Hiya GDnet,

I'm new here, but am already loving a lot of this community and the stuff going on here, so I thought why not jump in and say hi too.

I am really here to get any suggestions/advice from fellow developers. It's more about how to build a team rather than coding/development help that I need.

So after being in the game industry for 2 years, the MMO publishing company I was with got bought out and our branch here in the States got shutdown with stuff being moved overseas to the new owners. I decided to take this opportunity to dive head first into Indie Game dev. I left highschool knowing very well that I wanted to make games and be in this industry, and being a creative mind I went down the art route joining an art college. I have always wanted to make my own games so the recent years seeing how viable Indie life can be, I thought why not, it can't be that hard.

And I was wrong.

I was wrong in the sense that, people in the real world, don't care about who you are if you are not life-long buddies with them. They will backstab you, leave you out to hang and disappear without a trace in a blink of an eye. They will sit and watch you work so hard on getting that first steps completed like a completely fleshed out GDD and even time schedule and business plans, then run off with all of that. Some just lay low, follow and play along, then mid-way through the project they flake out and loose steam and are never contactable again. This has been the story of my past first year now, trying so hard to start my own core team.

This is where I need help and your advise.

How do you guys find your teams? More specifically, how should I go about finding my suicidal game programmer? The kind like Tommy from Team Meat... where passion literally drives your every minute of your life, where if things don't work you will seriously find a way to make it work or die trying. I'm in Silicon Valley, California, programmers should be everywhere. The Meetup.com Groups I've been to this past year, most are artists and animators and story writers looking for a team, if on the rare occassion a programmer was there, he had his own strict agenda and wasn't the kind that will compromise in order to get a team going, or the programmer will demand no less than 5k a month for a very simple project. Simple in the terms of like a memory-card game. Of course, my real plans are much bigger and realistic business wise.

I went to art school, most of the very few friends I am still in touch with or in local vicinity are artists and do not complement my skillset, so I have to find and meet new game programmers. My ex-coworkers from my previous company have no interest in living a risky no-income Indie life.

So please provide me some guidance, what should I be doing? I tried learning to code myself after all this time and bad experiences, I bought a C# for Dummies and followed several beginning-code websites available and highly recommended by other programmers alike, but all I've been able to pick up on after all of this is how to look at code and understand what is being written, I still just can't write my own code from scratch/apply what I've learnt. Coding is simply not my forte, I need someone that can compliment me and hence build a team with me.

TLDR: So how do you guys find your Indie teams?

Thanks and sorry for my legendary lengthy first post.

Sorry if it disappoints you, but in my opinion, all people you might find around the internet that you might end up teaming up with are susceptible to those same problems you mentioned.

Unless you find the talent and pay for it, hopefully being able to have them stick to the end of the project with a contract, luck will be your biggest friend in this matter. It is possible that you find the dream team tomorrow willing to work for free, as its possible that you will never find such people. There are just so many variables dictating the outcome of these teams. Talent will be a factor, availability, financial status, simple friendship bonds that are formed(or not), life situation changes midway. Its really hard to be able to assume people will stick around and be loyal until the end, so be prepared for the worst case scenario always!

Either way, wish you the best luck! Who knows if we will bump against each other in the future and work together perhaps ^^ (I am also starting into this business, and I am mainly a programmer :) )

I was wrong in the sense that, people in the real world, don't care about who you are if you are not life-long buddies with them. They will backstab you, leave you out to hang and disappear without a trace in a blink of an eye. They will sit and watch you work so hard on getting that first steps completed like a completely fleshed out GDD and even time schedule and business plans, then run off with all of that.

I've seen people flake out -- that's pretty normal -- but I've never been unlucky enough to see anything like the above... That's a pretty big deal if someone's stolen your planning and is passing it off as their own work now -- big enough to ruin their reputation within the industry if it came out!

How do you guys find your teams? More specifically, how should I go about finding my suicidal game programmer?

I'm the programmer in one of those small teams.

I've worked with maybe ~200 people in the industry, and when I went indie, one of them was crazy enough to go with me -- that's a pretty small percentage of people who are willing and able to break away from working for a traditional company and start their own.

We're not life-long buddies, having only been colleagues for about a year, but we both trust each other's professional capabilities, and trust each other to be partners in a business. I didn't quit my day job and throw myself in the deep end until the two of us were sure we were committed to making our game.

I don't want to be discouraging, but it sounds like you've gotten ahead of yourself by trying to start an indie project without first having the capability already there

As for attracting someone now though, I can't give too much relevant advice because I was lucky enough to pair up with an ex-colleague, instead of having to search to widely... but I would focus on making your project as attractive as possible, make it seem like a worthwhile venture for a programmer to join up to.

