A Focus on Irish Games Developers - bitSmith Games

Dav

Hello all,

Not long ago I was involved in a panel discussion about getting into the computer games industry in Ireland. I thought it might be a topic of discussion we might continue here on Boards.

So, the basic plan is, we'll get someone from a games company to come and answer questions about what they're up to, how they got started and what the plans for the future are.

If you're involved in the games industry here in Ireland, please send me a PM, I'd love to hear from you and we'll see about finding a suitable time to slot you into this discussion.

For now, I'd like you all to meet Owen Harris from bitSmith Games. As you've probably seen, bitSmith are currently running a Kickstarter for their latest game FrankNJohn, and being a backer, I've had access to thei basic demo they've put together to show the concept off. It's fun and it's going to be a lot more fun when it gets finished

I'll let Owen introduce himself and the company in more detail.

bitSmith Games: Owen

Hello there! I guess I will start at the beginning.

Part 1 - Me

I love games.

As a kid I was glued to my GameBoy, that thing got me through some tough times. My point of no return was Quake. Once I stepped into that world, for the first time, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I tried to figure out how to make games, but alas, I was too dumb to figure it out.

Fast forward a few years and I am in my 20s and floating around various soul crushing low level IT jobs. From the corner of my mind, I find out the Ballyfermot are running a new course in Game Development. Boom, I was in there like a shot.

I absolutely loved it. It was one of the first times I ever felt good at something and I was more confident than ever that this is what I wanted to do. I learnt't scripting, 3D modelling, Unreal Engine and loads of other stuff. I burst out of college ready to hit the industry.

I ended up testing games.
It was the worst job I have ever had.
I have worked in a gold mine.

My soul is crushed and I go back to general IT work.

Fast forward again and I decide I am going to take one last run at this making games lark. I start by doing an MSc in Digital Games in DIT and start learning Unity 3D and C#. There I meet some crazy talented fools and we decide that we are going to do our final project as if we were a real life game studio.....

bitSmith Games: Owen

Part 2 - bitSmith Games

And that's how bitSmith Games was born. As a college project. We found some free office space and set to work. For the next year and a half we muddles through our first game, Ku. Along the way we grabbed the attention of Enterprise Ireland, NDRC and Foras Na Gaeilge, all of whom helped and supported us.

We also made a boat load of mistakes, as any new crafts person does when they are figuring things out. The game launched on iPad in January of last year and has since then come out on iPhone, Android and Steam.

When we finished we were burnt out and baffled. The process of finishing the game was one of the hardest things I have ever done and I wasn't even happy with what we ended up making.

We all took some time off to reflect and think about what we would make next.
Here was the plan.

Fun
This seems super obvious, but what can I say, we lost sight of this first time round. When people start making games they ofter want to create certain moods, or aesthetics of feelings or to tell a certain story or convey a certain idea. We got lost down a few of these rabbit holes.
This time, fun would be the yard stick everything would be measured against.

Scaleability
We wanted to make a game that could grown and shrink, be added to and expanded in different directions. At the time I was playing a tremendous amount of boardgames and Paul ( the FranknJohn lead ) was playing a load of roguelikes. This lead to a lot of conversations about the power of randomness and how great it is in games.

Playful
Finally we wanted to make a game with a playful and weird world. A place where a chicken could fight an alien without raising any eyebrows. We wanted this because, if we are going to spend a few year's living in this world, we wanted it to be a fun and interesting place to be. We also wanted to freedom to design anything we felt like.

And so...... FranknJohn

bitSmith Games: Owen

Part 3 - FranknJohn

One day Paul arrived into the office with this weird little prototype and we all gathered round to play this game where you could detach your head. It was love at first sight and we new instantly that this was our next game. It was 3 weeks before GDC so we got our skates on and bashed out a bigger version.

Here is what we made -

It may not look like much but this is what we pitched Sony and a bunch of publishers. We ended up getting 3 offers from publishers as well as acceptance on to the Sony Developer Program. So....win.

That was a year ago and we have made some tough decisions in the mean time. We turned down the publisher offers to retain control of the project and decided to make the game in our own way.

Ben Prunty of FTL fame signed up to the the music and Maya Kramer (@legoButts) is helping us with PR. We are really happy with our little team

And here we are now.

