Making my own game company/start-up

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    • Making my own game company/start-up

      Hi!

      My name is Nick, and I'm a, you could say, budding game developer. My knowledge is said to be pretty far, but my experience is short of anything worth writing home about, which is where I try to work on things.

      I've got the hang of programming, and a little bit of design, so I've recently gotten the courage and confidence within myself to make a bold move: Make my own independent video game company, funded by personal and, eventually, crowdfunding sources.

      With the game company, I've already started to work out the details. I've code-named it "Post-Spatial Studios" for now, and I'm in the process of figuring out the forms and paperwork to register the LLC. I have myself, a programmer buddy, and two friends who happen to be graphic designers/digital artists working with me part-time.

      Only thing is, the problem is getting officially started. I have no problem with designing my projects in my mind, but I have trouble with writing it all down, not to mention starting the formal code designs on paper.

      So, the project I'm working on will be an independently-published medium-scale RPG known right now as "Project: Non-Euclidean". I just wanted to ask you guys if you all have any advice as far as: My in-the-works company, my budding game project, or any suggestions you feel fit.

      Thanks!

      -Nick
    • Hello, and welcome to the forum.
      I wish you luck with your project, although, the truth is, no one usually succeeds on their first try. It's not just the gaming industry, it goes for the business world in general, practice and countless projects (and failures) give you the experience you need to make something that will actually succeed, and that goes especially for someone who wishes to be the lead programmer / executive. It also gives you old experiments you can copy paste (although nowadays you can use github) already written code from.
      As you've mentioned, most of your problems would be resolved if you have already worked in a company, or at least on a project before, so you could see how the whole planning phase and meetings work, and what happens when the project starts meeting the deadline.
      I would suggest you read some gamasutra articles on a gaming company inter works and perhaps a book in your local library on managing a company.

      In gcc, there are only abstract layers written down, i think someone posted the whole architecture on the forums. So, the idea is that you abstract your parts and write it down on a whiteboard and discuss it with fellow programmers. See if you can find design document on other pojects to give you a feel on how it should look like, make sure you have a solid design document before you start coding. There's plenty of patterns to help you make a good architecture, however the most important part is to learn how to properly abstract things. It's even easier nowadays with c++11 and other good OOP languages.
      That is, if you choose to make your own engine. As you have a small team, i would suggest you'd rather stick to commercial engines, like unreal engine or unity, as they allow for rapid prototyping and are a lot easier to handle for a small team, and they cost next to nothing (5% of revenue i believe?)

      As for the game itself, there's a lot of games out there, so don't be afraid to try out new ideas, and if you decide to implement them, remember to polish them to near perfection. There's nothing wrong with another generic rpg, however, if you want to make it out there, make sure it's polished. That's my advice