Soooo, I tend to lose focus pretty easily when I work on/learn something alone. What I would like to do is put together a team or group or whatever of novices/beginners and works on like some kind of interesting project. It would be a great way to keep everyone inspired and teach ppl about source control and collaborating with other programmers. If anyone is interested please let me know (comment, pm, w.e) and we can talk more seriously. BTW I'm looking for both noobs and OG's. This way we don't have a blind leading the blind situation... Mentors if u will...

oops how do i delete double post?

It's an interesting idea. Having a few a people around you to keep you accountable and help you if you get stuck (sometimes just talking to someone about a problem will help solve it) can be really nice.

On the other hand, it's also very important for individuals in a group to be self-motivated, focused, and disciplined. This is true for any kind of club or social (anything outside of a job). If you have to rely on other people in your group for motivation, that's bad because people can be flaky. The don't show up. They don't pull their own weight. They lose interest. They have other obligations. The don't have time. They decide to pursue a career as a tour guide, etc. So if you really want to stick with developing games, you have to discipline yourself. If you want to group up with some other people to work on a project or two, that's cool; just remember that you have to take responsibility for yourself and be prepared to work alone.

With respect to grouping up with people, I think your idea of gathering a group of people to work specifically on a project they are interested in is a good idea. However, if you want to get people interested in a project, you're going to have to sell the project. What I mean by that is, you're going to have to do a lot of work to begin with. You have to show other people that you're not screwing around and you can pull your own weight. You also have to make your project public and interesting. You should have a website and a roadmap. Open sourcing the project wouldn't be a bad idea. This pretty much applies to any project in general.

On a final note, what kind of project are you interested in working on? If you post more specific ideas, perhaps you can generate some more interest and find yourself a group of people to work with. Heck, it might even be something I am interested in. =)

Ideally I would like to start small (for the benefit of the less advanced) and move on from there. Possibly a simple text based simon type game to start and then from there move on to something simple involving levels (zork ripoff maybe) and from there do a graphical execution of those two... i figure that's a good month or two of work. Although I absolutely welcome ANY ideas and if there is some way to set up a voting apparatus for ideas or languages that would be awesomesauce

I really like your team idea -it's something I've considered doing myself once or twice. As thok said, you still need to manage youself but i think working in a tight-knit team increases motivation and teaches you loads. What language were you thinking of using? I know a little c++, flash and python but my main language is Java. I am also working on my art skills (if we happen to work on something with a few graphics).

So ya -I'm in

My strongest skill is java also, I'm ok with c++ but im leaving this up to the collective group... once there is a definitive amount of interested parties i will put it to a vote and set up a simple page and a repository on my github account. I have no artistic ability so permian_lizard you are MORE than welcome. if we can get a few more ppl involved we can get this show on the road.