2 weeks in to a Kickstarter to build this weird little roguelike.

You can grab a build right here
Back the game here
Hear the music here

Oh and here is the latest gameplay video

bitSmith Games: Owen

So.....
There whole team is here. Ask us anything at all about Game Development, our work, FranknJohn, the Irish Indie Scene or anything else.

SeanEdward96

Hey guys, the name is Seán and I did work experience with you last year (Owen is in London so I only met him on a Thursday morning).
What made you guys go from Kú to FrankNJohn? I saw early levels of FrankNJohn while there (there wasn't even textures!) and it was soo different to the idea of Kú, so what made you guys decided to change your design ideas?

Wavioli

Ralph from the team here - I am one of the co-founders, do a bit of game design, promo, audio design, graphic design, tea making, coding, and moaning.

Wavioli

Hey Sean,

I think one of the main reasons was the challenge that face a small team in creating a narrative driven game.

Ku is linear, always the same, solid narrative - which means we have to put a lot more work into making the experience a rewarding one (it's debatable whether we achieved this with Ku :-P), and once the player has finished it theres no enticement to come back and replay.

With FranknJohn we started working more on the principle of getting it into users hands as early as possible, thus getting very useful feedback extremely early in the project. Post GDC demo (you can see the video above) we brought the game to Rezzed, about 2 months after we had started to work on it! To make this more viable and exciting proposition we broke FnJ into bitesize chunks, and added a layer of Randomness to the level generation, which means we can be up and running quite quickly, add new parts to the game seamlessly and also provide the player with a unique experience every time they play.

We are still toying with how this will look in the final game, but you can get an idea of what this looks like in some of the videos above.

JohnnyWDev

What language do you program with in Unity? Also, are you looking forward to the new GUI in 4.6 and will that be used in FrankNJohn?
Thanks Can't wait until the game is released - love the arena!

Wavioli

OMG YES! I write the GUI scripts in Unity (we use C# btw) I nearly cried when I watched the video on the features of 4.6

I am not touching that stinky pile of GUI poo until 4.6 ;-P

Thanks! Glad you like the arena demo, keep an eye on things, we will have a new update with some new skullcaps coming soon

JohnnyWDev

Do you guys use the nav mesh for AI?

Wavioli

As far as I'm aware Robby wrote his own AI scripts - we cant use Nav mesh because there are objects randomly placed in the rooms, which messes it up.

I'm not 100% on that though

JohnnyWDev

I love the way in FrankNJohn you have those greenish smoke trails. Are those particles or trail renderers? Also, why do unity developers who use javascript in unity wear glasses? - they can't C#!

Wavioli

Groannnnnnnnn ;-P

ACK, was gonna post a link to the Arena Demos, but I cant because I'm a 'new' user that joined 10 years ago :P (lurker)

Linux build incoming...

Those are particles AFAIK

JohnnyWDev

Guys, does bitsmith have an e-mail? On your website I can only find the contact form and when I used it I didn't get a reply.
Thanks.

Wavioli

When did you contact us?

Our inbox is slightly awash with Kickstarter stuff atm

FirewaterSun

Hey Basil here, I do the artisting stuff, concepts, 2D, 3D, textures, models, animations etc.

The green smoke trail is indeed particles - they come from a pack at the moment but will be modified in future, which is very easy in Unity Line renderers tend to be a pain since by default they do not tile, but just stretch the texture applied

Wavioli

I think he was talking about trail renderers, which we use for the swipes of the head and that

Daeltaja

Hey there! Paul here from bitSmith. I'm lead designer on FranknJohn. What does that entail? Game design, level design, enemy design, game balance, particle effects, filling out pages like Kickstarter, Indiedb, Steam, cutting videos and a million other little things that one has to do in a small team.

About the Navmesh - Ralph is indeed right. We use a custom built A-star solution as (previously) you couldn't do runtime navmesh creation, which we need. No matter - we have more control with our system anyway

Wavioli

more control, MORE POWERRRR

MUAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

JohnnyWDev

Haha, great to hear. Impressive to have your own AI system, I hear it's not an easy task. I also just have a quick question. Are there any game development companies in Ireland that would take on a work experience student? I use unity and can't find any places. I'd really appreciate your help, Thanks!

