What are the main resources for an indie company, I assume the artists would be main resource?
Is there any realistic chance of starting a full time, full PC game project with no budget, obvioulsy it would be on ‘paid if we make any money’ sort of thing, but it seems nobody is interested in this, for obvious reasons, even if they are out of work?
How much could a team of say skilled 5 artists expect to do in 1 year, what size and detail of map could you realistically model?
So what options are there for indies, I guess you would just have to personally know people who were willing and able to work till it was finsished, which seems pretty unlikley. After that you pretty much have no chance going indie for a full PC game, am I right in saying that?
Your best bet is to get a job with some company…?
Bit disheartening but that is money and business for you I guess.
It’s not all about money at all.
It’s about focus.
Many devs don’t have any previous industry experience, yet are casual gamers and into game design/production as a serious hobby.
Many will find themselves working on a project while in full time employment - paying their bills like anyone else until they hit upon an idea or they reach a certain skill level where they know they can make a great game.
Then you can think about “going overboard” and investing time and, yes, money into your dream.
This means working yoru current 9-5 and saving funds up. Set your self a time target and then double it. If you’ve never done work from home or freelance, you’ll struggle to stay on target with your first game unless you give yourself a very open timescale.
To cut costs many dev’s move in with relative, do work on the side (I had a friend who did copyrighting for website while building his 3d portfolio from home). I’d still advise having more money then you could need. You really don’t want the stress of “I need to pay electricity this month…but I also need to build this path finding algorithm”.
I cannot speak for everyone, I cannot even speak for a fraction of indie devs, but my knowledge is based from asking this question to many developers (Some sucssesful, some not) and observation. You only need look in the WIP section to see how many games never make it past initial excitement phase.
As true as these points may be, it is also important to note the learning curve. I learn new programming concepts every time I sit down, and this has started to plato, but it is not completely gone. I’ve rewritten previous works multiple times to facilitate new ideas and cleaner code style. Programming is quite a large part of any game. Typically, If this is not the case, the game is either simple or poorly designed - rash decisions lead to big development issues later on. For example, my specialism is in multiplayer, and often I see please write that they have added a score system, chat system etc. In these situations, every time a new feature is added, they have to change all of the networking code to facilitate it. A well designed system would write an API that is above the networking code and hence easier to develop and maintain.
In specific reference to your question, the principal issue is time, and second dedication. I’ve never faced issues with the latter, because I’ve never had enough of the former. My previous summers have been spent learning how to write good code, design games etc, and now that I have learned some of these skills I don’t have the necessary time to use them.
If you find individuals who love the idea of your game and who actively make good contributions that are respected, you just need to give them the time. But deadlines are never going to be effective targets.