I want to start a small, 5 man indie game dev.
I have the resources for :
>2000$ office + 5 x 2500$ /month
>14,500$/month
>budget 240,000/year
The game is in my head. I need a small team to bring my vision forward in a moderate amount of time using Unreal Engine 4.
>inb4 you're the ideas guy fag
Yes I am but I also have the money. I have a bachelor's in CSc and 2 years Java development experience. Where would I hire cheap enthusiastic college graduate UE4 developers?
Good luck op .
Now if you succeed you must quote me in the credits
>>331138687
k
Why use an office? It would be cheaper to run a company out of a basement or something.
>>331138926
It's not professional. Staff moral is something I take in to account, not to mention a 2000$ office is pretty much bottom of the barrel tier.
Have you read the book Quiet? It would be a good starting point for designing an office for introverts.
>>331139027
Well as long as you have a marketable idea, find some good programmers you shouldn't have much trouble.
There's so many examples of what not to do as well
>>331138687
is 2500$/month for a junior UE4 dev a reasonable salary?
>>331139580
wats an example of what not to do
>>331139725
Have a look at some shit indie games.
Then look at successful ones.
>>331138687
Where are you from ? If you are talking about having an office you'll surely hire only people living next to you.
Don't forget this imageboard is browsed by people from all around the globe.
>>331139725
Every place I've worked at that had females working there was just non-stop drama and back-stabbing bitchiness. Just hire guys if you want a chilled out but hardworking atmosphere.
>idea guy
>UE4
>Java
please, this is too much
protip: start with pixelshit in gamemaker or lowpoly in unity
>team
Just find a small game company through google, that makes mobile tier games, and they make you a game for a few thousands.
Take out some ad space on various websites/papers/etc that you're looking for help as a startup. Ask for samples of their work relative to their field. Don't rush the hiring process, take your time and pick the right people for you and the job.
You could get a stellar artist that's a total fuckwit who doesn't listen to you. Do you want that for 3-4 years? Probably not. Getting along with your employees is key; take the application process out of the office and head to a bar or diner. If you can be "the cool boss" then you really got it made with employee respect.
That being said; don't let things slide because you're buddies. Too often you will have "the cool boss" and once there's a fuckup consistent or big enough that you have to put your foot down, suddenly and forever you're the dick. Be consistent and level headed yourself, but also be fun.
I'm sure you have a good start on the numbers game, but you also want to present solid numerical facts to your potential employees. You have to sell you and your company as much as they have to sell themselves. Gain their trust, let them know their won't be missing paychecks and mandatory 20 hours of unpaid overtime. This project should be as much their baby as it is yours.
Because of that, there may be differences of opinion. Don't take them personally. If you present them an idea, it is their job to make it work in the long term, not just the interim. They should be allowed to explore and flourish as much as you'd like to.
Once you have your team assembled, don't go straight into the dream project. Complete some smaller proof of concepts. Small games with limited mechanics to get their feet wet. Release these to the public for free to start making a name for yourself. After about a month or two of team exercises like these, start planning for the big one. This will have given them time to break the ice with one another and learn strengths and weaknesses.
Also; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE
>>331139586
Half of that would be awesome for a newbie programmer.
Heck even a toilet paper with written on it "u haev a job congrats m an" would be enough.
What games do you want to make or is it some super secret idea you can't tell?
>>331138687
I've always thought of something similar. I want to write my own manga but do not have the time or artistic skill to do so. I am a single guy that makes 150k a year, wondering if I can pay some people to help me start up my very own manga series.
>>331141491
>artistic skill to do so.
Take some classes, surely you could learn some things about it.
Write some basic stuff for yourself first, then think about other shit later.
>>331140142
Vancouver, BC
>>331140209
Can't afford to have a useless one even if she looks pretty at the front desk
>>331140813
Why not dive straight in to UE4? There are plenty tutorials online, while I can also learn off of employees. I've taken courses in OpenGL and made pixelshit in gamemaker already.