Tar.Aldarion

As a software developer with no games/graphics experience at all, how hard is it to whip things up in unity, did you make small games to test out it's capabilities and so on? i know nothing about it but making games is very interesting.

Dav

I'd just like to add one thing that seems like we planned it, but is actually just fortunate timing.

bitSmith are listed as Alumni of the NDRC Launchpad programme and we happen to have Amy from NDRC on with us today if there are any of you who'd like to ask a question of her about the programme.

AirBiscuit

How did you guys get noticed in the first place? I remember seeing you at the Windows gaming conference in the Aviva back in 2013, but how did you make it into the mainstream?

Maximus Alexander

Guys, you're living my dream. Well done to you and I wish you all the best of luck. I'll be keeping an eye on this and will perhaps have some questions later.

Wavioli

sillanstudios wrote: »

Haha, great to hear. Impressive to have your own AI system, I hear it's not an easy task. I also just have a quick question. Are there any game development companies in Ireland that would take on a work experience student? I use unity and can't find any places. I'd really appreciate your help, Thanks!

We have taken them in the past, but space is at a premium in our office, and at the moment we cant really accommodate, nor really provide any good insights! It's definitely something we will be doing again at some stage, probably when the Kickstarter madness has died down and we are back to solid development

There is an Irish game dev map floating around out there, I would advise maybe looking at that and trying your luck - I cant really speak for other companies in regards to their work experience policies

Wavioli

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

As a software developer with no games/graphics experience at all, how hard is it to whip things up in unity, did you make small games to test out it's capabilities and so on? i know nothing about it but making games is very interesting.

I'm from a web development background myself, and I found Unity incredibly easy to get up and running with. Unity being free is a big plus, also there are a ton of great tutorials out there, my advice would be download the free version and just get stuck in, you can always get an artist later!

bitSmith Games: Owen

sillanstudios wrote: »

Haha, great to hear. Impressive to have your own AI system, I hear it's not an easy task. I also just have a quick question. Are there any game development companies in Ireland that would take on a work experience student? I use unity and can't find any places. I'd really appreciate your help, Thanks!

If you want real valuable experience that will make you more employable and make you a better game developer forget about work experience. Make a game.

Nothing crazy. Clone an old Atari game or something. Build it and release if for free on Android. See how many downloads you can get and see what players like about the game.

Then make something a tiny bit more interesting.

bitSmith Games: Owen

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

As a software developer with no games/graphics experience at all, how hard is it to whip things up in unity, did you make small games to test out it's capabilities and so on? i know nothing about it but making games is very interesting.

As engines go, it is pretty easy. I would recommend the wonderful youtube series cooking with unity. Max will walk you though, step by step, the building of almost any genre you can imagine.

LINK

bitSmith Games: Owen

Dav wrote: »

I'd just like to add one thing that seems like we planned it, but is actually just fortunate timing.

bitSmith are listed as Alumni of the NDRC Launchpad programme and we happen to have Amy from NDRC on with us today if there are any of you who'd like to ask a question of her about the programme.

Hi Amy!

The NDRC was a fantastic experience for us. They gave us the confidence to put ourselves out there and negotiate with the big folk. We would highly recommend their programme.

Wavioli

Botulism wrote: »

How did you guys get noticed in the first place? I remember seeing you at the Windows gaming conference in the Aviva back in 2013, but how did you make it into the mainstream?

hmm, have we made it to the mainstream? Nobody told me! :P

I guess theres a few things in play when it comes to getting your name out there, something that we are still actively pursuing.

I would say that being part of NDRC's Launchpad programme was a good start, made us take a step back from dev and made us think a bit more about promotion/PR, that sort of thing - that said it is still something we are getting better at.

Travelling to GDC (game developers conference) has also been a fantastic help, first of all hearing industry vets share their knowledge is invaluable, and then theres the networking aspect. The whole industry goes to that event, and everyone wants to grow the industry so they are mostly very helpful.

In our first year we ran a small fundit campaign to get over there, which also was a help in getting the name out there on a national level - much like our currently running kickstarter, which if (gods forbid) we fail - there will still be massive value in getting the name out there and building up a community around the game.

