I’ve been programming for over a year now and I don’t really know anyone else that’s interested in this line of work. So I’m just curious if anyone knows where I can get motivated individuals to help me develop?
Are you funded? If you have cash then there are the commercial forums that you can use to post jobs. Or you can use a local job board if you want to keep things in the same geography.
If you have no money you can try collaboration. But in general teams of unpaid strangers don’t fare too well.
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When you say " help me develop" do you mean develop a game or just develop your skills?. For the former, listen to boredmormon, but also look at reputable training facilities if you aren’t in a rush to put a game out right now as you will at least find yourself in a group of like minded people that you may be able to work with after hours & meeting them in person will make it easier for you to make a decision on who you want to work with.
If it’s the second option I’d say do the same as part one but also look at online channels like khan academy for basics of coding. Find out if there are any indie devs nearby & approach them to see if they are interested in giving you an unpaid internship (they won’t have the funds to pay you but may consider some training I return for some help or testing a fair trade).
Personally I’m doing option one & am studying at a formal college that has a funded incubator project for graduates (not a salary, just office space, equipment, software licenses, access to business training & a free trip to pax east) & for option 2 I’ve joined a local group to help indies find testers (I’m on my second game). The devs have been really good in answering questions I have like “why did you decide to do it this way” as well as giving me the general reason why a bug that I found occurred (the delay on deactivating the touch controls when an effect was triggered wasn’t long enough & the 2 instructions caused a conflict etc) which is all info I can add to what I’m learning that is based on real life dev experiences.
Good luck
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I Think when I wrote that I meant developing a game, but realistically I just want to develop my programming skills. I’m currently in college and when I get out I don’t want to just have a diploma. I want to have a prior experience that will give me better odds at scoring a job. Also, I’ve tried reaching out to local groups, but most of them aren’t exactly what I’m looking for or they code in languages I’m not 100% familiar with.I guess I’m looking for someone to help me out with projects in unity because I’m quite new here.
Thanks for the reply.
Cool. I’m using unity because that’s what the college was teaching when I started & our teacher was an indie dev in the middle of getting his game greenlit so he could give us real life examples.
Start with a simple game, a shmup or just a platformer/parkour to get a handle on movement, jumping & simple stuff. There are plenty of tutorials by unity that will cover the basics to get you started. Once it is working try to add simple bits one at a time (dont start the next but until that one is working so it is easier to identify where an issue came from) like power ups, teleport extra jump, different effects (particles, sounds, or just movement modifiers).
I haunt the scripting forum as well as the design & general forums so I can learn stuff I wasn’t even aware I needed to know. If I can, I attempt to help as others will always correct any errors I have or like it if I’m actually right. You start to recognise people whose opinions you appreciate & if you attempt to give back to the community others appreciate it & try to help you as well.
I have also learnt that there isn’t always a right way to achieve something, there are usually a couple of slightly different ways to do it & you need to try them all to work out which works best for what you are making.
As to the people not doing what you are familiar with, if they will take you on then do it. Any experience is useful, the coding language may be different but how a game is structured/designed will be similar, & helping to test for bugs is also a useful skill. So take anything people offer, it all helps.
& have fun!
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You could post in the collaboration forum to find others of a like mind. If you live in/by a larger city then there might be unity meetup groups in your area. Microsoft often runs free training around cities, and nowadays they generally have a unity session or two.
+1 for money though. If you give me some I’ll help:)
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