If your art is mediocre and your game is cliche, then there's not much incentive for a programmer to choose your risky venture over a traditional job. If you can produce some really impressive visuals, you'll have a better chance of at least getting someone's attention! Maybe even with a very pretty website with a great pitch, explaining why your game would be awesome if only it existed, you'll be able to find a long-distance/foreign programmer to telecommute with...

Basically, if you want a bona fide programmer, you've first got to demonstrate your own bona fides.

The Indie game world is crazy right now, everyone and their dog is trying to get a game completed. You have to remember that an Indie game is what the name implies. A game made by an individual not a group or company. Today Indie stands for more then that of course, but the core of it comes from a single person who wants to make a game, not necessarily for money, but for the fun or challenge of it. If you are having trouble finding a programmer to join your team, then make the game with out the need for a programmer. There is software out there that will allow you to make a decent first version of almost any type of game. Don't set your goals too high. What I mean is don't try to make the next Call of Duty, or MineCraft. It's been done, so don't waste the energy. Keep it simple at first, then if the idea of the game takes off you will have no problem finding programmers to work with you. It is hard to get others to stick around and work on a project that they are not sure will make it, but get something out there that people are interested in and then you have a better chance of having some good quality people sign on to the project. Try putting your game on KickStarter, even just a demo of it. You can find out if your game is a good idea just from doing this. If people like your game, then you will know it by the fact that they will donate to the cause. I am a programmer, I dabble in mobile game development. I've learned that simple and easy is better then complex and never finishing. Good luck.

You have to remember that an Indie game is what the name implies. A game made by an individual not a group or company. Today Indie stands for more then that of course, but the core of it comes from a single person who wants to make a game, not necessarily for money, but for the fun or challenge of it.

'Indie' is short for 'independent', not 'individual', meaning they're not being controlled by a publisher or mainstream business interests.

If you're doing it completely non-profit and individually, then you're probably a 'hobbyist' rather than an 'indie'

Heya everyone,

thanks for the awesome responses.

Yes I've always wanted to make games I want myself want to play, that's why I went to school for it and always knew "I wanted to make games". I started out with game modding which sparked my interest even more back 13 years ago now..

I also agree there's a lot of us trying really hard to finish projects. Starting is easy, staying dedicated and committed and equally enthusiastic if not more to the very end is what makes or breaks you, even if it were a regular day job. If you read my first post, that's precisely where I'm struggling at, finding like-minded-suicidal-game-startup developers. I know I personally am a very dedicate and committed developer, I want this so bad. I was fortunate enough a few months back to start a team for a Game Jam, we had 24 hours left, I was the producer/designer/artist on the team so I knew I had to get my end of the bargain done no matter what or we simply won't even have anything to show. The state of the project at that moment was still pretty far from completion than I liked, so while the rest of the team ended up sleeping, I stayed up right through through the night til the end to make sure the project will succeed as far as I was capable of, obviously programming and other roles I had no choice but to rely on the team. Other teammates probably didn't feel that same 'crunch' and didn't seem to want it as bad as I did, so unfortunately they weren't able to finish their tasks when the clock ended, if only they didn't sleep and worked through the night with me!

And yes, it seems this past year taking my dive into startup world, I've learnt you really need some form of capitol. You have to be willing to pay and invest and believe in yourself, believe enough to drop savings on someone you just met. If you find people working for really low rates (like what I did with Elance and Odesk, terrible) then you're not making the best of your money because the fact that these "professionals" are valuing themselves that low is already a red flag. If you want professional quality stick-to-your-bitter-end type of partners, you will need to be ready to pay it forward. Okay yes, some times you can find a friend or two to work with you for free sharing the same goal, but I've burned through a whole year now and that's like a total dream and not reality for me.

Well ok enough ranting, I think I'll take this opportunity to continue sharing my "journey" as a fresh indie (or wannabe-indie) here on gdnet. Right now I'm actually working on another project already, I found a programmer and am paying him a little bit. It's a tiny very simple app, but that's always been the way I wanted to start, starting with very simple small easy-to-complete projects and then slowly grow from there into bigger projects, more fleshed out games, but always also staying true to what my heart wants to make. That's the power of indie.

If any of you can share advice or any tips that can help guide me I would greatly appreciate it! Always very open to suggestions and feedback =]

If you're anywhere near around the silicon valley area here in cali, feel free to message me and we could grab coffee or something and chat!

Cheers!