I would say attending events is by far the best way of getting the name out there, we have been lucky enough to have been able to demo Rezzed and Eurogamer Expo over in the UK, which got us some great contacts and some great coverage.

A bit closer to home you should maybe attend some of the local events such as Gamecraft or Dubludo - which is run by our very own Owen.

bitSmith Games: Owen

Botulism wrote: »

How did you guys get noticed in the first place? I remember seeing you at the Windows gaming conference in the Aviva back in 2013, but how did you make it into the mainstream?

We really would not consider ourselves in the mainstream yet. Everything we do is an uphill struggle to get attention. Coming from a community without a lineage of IndieDevelopment makes it even harder.

The key is carful and consistent effort from the whole team. We enter every competition and event. We show our games where ever we can. We live stream development every Friday. Perhaps most importantly, over the last 3 years we have slowly built friendships with Indies from other communities. They are really helpful, offering us advice and support and every turn.

witnessmenow

Hey guys,

Really interesting thread!

I'll probably have a couple of questions but here are the first couple

Did you consider the Ouya Free the Games Fund? - If you are not familiar with it, basically it is that Ouya would match dollar for dollar anything raised on Kickstarter between $10k - $250k. In exchange for this you need to make the game the an Ouya exclusive for a set amount of time, but its pretty clear in the T&S that a PC version may be released during this time (just not before the Ouya version). Would seem like it would have been a relatively easy way of doubling the money seeing as there is a direct route from Unity to Ouya/Android. (Now saying that I have never used Unity or exported it to Ouya so I have no idea what is involved!)

Any Tips on marketing games? - other than doing a deal with boards.ie!

Dav

Just for the record, there's no real deal per sé - there's no money or advertising or whatever involved in this - it's just something we're doing cause we think it's a nice thing to do (and I'm a gamer, it's in my blood so I wanna see more games) So if there are any others looking to be involved in this process and are worried about what it might cost, please don't, the only cost will be the time you can spend on it. I've already had 3 other Boardsies get in touch with me about showing off their work so we should have a nice collection of interesting stories, experiences and advice to come out of this.

witnessmenow

Dav wrote: »

Just for the record, there's no real deal per sé - there's no money or advertising or whatever involved in this - it's just something we're doing cause we think it's a nice thing to do (and I'm a gamer, it's in my blood so I wanna see more games) So if there are any others looking to be involved in this process and are worried about what it might cost, please don't, the only cost will be the time you can spend on it. I've already had 3 other Boardsies get in touch with me about showing off their work so we should have a nice collection of interesting stories, experiences and advice to come out of this.

I kind of figured as much, but it is still some form of deal

I think its great though, as I said in my other post its really interesting and also even just to bring some more traffic to this forum.

Call Me Jimmy

Best of luck with the game lads, I saw the video for the kickstarter a week or two ago and was impressed by the game mechanics (and visuals). As you's have said here, FUN, the essence of it comes across in the short clip.

I'm wondering what advice you'd give to a lone developer. When the prototype is complete and I'm confident I have something what would be the next steps besides the art (mainly 2d, I can't compete in 3d yet with even teams the size of yourselves).

My plan is to use the 'Flappy Bird' ad model, where there is maybe an pop up ad on loading and/or between 'lives'. Because my idea is sports related I may be able to incorporate in-game advertising in a way that is non-pervasive. I'm wondering, do you think a free game with ads, if it is fundamentally sound and relatively addictive/enjoyable, will make anything more than crumbs?

Also, would someone have to register a business in order to make money through games?

bitSmith Games: Owen

witnessmenow wrote: »

Hey guys,

Really interesting thread!

I'll probably have a couple of questions but here are the first couple

Did you consider the Ouya Free the Games Fund? - If you are not familiar with it, basically it is that Ouya would match dollar for dollar anything raised on Kickstarter between $10k - $250k. In exchange for this you need to make the game the an Ouya exclusive for a set amount of time, but its pretty clear in the T&S that a PC version may be released during this time (just not before the Ouya version). Would seem like it would have been a relatively easy way of doubling the money seeing as there is a direct route from Unity to Ouya/Android. (Now saying that I have never used Unity or exported it to Ouya so I have no idea what is involved!)

Thanks

Most deals like this require a period of exclusivity and that is just too risky for us right now. Right now, we are full indie, no investors, no publishers, just us. That means that anything that limits our impact is very dangerous, even if it nets us an extra few bucks.

