It's been quite a while

[mjohnson092088]

Hey guys

I know it's been literally years since I posted anything, and some of you may remember me and that uhh... Game I was so proud of. Final Dragon Legacy. I won't go into details about things, but things have been really tough for me these past few years. However, I know that there's a couple of things that still hold true to me. 1. I love and respect the OHR for bringing me into the world of game design, even in it's simplest of forms. 2. I want to continue to learn and do new things with game design. More importantly than that, I want to get serious about things. I don't want to work in a grocery store for the rest of my life. If there's any future for me, it's in the one thing that's been a solid constant for me; Video games, and the people who love them. I can't keep doing what I'm doing knowing that Final Dragon Legacy will never be finished in the way that I want it to be. I put a lot of time and love into it, and it got me through many hard times just to work on it. I've taught myself so much just from that, and I know that some of you enjoyed it very much. SO. Why don't I stop putting cans and boxes on shelves and do what I actually love? By that, I mean make something that others enjoy. That's what means the most to me.

Until now, I've worked alone. Final Dragon Legacy was a project I've worked on by myself, save for the music. But now, I know I can't finish anything by myself, and I wouldn't learn anything from it. What should I do now? I think now is a good time to get a team of like-minded individuals and actually do something worth a darn. So c'mon guys, let's get together and make something amazing! I have some ideas for myself, but let's see what we can do! WHADDYA SAY?!

[Willy Elektrix]

Welcome back! I wondered what happened to you.

I am currently finishing a game that has been 1.5 years in the making. I do not have time to start a new project, but it's nice to hear from you again.

[Gizmog]

But now, I know I can't finish anything by myself, and I wouldn't learn anything from it.

Wrong! You can and you would.

[sheamkennedy]

But now, I know I can't finish anything by myself, and I wouldn't learn anything from it.

Wrong! You can and you would.

I agree. It may seem really hard at times to figure out certain things, especially complex coding stuff but that's the whole point of the community. Maybe you're better off thinking of slime salad as the team you didn't know you had. There's people here that can give you feedback on your writing, help you solve complex problems, help you learn to code, help you learn to draw, help play test your game, etc...

Chances are that you are strong at some aspects of game making and weak at others. But isn't that true of everyone? When you say that you know you can't finish anything yourself, what do you mean? Does this mean you find yourself getting 90% of the game made and can't figure out how to end it? If so, someone will help you figure it out if you ask. Do you mean that you can create a game but it somehow doesn't feel like a finished product? If so, someone will help clarify this and help you out if you ask. Or maybe you mean something else entirely. Still if you've tried your hardest and hit some sort of wall it can't hurt to ask.

I suggest if you want to get things accomplished you should:
1) Set milestones for yourself and get them done by their set deadlines
2) Every time you get stuck post your issue here and get it resolved
3) Every time you create something and aren't 100% about it ask people to suggest how to make it better. They will tell you.
4) Frequently post your game making progress in a place where everyone can see it. Even though people might not care it will make you feel accountable. Post your progress in a format that says something like: Here is what I've done this week and here is what to expect from me by next week.

Also working a slow and repetitive job can be sort of a blessing in disguise. Doing that type of work should allow you hours of free time to plan out the story in your head and to reflect on issues as they arise. Start taking a notebook to work and write down any game ideas as you think them up. If you look at it this way you are basically getting paid to plan out your game.

It sounds to me like you are passionate about game making and are in a situation where you have no other obligations to distract you. This is the perfect opportunity to get stuff done.

[Gizmog]

Here's a great article on the subject I meant to link earlier and forgot to. There's some things in there that have really stuck with me, even if they haven't produced the kind of results they should have.

EDIT: Most of Sheam's advice is really good too, but be careful about

Start taking a notebook to work and write down any game ideas as you think them up. If you look at it this way you are basically getting paid to plan out your game.

Some companies have stipulations in your terms of employment that anything you come up with on company time belongs to the company.. it's a good stipulation that keeps someone from working at a cash register for 100 years and devising a better way to make a cash register.. and then selling that cash register to all the competitors. Especially if your day job involves computers, there's all sorts of sneaky/tricky contract stuff that can steal your IP! You might think they can't enforce it, but they can afford lawyers and you can't, so watch out.

[Nathan Karr]

But now, I know I can't finish anything by myself, and I wouldn't learn anything from it.

