Gah!

Jeez you guys, my Mom is crazy. I want to buy Unity Indie with money from my savings. I tell her (since she has my ATM card) and she says that its a waste of money. I try to explain that I want to make some shareware games with it and she says that if I'm gonna have a business I need to write her a business plan. I write one, she denies it. I make it better, she says its worse. >_< This is getting annoying.

 

Aside from a business plan that PAYS for Unity (always a plus!) there are other benefits you've probably already mentioned:

* Very cheap way to LEARN some game programming.

* Very cheap and efficient way to build a portfolio.

Those have real long-term value for the future.

Then again, so does writing a business plan

 

Yeah. I seriously have written everything I can think of. Now I think I'll just have to talk her into it. Wish me luck so that I can keep Unity-ing. If I make enough money from mah shareware games I'm definately upgrading to Pro.

 

Are you a coder or an artist? Or somewhere in-between?

 

@Moldorma
You mom somehow seems to be a cool person! :O)

 

:O! lol. I code and do graphics both pretty well (imo), but I can't animate. >.> Anyhoo, I brought it up again and she said that if I show her something that I made with my trial she'd let me buy it.

 

Well, get going. You can make a complete game in a day if you keep it small.

I'll help with questions as much as I can! Of course judging from your join date on the forum, your trial may be up. In that case maybe you can ask for an extension.

Cheers,
-Jon

 

And your marble game expansion wasn't good enough for her?

 

@aarku
And those games mostly also look/play like done in a day. A complete game isn't done in a day if you want something polished to support your arguments.

 

Nope, you're wrong. And there's no arguing with taumel, so I'm not gonna say why :O)

-Jon

 

Experience...aren't you working on two games on your own? You should already know better by now.

If you simply look at what all has to be done to complete even a small game: Coming up with a nice idea which can already be a hard part for small games as it doesn't help you to implement another Pong, right?! Doing the art (gfx and sfx), doing the texts. Implementing the structure around the game (Start, Highscores, Help, Options, Exit, Credits, ...). Doing the game. Polishing&Tweaking all components. Simply won't happen in most cases if you haven't done it a dozen times before and know exactly what you're after. Even more if you're not familiar with the tool.

 

Jon's already made games in less than a day, thanks to the 4 hour and 24 hour mini contests you have at iDevGames now and then.

 

So what? Maybe rereading helps?

 

I guess it's easy to understand how we came to this if you read the thread.

 

I think Aras means that the target audience is Moldorma's mum, and therefore needing proof of productivity wouldn't need the same level of proof as to a game publiser for instance, needing a polished game etc.

Even if Aras didn't mean that, he should have.

 

Yep and i tell you statements like "...You can make a complete game in a day if you keep it small..." are sham for most of the people. You can hear stuff like this on a lot of gamedev forums but surprisingly i don't see a lot of such games. But maybe we just have a different understanding of what a <complete> game actually means.

 

Im his brother. So. yea we diecided to make a quik game in Unity. We'll even post it here when we are done.

 

Your 14 years old! You can do graphics and code.

Unity is not only for making games, you can tell her that it is also being used to showcase real estate properties etc. Show her Unity's web site, let her browse this http://unity3d.com/unity/unity-visualization.html and this http://unity3d.com/unity/unity-education.html

Also, since you mentioned you can do graphics, can I see some of your work?

Since you are 14, you can not do anything legally with out parent approval, like going into a contract or something. So if you legally start a small business your mom will need to sign stuff for you.

Starting a business and expecting to make a profit in a year will not look good on any financier(especially parents) no matter how well written is your business plan. Instead of telling your mom that you will be using Unity to create games and selling the games as a shareware games, you can tell her that you will be using Unity as a tool to learn to code, etc.

Show me some of your graphics work, visit http://www.mantarayinteractive.netSee the ugly clown? I'm sure you can make a better clown than I can. If I like your work, I'll buy it.(Through your mom of course.) Show her the Unity site mentioned above and this forum topic you started. Somebody wants to see your work and maybe pay you for your efforts, etc.?

Ray

 

Moldo on Donshoo's Comp:

I'll make you a clown for free.I just like doing 3d stuff. Here's a 3D Caterkiller (from Sonic) that I made. just a pic.



n_n

 

The argument I always used towards my parents was "would you rather I play games on my computer, or use it to learn something that might prove useful later". Might not work with your mum (adjust as you see fit), but parents generally want their children to learn stuff, so that angle is sound.