If the community asks for it, we will do an Ouya version. But that would be after the Steam and GOG versions.

witnessmenow wrote: »

Any Tips on marketing games? - other than doing a deal with boards.ie!

We are terrible at marketing our games but I will give this a shot.
Firstly, make a good game. You do this not by being hyper talented, but by carefully testing your game with strangers, listening to what they say and making small adjustments.
Secondly, travel to other game development communities and make friends with the developers and press there. They will help you get the message out when the time comes.
Finally, be yourself. No one wants to listen to you pretend to be a AAA studio. They want to here all the weirdest things about you and your process.

bitSmith Games: Owen

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Best of luck with the game lads, I saw the video for the kickstarter a week or two ago and was impressed by the game mechanics (and visuals). As you's have said here, FUN, the essence of it comes across in the short clip.

I'm wondering what advice you'd give to a lone developer. When the prototype is complete and I'm confident I have something what would be the next steps besides the art (mainly 2d, I can't compete in 3d yet with even teams the size of yourselves).

My plan is to use the 'Flappy Bird' ad model, where there is maybe an pop up ad on loading and/or between 'lives'. Because my idea is sports related I may be able to incorporate in-game advertising in a way that is non-pervasive. I'm wondering, do you think a free game with ads, if it is fundamentally sound and relatively addictive/enjoyable, will make anything more than crumbs?

Also, would someone have to register a business in order to make money through games?

Ok,woah. There is a lot going on here. Sit down and sit further down and lets get into this.

First of all, this is all just some guys opinion. Some guys who is still a beginner at all this.

Do not try to make money with your first game. Your first game should be about learning your craft. Making something fun and polished, teaching the player, finding an audience, handling feedback. There is enough here to keep you very busy without adding money. The vast majority of games make little to no money, and many games that we think of as successful don't make much money either. The day we broke the Top 100 in the US App store we sold about 200 copies.

200 copies to break the top 100 in the US. Woah.

Making money is not a good motivation to make games. If you know how to make games you can make tens of thousands of euro doing other much easier work.

My suggestion would be to try and make the best game you can, release it for free, and judge your success by how many players you get. Then, when you get to game 2 or 3 or even 4, start thinking about making money.

I think a free game with add can be perfectly good, but it does spoil the moment sometimes. But crumbs is exactly what the vast majority of them earn.

Making games with out art is my preferred method too. It's great to hear that your prototype is coming together, just remember to test is as much as you can with new players. A game without a player is just a piece of software.

I run an event called dubLUDO.
Have you heard of it? You should bring you game.

Call Me Jimmy

Very much appreciate that!

I hadn't heard of dubLUDO but I will definitely keep it in mind. Making money isn't THE motivation but I'm wondering will it be possible to support myself while I make games. I amn't a fan of programming for programming sake, what makes it worthwhile is making something people can enjoy.

I have been putting pressure on myself with my first effort but you are right, I need the reality check of going through the ENTIRE process of releasing a game. I have limited the scope to as small as possible, but naively was thinking it could make money. I will remove this focus for the first effort (I'm not short on ideas).

Do you think a game of relatively small scope, designed for small smartphones, would be given a chance by developers at say something like this dubLUDO,would be taken seriously? What do yous think of the state of mobile gaming personally (not tablets)?

witnessmenow

Thanks for the reply Owen.

Re Ouya: Yeah completely understand, I was just wondering was it something you considered as it doesn't seem to clash with your current deployment strategy of PC only (according to the KS). I will post up the game on Ouyaforum.com, its the most populated group of Ouya fans. Be expecting tweets and emails off them soon, they are a dedicated bunch!

Re Marketing: Is there any where/way you recommend getting the word out there for user feedback? I have a game i put out for initial release and I'm struggling to get feedback on it. It is completely free so there is no barrier to entry. My friends will always oblige me a play test or two, but they probably have grown to close to it and are not seeing with new eyes and some UX gaps get missed.

I'm a little bit the wrong side of the country for the community stuff (i.e. I don't live in Dublin ), but I have tried to go to a few and would always be interested in more. Which/What do you recommend? I've been to 3 Global Gamecrafts (Dublin 13, Derry 13 and Galway 14) and have really enjoyed them. Met some cool people at them.

