[Unprofessional] Self-Ironic tagging

A lot of times there is this grim work mentality here. Everybody seems to be advanced in everything, when you see games, they seem to have it all - intelligent game mechanics, good design, you name it.

And this is where people are coming from when talking here.

When I am not so serious about game developing and just want to have little invest but big reward - as it is usual when you don't do it for money - I get this "you develop for the people" mentality or "did you create sketches beforehand".

While this is all necessary for professional work, I decided to not do this professionally. I decided to earn money elsewhere to keep this fun for me and not spoil it by deadlines - (I spoiled everything for me for good when I started making money out of it.)

So I suggest a new Tag: Unprofessional as in

Title: [Unprofessional] I want to create a game that does X.

Then you know that giving advice about storyboards etc. won't be heard. And probably no intent of buying anything from the store either.

So quick ready-made projects that are available for free and need only little customization are what is required here.

And keep in mind, the more serious you take a project the more moments of mental overload you will experience and the less fun you will have. So instead of [Unprofessional] we also use [Fun-Related] in contrast to [Work-Related] or [Serious].

 

Have you done any sketches about how you think this tag should look?


Professional or not, planning/storyboards etc are always a good idea, and I don't think the "unprofessional" tags will discourage many people from saying so. Even the most simple hobby project can benefit from some form of planning.

I have to wonder how vague these questions must be though - do you have any examples? I don't think I've seen any replies like the ones you describe, except for in the "How to build MMORPG" threads.
I'd only respond with an answer relating to the planning of a project if I believed there was something fundamentally wrong with the project and it hadn't been thought out properly before hand - and in that case it would be the most appropriate answer anyway.

I personally don't like tags in forums, they end up adding unnecessary clutter to the page - an a subforum would be a much better idea in most cases.
Perhaps the better option would be to simply state that it is a hobby project in the original post - Or maybe I've just missed your point.

 

in some way, i believe planning a game level is really stupid... the layout
i cant do it...

i do much better creating as i go... and it seems to me like, god or some higher power shows me the next step sometimes...
... its like, sometimes ill get stuck, not knowing what to do next, but then -bang! some big idea comes up by accident... had i planned, there is no way i could plan something that awesome, but since i didnt plan, i got something AWESOME!

in my opinion, ive seen some games like call of duty, and GTA5 where, obviously they are multimillion dollar companies, they planned every little detail.... but... i think the game wouldve been 100x better if they didnt over plan... i mean, there is some levels that when you play it you feel " damn, every little bit of this was planned/ staged... this makes it NO FUN"

, i mean, it comes to a point where, something is "overplanned" and player's ability to improvise is 0

 

I storyboard everything, including stuff I never plan on selling. I storyboard, I write character dialogues, I block out scenes for cutscenes, I plan things. These things don't make me a professional, they just mean I'll have a project that I can manage easily.

 

Push.

 

What does it matter if you're a hobbyist or not? If you're a hobbyist who can create a work on-par with indie studios, or better still, AAA-studios, it's safe to say the difference is nil. Actually, it's probably better for the hobbyist, because they crank out that level of awesome for fun.

If you're a hobbyist and you don't (like me), it's not an indictment of your skills, or anything. Perhaps you can invest less time; perhaps you're better at some other discipline (for me, code and music somewhat); perhaps you have limited resources.

A tag does nothing to gain respect other than producing better stuff. To the OP, I think that should be your immediate goal. You must practice.

 

I think it's possible to use Unity as a concept design medium. Concept designers tend to try out lots of ideas, play around with things, even generate random content, just to see where it leads. Why not do that in a game engine? The exploration process is the fun part, not arriving at a 'final solution'.

 

You can use Unity to quickly prototype ideas. What's wrong with that?


However, to ask someone else to take leave for 3 weeks without paying them or, asking someone to design your game without pay for 3 months, that is not hobbyist.


> don't do it for money


Did you try going off-line and help others in your community instead? ...