Hello everyone.

Lately I'm constantly thinking about invest forces to make a game, not an unrealistic one with super-mega graphics that can fight against big companies neither another that obviously would need a big team and big investments to be even started. My idea is something more related to a board game with relatively decent graphics based on medieval ages whose central point would be the interaction in singleplayer and multiplayer modes. I won't say much here about it, but I feel the game, despite everything, will be very appealing and funny due to its numerous possibilities. The idea is an MMORPG but that can also be played offline. A relatively similar example could be the games of Paradox Enterteinment, like Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings.

Programming C++/OpengGl isn't a problem for me, I'm experienced by older projects, but I'm not a designer or game artist; I guess I cannot even model a proper house in Blender. However, once the game by its very nature does not require a lot of objects, terrains, textures, characters etc., being just a board game with things like map, castles, houses, trees, it will be perfectly fine to me to learn a little about game designing and make it myself - I already make some progress and it is pretty decently. The bulk of the game will be its programming side and about this I can handle perfectly, what I like to do, although very laborious.

However, here comes the problem... When I get motivated to do something, I work really hard to make this thing, but, if at some time of my progress I get the "suspicious" that what I'm doing is totally useless, my original energies are entirely drained and I cannot help myself but to give up before die of frustration; unfortunately, I'm not the kind of guy that can work in something based only in the "faith" that my hardship will be a success - I need at least some probability. This happened to me once, when I got seriously involved in the creation of a website based on social networking, like Facebook. Even my parents started to be concerned about me because I worked very hardly day after day, completely workaholic. I worked alone and after some months I managed to program about 85% of the website compressed in thousands and thousands of PHP, MySQL, CSS, Python, C/C++ and HTML lines. I have to admit that my original goal was money and, after a miserable day, when I realized that to build a proper company like Facebook is something that goes far beyond to just "build a website" and involves investors, infrastructure, money, singular opportunities, team, a lot of luck and a lot of other variables that are even more difficult to be found in third world countries like mine (Brazil), I was deluded of my dream and gave up everything, with no regrets; I still have the lines of codes in which I worked in, but now this brings me only frustration.

Therefore, this is exactly what I don't want to live again and this makes me reluctant about starting any new project, even this one. There is a lot of variables against new games. After read about it, it makes me feel this is a market already very saturated and that is living "leveling", a scenario very different of that one of some decades ago. I'm 22 and remember those times when to make a game sounded like something very "rare", but now there are maybe 1001 of them casted every day. Even if a game is very very good, there is no way to say its developers will be rewarded and, in truth, that the game will be even known. So, that's why I'm thinking about it. I really like games and also to program them, but I don't want to waste time in something where my loss is already decreed; it's the same to love, for instance, to study the sidereal space - you can love it, but you cannot construct a spaceship to get there unless you are a crazy billionaire, to think otherwise is to be just a dreamer. However, at the other side, there are examples of very successful people who fought against the system and won, like Notch.

So, is this game, once finished, something that will be more like this? - "Who the hell will play this **** when you can play games like CoD, Crysis, GTA V, Far Cry etc.?" I know I may be generalizing the market, once there will be always people who want to play games out of the mainstream, like me, but the omen of "failure decreed" is just so strong...

Thanks for your time.

You need a passioned buddy, keeps motivated both o you.

If you used Blender, then you should know that in their website have tons of people everyday, willing to build games, begging for programmers. Pick some random guy and see what it takes to manage a game. Learn from mistakes and dont fear to try the impossible.

Sounds like maybe you need to learn the art of prototyping and feasibility testing. If you have an idea for what you believe to be a unique style of game or even just a unique gameplay element within an existing style of game, then the thing to do would be to spend a few days to a week or two at the most building up the crudest prototype to test and evaluate the idea.

There are many no cost or free art assets being advertised at most of the big game engine forums. I don't see anything wrong with going to Blender or any of the other forums to look for art or artists to help you. There are dedicated websites by artists to display their works. You'd be amazed at how many things are actually no cost. Ms. Search is a good friend of mine and I highly recommend her to help you in your journey.

Work hard and have fun with it.

Clinton

So, is this game, once finished, something that will be more like this? - "Who the hell will play this **** when you can play games like CoD, Crysis, GTA V, Far Cry etc.?" I know I may be generalizing the market, once there will be always people who want to play games out of the mainstream, like me, but the omen of "failure decreed" is just so strong...

Okay, I returned because I just can't ignore this.

There are games of simple art but have gripping gameplay and therefore are popular, some even making the developer a surprising amount of money. Many people would rather play a game with addictive gameplay instead of a game with great art candy but lacking in gameplay fun.

"...the only thing to fear is fear itself..." U.S.A President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Clinton

"...the only thing to fear is fear itself..."

Master Yoda's words on fear

Yes it is worth having fun. It is not worth thinking what you do is "useless". Nothing is useless. You will learn from all attempts, successes and failures.

Once you reach a certain level of skill in your chosen talent ( programming, art, music, writing ), it becomes more fun than work.

For the first several years of teaching myself programming it was mostly just struggle and frustration that accompanies learning. What kept me going was the great feeling in between when you figure something out and you know that you have it now.

I've been programming c# and c++ now for over 3 years, and it's mostly all fun now. I can pick up the basics of a complex library within a day and often have a working prototype within hours. The kind of complex libraries I'm talking about are ( sfml2, irrlicht, ogre3d, and any library that is about that complex ), easier libraries I can pick up in minutes, for example, tinyxml2 I picked up the basics in less than an hour yesterday. Today I'm now using it to load all kinds of cool information for my game, including music, audio, textures, and game level data.

Once you get to this point, most of your time is making solutions, churning out mostly great code quickly, much less frustration, and much more enjoyment and success.

A small fraction of people who try to learn programming, actually make it past the first part. They loose interest with the real work and frustration and slow rate of progress. This is also why programmers are elite, to be a good programmer you really have to put in the time and energy and push through the tough parts, there is no other way around it. For those who persist, the rewards will be there.

Good luck friend.

Hi everyone.

Thanks for the answers you all have given me, they helped me to open my mind. I went to Steam's Greenlight and in fact I saw a lot of independent and gorgeous projects that received very positive feedback by its future players, leading to the failure of my original view that only mainstream games have credit within gamer's community. Like I said, I really was thinking very intensively about it these days and now I've decided that I will do the work. However, this time I will not make the same mistake I did the past years, that is, to invest all my free time within a single project and to be this way severely drained by it. I will limit the hours and the amount of energy invested, this way my work will be more fun than properly work and I am not going to risk feeling frustration either in case of failure or, luckily, in case of late success.

Once more, very thanks for all of you.

Fail enough times and you will eventually get it right. It might take you 50 years, but you will eventually get it, and each project builds experience. My personal opinion.