Wrong! You can and you would.

I can attest to this! I have and I have.

It's really hard to finish stuff though.

[sheamkennedy]

Some companies have stipulations in your terms of employment that anything you come up with on company time belongs to the company..

Interesting. I've never heard of that, though I suppose they keep it on the down low for a reason. I guess in that case just keep all the ideas in your noggin while you work haha. I used to come up with countless great puns while working in a cigarette factory and stored them all in my phone during coffee breaks and lunch time. They probably just assumed I was texting people during my breaks.

[TMC]

Hiho, welcome back! I thought you were exaggerating in saying you hadn't posted in years, but I see it's true.

I thought your post was a bit ambiguous. You lament the idea of never finishing Final Dragon Legacy but you talk about starting on a new game with a team. Do you still want to finish it? If you've already learnt a lot from working on it, why wouldn't you continue learning by continuing with it? But I'm not strongly recommending that you do continue. One of the most likely outcomes when resuming an old project is that you spend years rebuilding the whole thing! If it's game design specifically that you're interested in, then many small experimental projects is probably the way to go.

Probably most people don't want to work in retail for their whole lives. Think outside the box and look for opportunities; a sizeable fraction of jobs are ones you would never think of. But you have to be realistic about creating a career in video games. It's not easy, because the labour and game markets are hugely flooded. Everyone wants to do that. There are various possible career paths, e.g. game journalism, forum/community liaisons, but I don't think it helps that much. If you enjoy game design I think continuing just as a hobby isn't a bad option.

Oh, this is inevitable. Someone makes a post looking for a team, and everyone replies telling them to work alone; "Perseverance!" they say. But working in a well-functioning team can be so much fun, so effective and bettering. It's too bad I have my hands full.

[sheamkennedy]

Probably most people don't want to work in retail for their whole lives. Think outside the box and look for opportunities; a sizeable fraction of jobs are ones you would never think of.

Yeah actually if you want some inspiration on thinking outside the box to get a better job my friend did this. She applied for an administrative assistant job without knowing anything about how to do that job but on her resume she said that she was experienced in some of the common admin software. Then prior to the interview she researched youtube tutorials showing how to use the most common software for that type of job. When interviewed she was able to regurgitate some keywords about the program and convince the interviewer that she knew what she was doing. She got the job and every time she ran in to a problem she looked up tutorials after her shift so she'd be prepared for the next day's work (Note: in Canada it's common to never use your most recent employer as a reference so she implied her last employment was doing admin assistant work when in reality she was working at a clothing store). Effectively she went from a job that maxes out at $15/hr pay to one that starts at $16/hr.

This may sound like a nice step up but she didn't stop there. She kept applying for more admin type jobs with other companies and found another one within 4 months. She did the same thing with them (not giving any past employer) and this time she was even more confident and actually had some experience. She told them her current employer pays her $18/hr (which they don't) and that she wanted to move to a company that would pay her the same but allow her to work less days per week so she'd have an extra day of free time. They agreed to this and hired her at $18/hr working 30 hours a week. So now she works less (has free time to work on other stuff or just relax) and gets paid significantly more.

Better yet when her and some other friends and I were hanging out recently, another friend was telling us how the telecommunications company he works at often has trouble finding programmers so it's not unheard of for them to let other unexperienced employees bid on the jobs. He said that over half of the programmers at their company are HR and admin employees who have been hired internally and just have to pass a series of programming, logic and ethics tests. So now my ambitious admin friend is looking in to applying at the telecommunications company in the hopes that she can upgrade to the programming job which I believe pays something like $24/hr to start. This doesn't even seem like a long shot considering the success she's had over the past year.

The point I'm trying to drive home is not money. It is that the internet is a great resource. If paired with a bit of bluffing and hard work you could end up going from a job with entry-level experience to one that people normally need diploma's/high levels of experience to secure.

[Nathan Karr]

Yeah, I'd never be able to do something like that. I utterly abhor deception and have almost no self-confidence.

[sheamkennedy]

Yeah, I'd never be able to do something like that. I utterly abhor deception and have almost no self-confidence.

Morally it's not for everyone. It kind of seems like the type of thing George Costanza off of Seinfeld would do but too a much lesser degree (and so far it seems to be paying off).

