I've always wondered if a guy like me, who has no technological expertise and can draw as well dizzy blind man in a dark room can make it in the gaming world, what I mean to say is, if you have an game idea but no ways to explain it apart from words, will you ever make it in the biz?

Captain-Giggles:
I've always wondered if a guy like me, who has no technological expertise and can draw as well dizzy blind man in a dark room can make it in the gaming world, what I mean to say is, if you have an game idea but no ways to explain it apart from words, will you ever make it in the biz?

If you find a way in, let me know. I've got three dozen wicked game concepts on the go, but had no success myself.

I'm a little to young to venture into the gaming world at this point, but my guess would be you'd need connections (A friend, family member in the business) But I bet there are many people out there with a really good idea, but if anyone asked them to make it, they'd shrug.

As a person who has never worked in the video game industry in my life, my opinion is probably pure bullshit, but here's my view of it.

The entertainment industries are all built around popularity. Whether you're a musician, an athlete, a movie star, a restaurant, or a video game, you will only be successful if you can get people's attention and keep it.

Having a good product is only half the battle -- that's what keeps people coming back. The hardest part is getting their attention in the first place. That's where marketing and friends come into play. Hype the hell out of your product and a million people will buy it the first week. Give them a good game and their friends will buy it too, plus they'll be dying for your next big idea. But without that initial audience, your idea will end up a diamond in the rough, just like Painkiller in today's Zero Punctuation.

Once you get their attention, a great idea is what will keep them coming back for more, and that's what builds a strong company (Konami, how do you manage to stay alive?).

For God's sake, if any of you get into programming or just general game design; make sure the bloody thing has an easy-to-use screenshot button, please - for the sake of every reviewer everywhere!

Captain-Giggles:
I've always wondered if a guy like me, who has no technological expertise and can draw as well dizzy blind man in a dark room can make it in the gaming world, what I mean to say is, if you have an game idea but no ways to explain it apart from words, will you ever make it in the biz?

Your best bet is to fully flesh out all of your ideas, then get a programmer and an artist who will work in their spare time to help you get a prototype of this game working. Once you have that, you should start contacting publishers and telling them you have a functional prototype of a game you would like them to look at. They may say no, most likely will say no, but they may say yes. You have to understand that most publishers have a hundred ideas for games that they own the rights to and are generally not willing to pay you for your ideas.

You could also download Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition and Microsoft's XNA Development Kit and learn to program with that. Their website http://creators.xna.com has EXCELLENT tutorials and documentation. That could let you get something up and running pretty quickly.

That's my advice as an industry professional. Good luck.

I myself am hardly a brilliant artist (although i'm taking Art as a GCSE, so there's hope), and have no experience in Programming, but I do occasionally come up with ideas i'd love to make into a game.

I think that's the hardest part about making a great indie game -- there are artists, and programmers, and people with great game ideas, but rarely will you find all three in the same person. I agree that getting a programmer and an artist who are interested in your idea to help you make a prototype is a great way to get started. It doesn't have to be long (perhaps just the first 5 levels), but it should have everything that you think will be in that game. That way, people will get to see it for what it will be, not just a shell of what it could be.

Well, for my idea (I won't really go into it, Spies may be listening) I had it as a basic 2-D adventure with characters and ideas I doodle in class in my idle time. So in short, like Stickmen, but slighty more detailed than that. So art may not be a problem, but I don't know a single programmer, or even someone who can make a web page using HTML.

ReverseEngineered:
I think that's the hardest part about making a great indie game -- there are artists, and programmers, and people with great game ideas, but rarely will you find all three in the same person. I agree that getting a programmer and an artist who are interested in your idea to help you make a prototype is a great way to get started. It doesn't have to be long (perhaps just the first 5 levels), but it should have everything that you think will be in that game. That way, people will get to see it for what it will be, not just a shell of what it could be.

5 levels is even excessive, 1 to 2 levels is enough. A 10 minute demo is enough. You just need to show, and quickly, what makes your idea special and why it's worth investing in.

Captain-Giggles:
Well, for my idea (I won't really go into it, Spies may be listening) I had it as a basic 2-D adventure with characters and ideas I doodle in class in my idle time. So in short, like Stickmen, but slighty more detailed than that. So art may not be a problem, but I don't know a single programmer, or even someone who can make a web page using HTML.

