the roadmaps you have in your car's glove compartment (or google maps) were mapped by people who didn't actually travel those roads and were just guessing based off of what other people had vaguely told them - we'd never be able to travel at all, because the maps would all lead us in the wrong directions, but give us the illusion that we were heading in the right direction.
It's really awesome that you want to help others, but your help must come from personal experience, or it's more destructive than beneficial. It's confusing, I know, because many people (who don't have experience) will pat you on the back and say, "Thanks for that! That's exactly what I needed! This will help alot!", except it's not what they need, and won't help, but the people thanking you (who, remember, don't have experience) don't have the knowledge yet, and since they *don't have* the knowledge, they can't compare their non-existent knowledge to the knowledge you are giving to see if it lines up as true or not, so they just assume (from ignorance) that the knowledge you are giving is good, and adopt it entirely (having a void of knowledge), despite it being faulty and poisoned and doing them long-term harm (but giving them the short-term illusion of wisdom).
They will eventually (most of the time) recover from the damage done (it usually isn't *too* drastic), and won't remember where they got that knowledge anyway, but just letting you know that if your goal is actually helping people, that help must be from real knowledge. Not beginner knowledge learned while in the process of learning (which is only half-formed knowledge), not the knowledge borrowed from someone else (which might be poisoned, or might not, and even if it isn't poisoned, you might not have understood it, making it warped knowledge), and not the knowledge from guesswork (unless you are mapping out the Californian coastline).
Thanks again for being eager to help! (Truly! I'm not being sarcastic) We really do need more friendly helpful people on the internet. We have plenty of friendly people, plenty of knowledgeable people, but we need people who are both friendly and knowledgeable, or it just causes problems. So don't let me turn you off from helping people, but just hold off on helping in areas you yourself are still learning - once you learn a topic (and have applied the knowledge turning it into experience), then please don't let me discourage you from sharing it. It is also perfectly fine to say, "Hey guys, I'm new and still learning. This is the plan *I* intend to take, but I don't yet know where it'll lead me."
Best of luck on your travels! Maybe you'll become an expert at mapping roads for all sorts of areas of technology.
[size=2][Edit:] My apologies if this came out too critical.
You asked for honest feedback, so here it goes: This seems to be a case of the blind leading the blind - that is, someone who is still trying to figure things out, giving his opinion and spreading it around as good advice, despite the advice not actually being good (but the one spreading it hasn't actually followed it long enough to find out that it's not good). We've all done that before, so don't feel too bad about that!
There are two sources of real knowledge: 1st hand experience (whether from practice or application), and 2nd hand experience passed on by others (who themselves gained it through practice or application). Unfortunately, the internet has dramatically increases the amount of people who think of something, but don't have experience, and spread around poisoned 2nd hand 'experience' where the 'experience' doesn't actually come from actual experience (and is just guesswork or something they got from someone else who got it from someone else who didn't fully understand what was being said).
A 'roadmap' is a map to a road someone has traveled. Here you are guessing there might be a possible road here, but haven't actually traveled down it, and are "mapping" a land you aren't familiar with, simply by guessing where the roads must be. Try mapping a foreign continent without seeing it, by just using hearsay from third parties and guesswork to fill in the gap. Imagine if the roadmaps you have in your car's glove compartment (or google maps) were mapped by people who didn't actually travel those roads and were just guessing based off of what other people had vaguely told them - we'd never be able to travel at all, because the maps would all lead us in the wrong directions, but give us the illusion that we were heading in the right direction.
It's really awesome that you want to help others, but your help must come from personal experience, or it's more destructive than beneficial. It's confusing, I know, because many people (who don't have experience) will pat you on the back and say, "Thanks for that! That's exactly what I needed! This will help alot!", except it's not what they need, and won't help, but the people thanking you (who, remember, don't have experience) don't have the knowledge yet, and since they *don't have* the knowledge, they can't compare their non-existent knowledge to the knowledge you are giving to see if it lines up as true or not, so they just assume (from ignorance) that the knowledge you are giving is good, and adopt it entirely (having a void of knowledge), despite it being faulty and poisoned and doing them long-term harm (but giving them the short-term illusion of wisdom).
