Hello! This is my first post to this forum. I'm new here and I wanted to begin with a proper introduction.

I am a small business entrepreneur. At 28 I suppose I would be considered a young adult but I will always be a kid at heart. I can be quite professional when necessary but I do feel that any truly great products come from a childlike passion for an idea, and the profits follow that. Most products sadly seem to be designed with an opposite approach in mind.

So that's what brought me here. After surveying the skills, tools, and options I have ahead, one idea stood out to me for a few reasons. The first occupation I aspired to as a child, when I first understood concept of a job, was a video game designer. I loved the games I played as a child and had so many ideas for improvements. I even spent what seemed like the majority of my free time ages 10 - 12 programming rudimentary shooters and RPGs in Qbasic. As time went on I moved away from that dream and eventually from playing video games. I proceeded to start my business and did not have time for games. I achieved moderate but humble success and did a great job at the task I had chosen. My most exciting moment may have been when I was called on to do work for NASA, but that is a different story. In the end I feel it is my time to move forward to the next project and that it should be one for which I have a sincere passion.

The thing that seemed to draw my mind toward the idea of video game design, was quite simply that the game concept was already there. A few years back I went through a period of revisiting some games from my childhood. I was really big on the Super NES era give or take a system. What happened after playing these games again is the same thing that happened when I was a kid. I had so many terrific ideas on how to harness and improve on the most enjoyable aspects of gameplay and develop the most entertaining game to come out this century. The addition of modern processing, graphics features, and input added so many new theoretical options for the classic styles of gameplay. I proceeded at this time to create a basic game design for my "perfect game". The initial game design was centered around gameplay mechanics and how these would theoretically be controlled in programming, with concern paid to aesthetic design and story only when crucial to gameplay. While I do feel that graphics and story are USUALLY (see any puzzle game) key elements in an overall final game presentation, the actual gameplay is the number one factor in how much fun a player will have and is the groundwork on which the artistic design should be based.

I got back to thinking about this again. Elaborating on it. Coming up with so many cool ideas that it was hard to right them down fast enough, then I'd challenge myself to create a basic flow of how these features could work. The time that had passed since my initial writing of the game design had provided more competition in the retro style gaming arena, but still nothing that I feel topped my concept. I'm not a programmer and I don't want to take that path. I understand technical concepts and how software programming works well enough to directly assist a programmer, but I don't want to begin without an expert at the code helm. Essentially, I'd like to find a programmer or two I could hire to make this game. One that's really worth his beans. I know it's going to cost me an arm and a leg but a good coder is worth it and I have more than enough confidence in my concept. Finding the confidence that an applicant can produce what's in my head is the tough part.

So... basically I just want to ask; where do I find this guy? How much money will he ask, and how long will he take? How can I know that I can trust his skills? Am I crazy?

Thank you for your time and thought.

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[background=rgb(250, 251, 252)]How can I know that I can trust his skills?[/background]

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If I'm not mistaken, you should be able to estimate it based on his portfolio of previous work.

Essentially, I'd like to find a programmer or two I could hire to make this game. One that's really worth his beans. I know it's going to cost me an arm and a leg but a good coder is worth it and I have more than enough confidence in my concept.[/quote]

If you go outsourcing route, then programmers who will deliver cost ~$20/hour or some $3000/month in bulk.

But!

They will code what you tell them to, down to the dot. They will not produce what you envisioned.

Ever noticed how you have a great vision of how something will look, maybe a meal, a picture or something else, but after you build it it's never quite like that? it's same with programmers.

Getting one that will understand your vision is not a matter of money and you'll have hard time just buying someone. You need to get involved in the community, meet a lot of people, see how things work, spend perhaps a year of two feeling the pulse, ....

Then, a friend of a friend will recommend an acquaintance who knows someone who is not really a programmer but it will turn out they are the perfect match.

But no, money will not buy you vision.