[TMC]

He said that over half of the programmers at their company are HR and admin employees who have been hired internally and just have to pass a series of programming, logic and ethics tests.

Haha, maybe the company has trouble finding programmers because the qualified programmers quit when they figure this out. I'm impressed they have to pass an ethics test, though.

To be fair, it's common for employers to ask for far more experience than is actually needed. When they set unrealistic expectations they probably won't get any applicants that meet them, which means you should have a shot if you apply with less.

[mjohnson092088]

Holy jeez, so many replies alrea-okay. Well, let me explain a few things here and there as to what I mean and am looking for.

Welcome back! I wondered what happened to you.

I am currently finishing a game that has been 1.5 years in the making. I do not have time to start a new project, but it's nice to hear from you again.

Thanks! I remember working with you on ideas on the first game you posted, and also the... HamsterSpeak magazine? It was called? A couple of times. RIP.

mjohnson092088 wrote:
But now, I know I can't finish anything by myself, and I wouldn't learn anything from it.


Wrong! You can and you would.

Gizmog, I've started and given up on so many projects it's not even funny. Surely almost all of us can relate. But what I meant was instead of doing something until the motivation drains me to death, and therefore never overcome the problems I'd have that would eventually lead to me giving up. I've worked with someone else on a project before, and I saw how that pushed me to actually get work done.

Also working a slow and repetitive job can be sort of a blessing in disguise. Doing that type of work should allow you hours of free time to plan out the story in your head and to reflect on issues as they arise. Start taking a notebook to work and write down any game ideas as you think them up. If you look at it this way you are basically getting paid to plan out your game.

This, I cannot do. It's not a desk job at all. More of a manual labor kind of thing, I don't have time to stop and just write things down. I've actually tried with the notepad app on my phone, it ended with me getting in trouble before. As for the rest of that, I HAVE actually done that, and it DOES help. I think my old thread should still be around it, but I won't necro it after all of this time. I'm sure my old drawing pad and notebook are around here somewhere...

Here's a great article on the subject I meant to link earlier and forgot to. There's some things in there that have really stuck with me, even if they haven't produced the kind of results they should have.

I've seen this before, someone posted it in some thread I don't remember. It is a good read for anyone who is thinking about this sort of career. I found myself guilty of many of the things mentioned, and this had some helpful insight.

I thought your post was a bit ambiguous. You lament the idea of never finishing Final Dragon Legacy but you talk about starting on a new game with a team. Do you still want to finish it? If you've already learnt a lot from working on it, why wouldn't you continue learning by continuing with it? But I'm not strongly recommending that you do continue. One of the most likely outcomes when resuming an old project is that you spend years rebuilding the whole thing! If it's game design specifically that you're interested in, then many small experimental projects is probably the way to go.

I would very much like to, yes. Maybe. But, for anyone who has read the link that Gizmog posted, I believe that there is a point where the author states that sometimes it's best to just give up on a project (even if only temporarily). It gets stale, your brain gears rust, and then... Well, you get the picture. Maybe I'll pick it up again, maybe not. And, like I stated before, I HAVE started other projects that never got finished, and you are MOST certainly correct, sir! Some of the things I've tried in some of the projects carried over to the next. For example, you may remember (possibly one of) Spoonweaver's Fangame contest. I started making a Double Dragon RPG, but I wanted to do something different than the default OHR engine does. So, I figured out a way to make a custom title screen, menu, even a basic level-up system where you control how Bimmy and Jimmy grew. Well, I took that same idea and even the basic script concepts to another contest; One of Spoonweaver's Random Collab contests (which I think we regrettably won by default, an empty victory indeed). Working with thespazztikone, I was able to create a much MUCH more in-depth levelling system, very much like the Fallout series. So, there. Proof in the pudding, so to speak.

Probably most people don't want to work in retail for their whole lives. Think outside the box and look for opportunities; a sizeable fraction of jobs are ones you would never think of. But you have to be realistic about creating a career in video games. It's not easy, because the labour and game markets are hugely flooded. Everyone wants to do that. There are various possible career paths, e.g. game journalism, forum/community liaisons, but I don't think it helps that much. If you enjoy game design I think continuing just as a hobby isn't a bad option.