Like I said though, the XNA Suite is designed for anyone to pick up and start programming with. The tools are excellent as is the documentation and tutorials. Download it all, give it a run for a while and see how it goes. I do believe if Microsoft likes the idea, they will fund the game for a share of the profits (albeit a large share).

I'm one of the few people who don't care about profits long enough to want to make a fun game regardless of how much I make before the real world comes crashing down. I want a game that's humourous and looks neat, is that so much to ask? I'm really getting ahead of myself at this point though, It's more one of those 'That'd be a cool game' type of ideas, not a 'That'd be good, it'd be layed out like so, traditional FPS with some tweaks like Magic and Custom Bullet noises' I very rarely think that far ahead about anything (Would explain why my idea for a podcast failed too)

Captain-Giggles:
I'm one of the few people who don't care about profits long enough to want to make a fun game regardless of how much I make before the real world comes crashing down. I want a game that's humourous and looks neat, is that so much to ask? I'm really getting ahead of myself at this point though, It's more one of those 'That'd be a cool game' type of ideas, not a 'That'd be good, it'd be layed out like so, traditional FPS with some tweaks like Magic and Custom Bullet noises' I very rarely think that far ahead about anything (Would explain why my idea for a podcast failed too)

Then you probably need someone to dedicate some time and effort into fleshing out the design with you. You CAN just gung-ho make a game off of a neat idea with no planning, it rarely works out. The best games are planned thoroughly ahead of time. You have to try and cover everything you can ahead of time to save yourself the world of headaches that would occur if tried to address the issues when they arose.

Find someone you like and trust, someone who can share your vision for the game and someone with an excellent grasp of the English language and technical writing. Once you have that person, start by trying to figure out how the game would play, what are the goals? You should try and come up with the "30 Seconds of Fun". For example: In any given shooter, you run around, solve some minor puzzles, shoot bad guys, upgrade guns or get new guns, sometimes you get powers and whatnot. The cycle then repeats. This is what you need for your game.

The only set-in-stone ideas I've had about it so far are :
Numero Uno: The Characters
Numero Dos: The style
3: Ever played 'Whacked'? The little ads they have in between? Something like that.

One thing still annoys me is how it actually plays, I can say what it's not, but not what it is.

Just an idea won't be getting you there, that's as much for sure. You need to *show* it. And also think it through and ahead. I mean, you think its cool, but what makes you think other people find it cool as well, and would there be a market for it?

Justifying a game idea is a lot of work.

A friend of mine just told me to try out Game Maker 7.0 From Yoyogames. Good place to start?

Captain-Giggles:
A friend of mine just told me to try out Game Maker 7.0 From Yoyogames. Good place to start?

Game Maker is fine, but no real industry companies use it. XNA however is PC and XB360 code. It's in C# so someone may have to convert that to C++ but that's nothing. It's up to you, but there is no tool that completely removes the coding aspect. Some are better than others. The point I'm trying to make is pick a tool and start working. Maybe grab a few tools and muck around in each one until you know which one your really do like. Then go with it. You have to flesh the game out, you have to get it into a form that can be shown off to publishers. There's no other way around it.

I myself am planning on making my game using a total conversion of the Source engine. Of course it'd be unrelated to Half-Life, and would infact involve very few guns.

Jade Raymond did.

If you want to pursue being a game designer lookup "Design Documents" they are a way to express your game idea in a way that can be understood by programmers and artist.

Speaking as a programmer nothing pisses me off more than having to redo hard work because it doesn't conform to the designer's "vision". I am sure artists are equally displeased by loosing 6 hours of work over a miss communication.

The lesson here is even if you can't code or draw, you can try management. But to be a good manager you will need more than good ideas. You will need to be organized, detail oriented and good at communicating your ideas. Just telling a bunch of programmers and artists "I want a GTA type game that happens in space" will not result in a good game; or any game at all. You must envision every aspect of game play then communicate those ideas to the people who can make it a reality.

DangerousFat:
You have to understand that most publishers have a hundred ideas for games that they own the rights to and are generally not willing to pay you for your ideas.

What I understand is that, based on the games released over the last 5 years, the publishers have run out of ideas, or at least ideas that don't suck (Portal being the sole exception). I wouldn't be so cynical about games these days if they focused on fun instead of looks, but I haven't bought a game since Total Annihilation that has truly captivated me past the 2nd month. MAYBE Battlefield 1942, maybe...