Ha, I dont think anyone would ever confuse me for a real studio, never mind a AAA one!

Another couple for you,
Whats your proudest moment in Game Dev so far?

What gets you through the low points of Game dev?

Thanks!

MagicIRL

Wavioli wrote: »

I'm from a web development background myself, and I found Unity incredibly easy to get up and running with. Unity being free is a big plus, also there are a ton of great tutorials out there, my advice would be download the free version and just get stuck in, you can always get an artist later!

Bump on this question!

Any particular tutorials you would recommend? I'm aiming to go in to Game Design & Development myself (specialising in it come September in NCI) and absolutely love the old school side-scroller genre (think Streets of Rage, Metal Slug, heck even Crash Bandicoot!) and having never used United before, I'm looking for all the advice I can get!

Maximus Alexander

MagicIRL wrote: »

Bump on this question!

Any particular tutorials you would recommend? I'm aiming to go in to Game Design & Development myself (specialising in it come September in NCI) and absolutely love the old school side-scroller genre (think Streets of Rage, Metal Slug, heck even Crash Bandicoot!) and having never used United before, I'm looking for all the advice I can get!

Unity is extremely popular and, as a result, there are tons of resources to help you learn on the web. The documentation provided by Unity themselves is excellent, then there's the wonderful Cooking With Unity series on YouTube, along with much, much more.

Get stuck in!

MagicIRL

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Unity is extremely popular and, as a result, there are tons of resources to help you learn on the web. The documentation provided by Unity themselves is excellent, then there's the wonderful Cooking With Unity series on YouTube, along with much, much more.

Get stuck in!

Well, Space Invaders is getting made this weekend. Cheers! (Assuming I don't crash the car during my first lesson on Friday:eek:)

witnessmenow

Don't mean to hijack, but I would also recommend people check out LibGDX for developing games too. I'm a software engineer in my day job with pretty much no prior game experience and I really like it. Completely free and deploys to Android and desktop very easily. It also has a route to IOS (never tried) and HTML (never worked right for me, I think my game is too complex for it)

EDIT: Magic - you should start a thread about it and post up any links you find useful or any questions you have. It will also give you some motivation to not put it on the long finger :P

SuperChar

Hi guys, my name's Jan and I'm 13
Ever since I was small I've wanted to make games, particularly programming or level design since I'm not good at art or music, but can never really get my head around all the code
I'm learning C++ at the moment, but all the free engines run C# or Javascript or something so I just want to know should I continue with C++, (My book is a "Learn C++ in 3 weeks", and I'm only about 5 days in) or learn something to correspond to the big engines
Thanks, Jan

Daeltaja

SuperChar wrote: »

Hi guys, my name's Jan and I'm 13
Ever since I was small I've wanted to make games, particularly programming or level design since I'm not good at art or music, but can never really get my head around all the code
I'm learning C++ at the moment, but all the free engines run C# or Javascript or something so I just want to know should I continue with C++, (My book is a "Learn C++ in 3 weeks", and I'm only about 5 days in) or learn something to correspond to the big engines
Thanks, Jan

Hi Jan!

I guess it differs for everyone. From my experience, learning C++ (or any language) from a book is a pretty tricky affair. I would say that you'd have an easier time learning C#/Java with Unity and the vast range of free learning resources you can find on the net. Make some small games and build your way up. If you really like it and get into it, maybe you should think about applying for a Computer Science degree in college where you will be given all the foundations you need for C++ and other languages.

Wavioli

witnessmenow wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Owen.

Re Ouya: Yeah completely understand, I was just wondering was it something you considered as it doesn't seem to clash with your current deployment strategy of PC only (according to the KS). I will post up the game on Ouyaforum.com, its the most populated group of Ouya fans. Be expecting tweets and emails off them soon, they are a dedicated bunch!

Re Marketing: Is there any where/way you recommend getting the word out there for user feedback? I have a game i put out for initial release and I'm struggling to get feedback on it. It is completely free so there is no barrier to entry. My friends will always oblige me a play test or two, but they probably have grown to close to it and are not seeing with new eyes and some UX gaps get missed.