The problem here is I lack many skills. High school dropout here... In fact, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING I've learned about coding and such in general was gleaned entirely from looking at the Bob the Hamster and Vikings of Midgard script files. I don't even know where to start teaching myself for real, and not just trial and error until I got it right! Addendum; Now that I think about it, I played around with Java when I was really young in the online game Graal's level editor, as well. I guess this is where you guys come in, right? It'd be cool if you could recommend some good resource material! Preferably of the layman's variety... I've asked Mogri for help before, clearly he thought I was more computer savvy than I actually am because it didn't help at all. Far beyond my understanding, that is.

As far as my current occupation goes, well... The problem is that it's not that bad as far as money and benefits go. Decentish pay ($14 for putting cans on shelves isn't too terrible) along with 401k, medical, dental, everything, and I'm only part-time. Sorry for this massive wall of text! I didn't think there'd be this many responses already!

[sheamkennedy]

I don't even know where to start teaching myself for real, and not just trial and error until I got it right!

Here's how I started learning coding. First learn any coding language (really almost any language should do), Java is perfect especially since you already know a bit about it. There are some good free resources for learning coding online like Code Academy [ https://www.codecademy.com/ ] or [ https://www.khanacademy.org/ ], I recommend both. They are easy to use and setup in such a way that you can learn the essentials of most languages in about 3 - 12 hours. What you really want to understand is how loops work (for loops, while loops), how conditional statements work (if-statements, else-if-statements) and how to use variables (variables, global variables).

Now that you know a language you should be able to apply this knowledge to your OHRRPGCE codes. The format for plotscripting is slightly different but by you can figure out how to do it with ease by viewing the plotscripting dictionary [ http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/doc ... onary.html ].

Any time I want to do plotscripting for my game I do the following procedure:
1) What do I want to accomplish?
- Perhaps I want to move the hero to a spot on the screen, make an NPC face their direction, have a text box of dialog appear on screen then have the textbox disappear after 5 seconds.

2) What coding functions will I need to do this?
- By skimming through the table of contents of the plotscripting dictionary I see sections titled: moving heroes, moving npcs, textboxes and wait commands.
- By clicking on each of these sections I can read how to carry out each task in my code.

3) Write/import the code
- I copy and paste each function I need from the plotscripting dictionary in to my code.
- I specify my own variables to make the code behave the way I want (for instance maybe the hero has to move 2 steps south, the NPC has to face west, textbox number 7 has to appear on screen, and the wait has to be 5 seconds long).
-I import my finished code in to my game.

4) How do I want to trigger this code?
- The code won't carry out automatically, I must specify in the editor what triggers this code to happen.
- There are many spots in the editor where I can place the code to carry out like: during game over, new game, if an invisible NPC is stepped on, when I enter a new map, after a textbox occurs, etc... (In this case I might want this as my opening scene so I place the code in the new game spot)

5) Test and troubleshoot
- I play the game to see if the code carries out as planned.
- If it doesn't I provide people on slime salad with the code and ask them why it doesn't work the way I wanted and what I can do to solve this.

Chances are that you will make plenty of mistakes when starting out. In this example for instance I have not suspended my player, thus the player can move the hero around during the cutscene which could be bad. I might have specified the wait to be "wait(5)" which is actually not 5 seconds but only 5 ticks, thus the textbox will disappear very quickly. Making these mistakes is good. It will cause you to get help, learn how to perform the code as intended and recognize the same mistake in the future so you don't make it again. Before you know it you'll have learned how to recognize so many mistakes that you will become mostly independent from the slime salad community and will be asking fewer and fewer questions.

I highly suggest you spend an evening skimming through the plotscripting dictionary. By doing this you will be able to recognize what coding functions you need to use in order to carry out any tasks you want in your game.

Also trial and error is not a bad way to learn. In fact when I took a computer science course in university it was actually the suggested way of learning to code. Even the websites I provided you for learning coding work in sort of a way that makes you test your understanding, fail (get some feedback) and try again. If there were a better way to learn I'm sure these sites wouldn't be so successful.

[sheamkennedy]

I'm impressed they have to pass an ethics test, though.

Yeah, I guess since the programmers have access to all the phone and cell phone users personal data they could potentially use it in undesirable ways. Though in my opinion I've always thought that almost anyone can deceive an ethics test. It's usually obvious what answers the company (or majority) wants to hear even though it may be outside of the employees personal ethical view.