And Portal isn't really an exception, since it was based on an indie game made by students, so it's really not a mainstream game.

ReverseEngineered:
As a person who has never worked in the video game industry in my life, my opinion is probably pure bullshit, but here's my view of it.

The entertainment industries are all built around popularity. Whether you're a musician, an athlete, a movie star, a restaurant, or a video game, you will only be successful if you can get people's attention and keep it.

Having a good product is only half the battle -- that's what keeps people coming back. The hardest part is getting their attention in the first place. That's where marketing and friends come into play. Hype the hell out of your product and a million people will buy it the first week. Give them a good game and their friends will buy it too, plus they'll be dying for your next big idea. But without that initial audience, your idea will end up a diamond in the rough, just like Painkiller in today's Zero Punctuation.

Once you get their attention, a great idea is what will keep them coming back for more, and that's what builds a strong company (Konami, how do you manage to stay alive?).

I have one word for you: Castlevania

Khell, it's not that the publishers have run out of ideas... they don't get the ideas, the developers do. And most developers haven't run out of ideas either, they're just either caving in to fan- and investor-pressure to make a sequel to their previously-successful title "X" or they're stuck on how to turn new ideas into new games.

The terrible truth of any creative field is that getting the idea is the easy part. I literally have a filing cabinet drawer stuffed full of game and story ideas from back when I thought I was going to make that a paying gig. It's getting the idea into some sort of presentable form that's the tough part. Edison (the thieving bastard) had it right; invention (any creative process, in truth) really is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

-- Steve

PS: One thing giving the creative gig a crack will get you is a lot of friends and strangers saying, "hey, I've got a great idea for a story/game/movie/etc; how about I tell you and we split the profits?"

I'm not kidding.

It's a harsh world for game ideas, and one thing that struck me just moments prior: I don't think there's a game studio in Ireland...

There is no shortage of good ideas in the gameing industry.

There is a very real and present shortage of talent to put a game together, and more importantly, money to fund that talent.

Money always chases money, so the ideas that are likely to get green lit are the ideas that are most likely to earn money, not necissarily the most creative ideas.

If you want someone to throw money and talent at your idea, you have to convince someone that your idea is going to make money, not that your idea is "really good". And odds are the person holding the purse strings will be an investor, not a creative gamer.

The only way out of that cycle I know of are:

1) Work in a very low cost-of-development field, like web based games that you can build yourself, soup to nuts.

2)Become so fabulously good at making profitable games that folks will throw money and talent at you regardless of your current idea, or how far fetched it seems. You think Spore would have gotten a green light if johnny-off-the-street was pitching it?

Ahh, I nearly forgot a 3rd option: Form or join a high quality modding team, and create a popular or innovative mod of an existing game. I know of at least one mod team that got purchased lock stock and barrel, and made into a development house (Simbin), and released several high quality titles.

LackingSaint:
And Portal isn't really an exception, since it was based on an indie game made by students, so it's really not a mainstream game.

Valve did the writing, though.

Melaisis:

LackingSaint:
And Portal isn't really an exception, since it was based on an indie game made by students, so it's really not a mainstream game.

Valve did the writing, though.

Yes, the portal gun may have been an indie project, but Valve deserves all the real credit because it's the sick humor and the little added-in things that made it more than just a puzzle game. Fuck, they probably paid more for the end theme "Still Alive" than they paid the indie originators for the concept.

theres more to thinking about ideas, you have to more than likely have to techinical expertise aswell. If you have an idea, your best starting in the modding community get your ideas known and learn a few things.

I'd advice some experience in programming, don't start on C++ or anything like that, take it simple like Robot Battle, basically you do very basic coding but its a good start. Why you ask? Mainly for communication between programmers and designers, so you don't get too ambitious

look at games past and present, discuss what elements they contain, what makes them good and why people play them. A good start is reviewing, write some reviews on the Escapist for example and get some critical feedback, remember don't precious of your work.

Finally you might be ready to work on your idea, thats where the modding aspect comes into play. Get together with friends or people you know and work on your idea. After that you have a portfolio of your work, which is what you show the top dogs, and whos knows one day we may see your idea on the shelves.

Oh and play games... Lots of games even ones you hate xD