I'm a little bit the wrong side of the country for the community stuff (i.e. I don't live in Dublin ), but I have tried to go to a few and would always be interested in more. Which/What do you recommend? I've been to 3 Global Gamecrafts (Dublin 13, Derry 13 and Galway 14) and have really enjoyed them. Met some cool people at them.

Ha, I dont think anyone would ever confuse me for a real studio, never mind a AAA one!

Another couple for you,
Whats your proudest moment in Game Dev so far?

What gets you through the low points of Game dev?

Thanks!

RE getting your game out there, try some of the gamedev boards like tigsource, makega.me, there are a few subreddits out there too - indiegamedev runs something called screenshot saturday where you can post and get feedback from other devs, also theres a hashtag on twitter on wednesday evenings its most active but you can post any time - the hashtag escapes me right now (sorry!)

RE: proudest moment - hmmmm... winning some awards at the game fleadh was nice, but I think getting on RPS/Eurogamer for the first time was pretty awesome!

RE: low points - booze. :P

Wavioli

MagicIRL wrote: »

Bump on this question!

Any particular tutorials you would recommend? I'm aiming to go in to Game Design & Development myself (specialising in it come September in NCI) and absolutely love the old school side-scroller genre (think Streets of Rage, Metal Slug, heck even Crash Bandicoot!) and having never used United before, I'm looking for all the advice I can get!

Owen mentioned a site in a comment above, it's very good - I cant post links yet! (only a couple of posts off that ;-) )

Star Lord

Loving the look of the game guys, joined in with the kickstarter yesterday, really hope it works out! Great seeing Irish developers getting noticed, and making stuff that genuinely looks interesting and fun!

witnessmenow

SuperChar wrote: »

Hi guys, my name's Jan and I'm 13
Ever since I was small I've wanted to make games, particularly programming or level design since I'm not good at art or music, but can never really get my head around all the code
I'm learning C++ at the moment, but all the free engines run C# or Javascript or something so I just want to know should I continue with C++, (My book is a "Learn C++ in 3 weeks", and I'm only about 5 days in) or learn something to correspond to the big engines
Thanks, Jan

Again I don't mean to hijack the thread but I thought I would just give my opinion on this.

Don't worry too much about languages when you are learning to program. The basic logic behind programming is the same regardless of what language you use. There will be differences between them for sure, but once you understand the concepts of programming in one language, picking up a new one will be no problem at all.

Although C++ probably isn't the most common choice for starting out on if you learning with your self I would recommend seeing it out, it will do you no harm what so ever. The book you have seems pretty well reviewed. You only have 16 days left of it anyways :pac:

Personally I think it is important to get a decent understanding of Object Oriented programming (languages such as C++, C# and Java all fall under this category) before starting "proper" game development. It's much easier to pick up the concepts tutorials teach you if you already understand the structure of the code etc.

Even when you are just learning the language you can start making simple games though, after you have learnt reading input from a user and printing out to the screen you could make something simple like a rock, paper, scissors game. It might not be the most interesting thing in the world but it is important to start small and get used to finishing projects out. The majority of games that get started, don't get finished. But I promise you, you will learn from every project you do!

There will be times when you need to cut projects short and don't be afraid to call time on a project if it has ran its course. E.G. I had an idea for an top down ice hockey game with really simple movements, left stick to move players, right stick to rotate the stick. I developed a prototype of it over a couple of weeks. I played against my brother and it just was not fun, and I didnt see how i could change it to make it fun. So despite it running well and looking pretty well I just open sourced it and cut my ties with it.

If you have any questions or issues with particular parts of programming don't be afraid to ask for help. Software development is full of really helpful people. Put up a thread on this forum documenting your progress and put up links you found useful, you might even find it useful later on if you want a refresher on something.

Last point I would make, if you want to make games now, there is absolutely no shame in making games with tools that don't require programming such as Game Maker Studio or Consturct 2. Trust me, any body who says other wise (and there will be people) is wrong! You might not have the same flexibility as development (to be honest I'm not sure, I've never used them) but if you can create a game that is fun to play it really does't matter how you got there. Players dont care how it was written, they only care about an enjoyable experience. I do still recommend learning to program, its hard to see it now but it will be a huge advantage to you in later life if you can already program.

Best of luck!

Wavioli

spot on!