what does someone that has 10000000000 ideas of what a game should be and how it should be made do if they dont know how to make it themself? i tried learning languages but all i ended up with was japaneese... doesnt realy help me with the computer... and i am not even very good at that... i dunnoo, does anyone have any advice for me?

Maybe either take a programming course at college/university or just pick up a few language classes. Maybe a programming fundamentals class, then C, then C++.

There are plenty of programming sites out there. have you checked?

[edited by - trapdoor on October 19, 2003 2:12:54 AM]

There is no easy way to get your game made. There is a big difference between having some ideas and actually making them into a game. As trapdoor said you can go to uni to learn or track down some programming tutorials.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

You should definately write a design document and sell it to one company or another. Depending on the complxity of the game, shareware or commercial will both kick butt. If you want to sell it over the net, use shareware. If you want to sell it to the public, go commercial.

By the way, wats the game about?


Email the design doc to thegrogen@hotmail.com

Also, if you want to learn to program games then I suggest the following books:

Teach yourself C in 24 hours
Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus
Tricks of the 3D Game programming Gurus
The Zen of Direct3D game programming

if you have good ideas for games I would suggest writting them out in game documents. If you have this it might be easy to peddle your idea in a mod community and have your game made.

quote: Original post by Oberon_Command
You should definately write a design document and sell it to one company or another.

Actually, sending ideas to a game company will be mostly pointless. Because of legal issues 99% of companies won''t even look at your ideas. Anything you send will just get thrown out before it reaches anyone who is involved with the actual game development at all.

The problem is, ideas are a dime a dozen (and even that is overcharging a bit). Everyone has ideas. Chances are pretty much every idea you have ever thought of has already been thought of by the people you are trying to pitch it to. Having ideas, having GOOD ideas, and being able to flesh out ideas are completely different things.

People who can consistently come up with good ideas and flesh them out are a bit more rare. But even if you are one of those few people, and even if you could not only prove it but everyone already knows it, it wouldn''t do you any good. There is no such thing as an "idea guy" that just sits around coming up with ideas for games. The closest thing would be a project manager (they are the ones who typically say "yeah we can use that," "lets try this instead," or ",no") but it is a very small part of their job, and project managers are people who have paid their dues by proving themselves in some other aspect of development.

If you want to see your ideas realized you need to learn programming or some other skill and possibily get involved in a small group that shares your desire to make a game. Just remember that everyone in the group will have ideas and you''ll have to make comprimises. If you want total control of your idea you''ll have to do all the work yourself too.

Almost forgot... There is an exception to getting your ideas heard... Some companies will occasionally read comments and ideas about how to make a game better. Neversoft did this after Tony Hawk. If you have an idea of how to make a game better and just want to see it made keep an eye out for this type of thing. (But be warned you will get no credit at all for your idea )

quote: Original post by Drakonite
Actually, sending ideas to a game company will be mostly pointless. Because of legal issues 99% of companies won''t even look at your ideas. Anything you send will just get thrown out before it reaches anyone who is involved with the actual game development at all.

Small correction: Sending ideas to a game company will be completely pointless.

Cadan: This sort of thing gets asked quite a lot - I''d recommend a quick read through the forum faq, and also check out some of the links - particularly this one