They will eventually (most of the time) recover from the damage done (it usually isn't *too* drastic), and won't remember where they got that knowledge anyway, but just letting you know that if your goal is actually helping people, that help must be from real knowledge. Not beginner knowledge learned while in the process of learning (which is only half-formed knowledge), not the knowledge borrowed from someone else (which might be poisoned, or might not, and even if it isn't poisoned, you might not have understood it, making it warped knowledge), and not the knowledge from guesswork (unless you are mapping out the Californian coastline).
Thanks again for being eager to help! (Truly! I'm not being sarcastic) We really do need more friendly helpful people on the internet. We have plenty of friendly people, plenty of knowledgeable people, but we need people who are both friendly and knowledgeable, or it just causes problems. So don't let me turn you off from helping people, but just hold off on helping in areas you yourself are still learning - once you learn a topic (and have applied the knowledge turning it into experience), then please don't let me discourage you from sharing it. It is also perfectly fine to say, "Hey guys, I'm new and still learning. This is the plan *I* intend to take, but I don't yet know where it'll lead me."
Best of luck on your travels! Maybe you'll become an expert at mapping roads for all sorts of areas of technology.
[size=2][Edit:] My apologies if this came out too critical.
Hello, Carlos Oporto
I want to let you know my appreciation for caring about people enough to work on this and post it. Many people only take and don't give back to the community, so I thank you! We can learn some very important things from this thread.
SuperVGA and Servant of the Lord raised some crucial points and questions. Being a helpful but strong critical thinking community here due to the nature of successful game development, you should not be surprised by the response. If you take these replies with eager determination to better your understanding, then you will be in a much better position to help other people in the future.
Diagrams of this nature are a very personal and customized tool, therefore difficult to translate to the careers of others.
Frankly, the "Roadmap" is a step of progress for you, but can cause much confusion for game developers who are relatively new. The word "Roadmap" implies reliability, but because of the many alternatives available in the real world at every point of development, you unintentionally limited many newbies by drawing their attention only to certain things which you chose. I see possible variations not only in the steps but also in the paths which you selected.
For example, 3DS Max is a great choice for some, yet the worst for others, in terms of items. For pathways, everything in the right column of flow downward is subject to alternatives, preferences, or error, such as making the mistake of mixing 3D tasks with too many other things - talking from my personal experience and that of my colleagues (in real life game creation).
Workflow is more important than a flowchart, so flowcharts must keep workflow in mind. I explain here.
The diagram:
It's not a roadmap because it is not reliable.
As a flowchart it is not possible because of being too complicated with declared stages which would be subject to change or ellimination in real time. It is too complex in its own structure and under collapse from career demands.
Diagram it is, but hard to determine what type because of the errors in it.
I summerize that the diagram is a useful tool for yourself, but only in a moment of time because of future changes in the course of progess. For a game development community, the diagram is practically useless. This thread is a great learning experience of everyone who reads it.
Flowcharts and other types of diagrams are often useful in this game development field, so everyone should be encouraged to create their own ones for personal use.
Clinton
I want to let you know my appreciation for caring about people enough to work on this and post it. Many people only take and don't give back to the community, so I thank you! We can learn some very important things from this thread.
SuperVGA and Servant of the Lord raised some crucial points and questions. Being a helpful but strong critical thinking community here due to the nature of successful game development, you should not be surprised by the response. If you take these replies with eager determination to better your understanding, then you will be in a much better position to help other people in the future.
Diagrams of this nature are a very personal and customized tool, therefore difficult to translate to the careers of others.
Frankly, the "Roadmap" is a step of progress for you, but can cause much confusion for game developers who are relatively new. The word "Roadmap" implies reliability, but because of the many alternatives available in the real world at every point of development, you unintentionally limited many newbies by drawing their attention only to certain things which you chose. I see possible variations not only in the steps but also in the paths which you selected.
For example, 3DS Max is a great choice for some, yet the worst for others, in terms of items. For pathways, everything in the right column of flow downward is subject to alternatives, preferences, or error, such as making the mistake of mixing 3D tasks with too many other things - talking from my personal experience and that of my colleagues (in real life game creation).
Workflow is more important than a flowchart, so flowcharts must keep workflow in mind. I explain here.
The diagram:
It's not a roadmap because it is not reliable.
As a flowchart it is not possible because of being too complicated with declared stages which would be subject to change or ellimination in real time. It is too complex in its own structure and under collapse from career demands.
Diagram it is, but hard to determine what type because of the errors in it.