I wanted to start a game business when I was 14 as well - my parents didn't like that either. I guess it was too ambitious. I had much more success giving them small goals that they could see were realistic.

good luck

 

I hate the idea of exploiting the skills of a 14 year old, but I don't hate the idea of exploiting those of a coder. So here's a thought for you:

I'm working on a 3D side scroller, I basically have enough done graphically that it could be made into a game easily with some script and level design. I'm not a coder by any means whatsoever, would you be interesting in helping me with the project? I plan, like you, to make shareware games - this is to be my first.

 

Hmm i dunno which background Moldorma has so it's a little bit hard giving a good advice. If you kow how to do a game than you propably won't need much help for your mom-demo (does she work for a publisher? :O) as long as you won't try out something completely new beside of how to do it in unity.

And if you don't know how to do a game at all than i honestly suggest starting with 2D first simply for some basics and get blitzMax or whatever unless you are totally hypnbotized by the extra dimension.

 

That's odd. My parents seem to think that making a business and getting lots of money would be a much better idea than make small petty things in Unity.

Why implement things in Unity that are already available to me in other applications, like Colloquy?

 

Woah, woah, woaaah. Slow down a sec... Les see here...

Nick (mah name too!) - My mom just thinks that I'm going to be wasting my money again (I bought some web hosting that turned out to be completely evil and won't give me my refund), but she doesn't understand the dif. between a 'Trussst usss.....' web host, and a program with a 30 Day trial.

Dream - I'll let you know when I get Unity and maybe we could work something out.

Taumel - I have previous experience in Flash (really helps with the Javascript) and Windows Game Maker. I'm good in the making things department. I just need to make something impressive to prove that this isn't a bad choice of ways to spend my money.

 

jeez yr mom sounds like a bit of a hard ass. but fair enough, she just doesnt wanna see you crash and burn. but if its your bling, pocket money or whatever, you should get some say

1.try knocking something up wih a few famil photos in it as textures,
2.find some facts on how much money the games industry is making

go2
http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~mediasolutions/IvaTreskon_Gallery2006.html

4 a non game example
u will need webplayer 1.5.1 beta
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=2785
ac

 

If there's a family birthday or something coming up, you could make something for someone, like your mom. That way, what you are doing is meaningful in some way and also a demonstration of your abilities. Little Unity games are some of the best presents ever.

 

Hmmm, Moldorma, this is your own money but your mom has control over the account? Instead of talking her into it on a business level, try talking her into it as an extension of your math studies at school... trigonometry, algebra, geometry.

Show her some equations used in scripting game events and she should be impressed by how you're extending your knowledge from math class and using them in practical applications. That would've certainly appeased my parents back then.

$249 is a large investment for a 14 year old, but somehow try to show your parents that you'll be sticking with this endeavor for the long haul... you just have to convince them that it's not a short lived fad.

 

I agree with Antenna. Unity is the best example of using all the maths learned at school, in a practical real world environment. I have often thought that my use of Unity is the Ultimate"Stay at school so you can do cool stuff like this"pitch as far as:
Maths
Design
Physics
Whatever photoshop course your school offers
For getting bored kids to enjoy ,thrive and be successful at school

Be patient bro
chances are you will have a long relationship with Unity, Hell, I waited till I was 31 before I cottoned on to it
AC

 

How much do you learn about physics whilst using physx?

A programming environment is always good for learning a lot of stuff but i doubt that it's of much use for learning physics at least when i recall the physics we've learnt in school as a) no formulas to learn&use and b) physics are more than just rigid bodies and even there you don't have such limitations as in physx (concave meshes... ;O)...

 

I havent really explored the realm of physics to a great extent, but Im sure if you were teaching physics at school, a teacher could find a way to set up simulations using Unity. Its not really my bag, so havent done any groundbreaking research in the scientific field ...yet
a ha ha ha haha ha :twisted:

 

Yep you could use it for demonstration of certain things but as i said this would be a fraction of the physics there is to learn in school. Hmmm didn't you say you were 36 years old already? You should have gone through all this years ago... ;O)

 

I have an idea! She's a librarian, so I'll use my 3D modeling skill to make a 3D Library. I'll make her a dream library. And then I'll put it into Unity with an FPS Controller (My Bro's trial's still running). Brilliant. She'll love it (I hope).

 

YEAH! And then you could have a massive carnage gore-fest where you throw books at people and use flamethrowers and ...errrrr...

I mean, yes, that sounds like a good idea actually. In fact, I bet that you could even put a picture of her sitting behind the counter reading her favorite book.