Hey, all!

I'm new to this forum, but I've browsed around here before, and people, for the most part, seem very informative, helpful, and experienced in what I'm looking for.

Basically, I need the assistance of anyone experienced in programming. Unfortunately, I have little to no knowledge on languages, or programming. I am, however, very innovative, creative and productive when it comes to generating relevant ideas in terms of gaming. I also, needless to say, have an amazing idea for a new game that I've been working on for quite a while now. So I have several things in mind and would consider myself to be way beyond the "planning" stage. I'm very serious about completing this project, but obviously I can't do it alone.

A brief explanation as to how the game would be set up/what I'm looking for.

The game would follow an almost identical gameplay structure to that of Ijji's Gunbound. This being a turn based, strategy shooting game. I have a couple things in mind that I could do to make a game similar to it, yet ten times more enjoyable. I've incorporated ideas from games like MapleStory, ArmoredCore, and much more into this project in order to enhance it.

As far as graphics go, I just emailed, to who I think, is probably the best artist in terms of the sort of graphics I'm looking for in my game. Still hoping to get an email back from him really soon. Avatar graphics would be no more complex than graphics that you could find in Gunbound and Maple story. (For aspects such as backgrounds, terrain, avatars, text, etc.)

But I digress. Is there anyone here who is confident enough in their skills to partner up with me on this? Right now my main focus is on creating an enjoyable game that we can use for personal use, and hopefully have it expand in to something beyond that. For those of you who want an idea of Gunbound, check out Youtube gameplay videos of it. It's a very basic game. 2D graphics, 3D backgrounds (although I might use 2D backgrounds in my game). A generally non-complex game in my opinion.

Please, don't hesitate to shoot me a response if you think you or anyone you know might be capable of helping me program a game like I've described above.

Thanks in advanced!

I'll be the boss,
You'll do as I say...
So write me some code,
You'll get no pay!

There's not much more to say, unfortunately.

Very few games ever start off as a programmer writing, at no cost, all of the code for a non-programmer he doesn't even know, regardless of how brilliant the game idea is.

The reality is that unless you can come forth with a substantial amount of the work done first by yourself, nobody is going to want to help you, a random Internet person, with your project. Everybody has their own things they'd like to do instead.

You'd be better off trying to find somebody local to work with you. If you're really a college student, check out the CS department and see if somebody can get some course credit building a game with you.

And, of course, there are many people here who would be happy to help out with specific programming questions and general advice.

I have this image in my head of this amazing house I'd like to live in. Could you build it for me if I just send you some drawings? You'll get all the glory, I promise.

But seriously, this is a lot more likely to work in real life than through the Internet. If you have a friend that's interested in programming, you could ask if he wants to team up. But you'd probably have to contribute more than just ideas. Like making some graphics, or digging up free graphics and sounds on the Internet. Or if you have a friend that's good at drawing, or even better, able to make simple computer animations, you could form a team of three. If they like your ideas, they might be ok with you helping to shape the game, although you're not really 'doing' anything yourself.

Damn! We should make a new song! for the old good times!
{"name":"simpsons-be-sharps_l.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/3\/d3b41c69556d79a51c8662866e189563.jpg","w":400,"h":300,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/3\/d3b41c69556d79a51c8662866e189563"}

It must be monday morning....

I was listening the allegro.cc song we did(see Matthew post), old memories came to my mind and I thought that we should make a new song! just that, not trolling, just hijacking

It's not gonna happen this way. There are a few options though, assuming you really are serious enough:

• Learn to program. You don't have to become the rock star programmer capable of doing the whole thing, just enough so you can hack together a little proof of concept. Not a complete game, but enough to demonstrate the basic game mechanics, check if it's as cool in real life as it is in your mind, and to give people something tangible. It's probably best not to do this in C or C++, but to pick an easier programming language. Python is said to be almost unbeatable on that front.

• If the game mechanics aren't revolutionary (i.e., it's been done before), see if you can use an existing game engine or some sort of clik & point game maker, and provide "just" the content. You're still going to have to learn a bit of scripting, but the largest part of the mind-numbing bits and pieces are in place already.

• Pay someone to do the programming. This is going to cost you a lot of money; programmer rates may be anywhere between $30/h and $300/h, and we're probably looking at a few hundred man-hours; even a proof of concept is going to be at least a full work week. Cheap programmers are going to cost you more at the bottom line, because they tend to produce more bugs, more unnecessary complexity, and less maintainable code, exponentially increasing the required amount of man-hours. Rule of thumb: "Cheap, fast, good. Pick two."

• Find someone who can program, and needs something you're good at, and exchange favours. Basically the same as option 2, but since you're a student, this might suit you better.

So very true. At my job, we've taken over a project that was originally outsourced to India. We determined that the code was so terrible that we started over from scratch. All the money spent on the original code was wasted.

I've found that in very, very rare cases, the original code is salvageable. 99.8% of the time I prefer to just start from scratch. Which kind of sucks, because you have to convince your client that dumping all the work that was done is the best option.

Try craigslist. Theres one for every city in the world.

Which really reads as,

I'm here to sponsor children to work for me for slave wages.

Oh you mean he's a professor?

Well, if you're looking for programmers confident enough in their ability to make your game, you're talking to a den overflowing with them right now. If you figure out how the world works, you'll realize you can hire almost any skill for a price. You current price (unclear, probably 0) is too low to attract any people with this skill. Learn some skill that will bring you enough $$ to hire one with this particular skill and you'll be off and running!

I somehow missed the existence of the allegro.cc song so far, this is great. You should make a few more and release an album... or put it on itunes or something