I summerize that the diagram is a useful tool for yourself, but only in a moment of time because of future changes in the course of progess. For a game development community, the diagram is practically useless. This thread is a great learning experience of everyone who reads it.
Flowcharts and other types of diagrams are often useful in this game development field, so everyone should be encouraged to create their own ones for personal use.
Clinton
Author
Hmm... It's a good looking chart. - I like the colours you used very much.
But: before you compiled it, did you check that everything made sense?
I have a hard time figuring out what sort of chart it is, but I'm sure that it's not a flowchart.
For instance, are 3d in photoshop and 3dsmax prerequisites for getting started with unity3d?
And if i pick programming foundation, I get to use C#, but will then have to start out by working on game #2?
The links available on your blog are really cool, though. ;)
I put 3D Foundation (not 3dsmax) as a requesite, 3D foundation can work for 3ds max, Maya or any other 3d program. With 3D foundation I mean now the differences between a polygon, curves, UVs, materials, lights, primitives, what the word render means, stuff like that just in a basic way so you don't get lost inside Unity.
As for the post maybe a better word could be resources and links than chart.
Glad that you like the links, they have help me a lot.
That collection of links is nice. For some reason, the first several times (at least three) I visited your blog post, none of that section was visible (only the article above them, and the chart) - I was even looking specifically for links after 3Ddreamer mentioned them. 
Author
Servant of the Lord and 3D Dreamer, thanks for your honest answers and feedback. I know that I have a long way to go in developing video games. Just one thing I am not new to technical/artistic work. I have been working with 3D and motion graphics for entertainment, tv commercials, and some websites for around 9 years. That said but if I am entering the video game industry I have to learn to take critiques and learn from that feedback (specially in the iterative game design process).
I am fairly new to video game development (around 6 months), here you can see the game I was on as a Level Designer, I recorded a development diary for the Level Design process.
I agree with you that the actual path will be different for everyone. I wrote it initially for my personal guide and to help others, and I encourage to make your own paths. I have mostly included only books, online tutorials since in my country there are no places where you can learn video game development. (if not probably I would have taken those classes instead of advertising).
I have been following this guide I compiled and so far it's good. 6 months ago I didn't understand how to program a Hello World (working in 3D, After Effects is completely different from programming, but the transition wasn't that hard). But with this I started with some interactive online Javascript tutorials and then learn C#, prior to that learn the fundamentals of programming.
Once again thanks for the feedback, maybe I felt it a little harsh in the beginning, but I read again and in the blog of Lion Inn Games I will put more about development diaries of the game I am making than trying to teach real knowledge (at least till I really published some games). And I will rename the post to Indie Game Development Resources, sounds better than Roadmap.
I am fairly new to video game development (around 6 months), here you can see the game I was on as a Level Designer, I recorded a development diary for the Level Design process.
I agree with you that the actual path will be different for everyone. I wrote it initially for my personal guide and to help others, and I encourage to make your own paths. I have mostly included only books, online tutorials since in my country there are no places where you can learn video game development. (if not probably I would have taken those classes instead of advertising).
I have been following this guide I compiled and so far it's good. 6 months ago I didn't understand how to program a Hello World (working in 3D, After Effects is completely different from programming, but the transition wasn't that hard). But with this I started with some interactive online Javascript tutorials and then learn C#, prior to that learn the fundamentals of programming.
Once again thanks for the feedback, maybe I felt it a little harsh in the beginning, but I read again and in the blog of Lion Inn Games I will put more about development diaries of the game I am making than trying to teach real knowledge (at least till I really published some games). And I will rename the post to Indie Game Development Resources, sounds better than Roadmap.
Author
That collection of links is nice. For some reason, the first several times (at least three) I visited your blog post, none of that section was visible (only the article above them, and the chart) - I was even looking specifically for links after 3Ddreamer mentioned them.
There is a button that says continue (to read the whole post), since there is only one post right now maybe it was not that clear. I will rename it to "Read More" thanks. (or just take it out and show the whole post better).
With the links, your blog entry isn't nearly as bad as I had first thought it. All I had seen (after actively searching) was several paragraphs of not-very-knowledgeable text and the chart (which also isn't too beneficial). The links clearly are the main focus of your page, and their absence was greatly detrimental to the opinion I formed.
I'm sorry for jumping to criticise your contributions too quickly!
I'm sorry for jumping to criticise your contributions too quickly!
This topic is closed to new replies.
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