What I have in mind is a simple online shooter, nothing complicated, but it needs to have certain mechanics and gameplay elements. I have to oversee the development.
>>331139027
Bill Gates started Microsoft on his mom's basement, just so you know.
>>331141379
It's not a super secret, but if I tell will you promise to review it honestly ?
>>331141491
Look on pixiv for reasonable deals.
Still requesting a whole manga chapter is fucking expensive since something like that takes the a huge chunk of the artist's time if you want it to be monthly, you basically need to pay it full time.
>>331141491
how are you making 150k a year?
>>331142819
maybe a LN instead? I don't know what the difference is.
What's a reasonable wage? I am sure if I can spend 50k/year on an artist that still leaves me with 100k a year for my own expenses etc.
>>331143031
I'm a NP for a hospital
>>331141065
do you have skype? steam? msn?
>>331138687
Will you hire me to make a sex mod for your game?
>>331141491
What is it about?
A normal high school boy attends a magic academy where at the first day he runs into a red head tsundere undressing, she challenges him to a duel, he wins but trips and gropes her breasts then she falls in love with him as 3-4 other girls?
>>331138687
Nix the office, instead have weekly progress meetups at each other's places, keep in daily contact via skype. Make the weekly meetings mandatory.
Don't hire an art guy or music guy right away(unless these are the main showcases of your game) instead, you and your programmers make a small game as a proof-of-concept you can work together. Something you can get done in like three months and put on the App store, or Greenlight. Outsource your art and music for this one.
Then, hire an artist, one that can do vector and 3D rendering. You don't need a digital painter or concept artist, you can just farm that out.
After that, then get to work on your real game. Again, don't bother hiring a musician, you can farm that out.
>tfw will never have the drive or money to make your dream game
hold me bros
I just want to remake snatcher with killer7's survival horror elements
>>331142289
Shoot.
>>331144369
I had written a short story (116 pages) as a final in my creative writing class in college about a boy who gets shrunk while on a camping trip and meets some animals who have their own society, and use fantasy style weapons to fight off other tribes of animals, on his quest to turn back to normal. I wanted to flesh it out a bit into about 10-20 manga chapters and publish it.
>>331146059
64 player online shooter, akin to zombie escape from cs:s
64 players start at the same place at the beginning of a level. As the round starts, players make start making their way through a level. Veteran players will treat this like a race.
Suddenly, 5% of the population that are the slowest turn in to zombies. These zombies have immense health and are bullet sponges. While the humans have weapons, zombies only have a singular bite move. A melee attack that turns a human in front of them in to a zombie.
humans must hold sites while they wait for doors to open/other event to let them through. It is here they must "hold". Each bullet does some knockback to the zombie. The zombies must work together to pan out and swarm the humans.
>>331138687
Actual indie game employee reporting in. My boss is like you, OP, he apparently doesn't know much about game design or code; he's just the ideas guy. Heck, I had to explain to him what a publisher was during my interview, but he's got the ca$h, so I do as he says. He's a very cool guy though, thankfully he lets me work on my own shit and barely makes decisions design-wise (yet). I really hope he and his small studio prospers.
The guy met me at a Ludum Dare meetup, you could try looking at those:
>indiegamejams.com
As for what to pay, I have no idea. All I know is that my boss is paying me really REALLY low, but I take it because curriculum, man.
As for Unreal devs, holy fucking kek, my sides man. Literally good luck finding anyone that does more than just Unity.
What kind of game are you planning? What country?
>>331145273
Don't do this, specially with recent graduates/newcomers. They are very likely, if not surely, going to lack off. Trust me, personal experience.
>>331146592
Why would you want a manga of it if there are no cute girls, not even monster girls? What about you try making a normal comic which should be easier to find someone to draw it. If no cute girls there's hardly any point making it a manga.
>>331147261
Uh there are cute animal girls that the boy has trouble deciding if he wants to be a race traitor or not. It was satire on just people being race traitors but I would flesh it out a bit more if done in manga form.
>>331146947
So does someone who turns into a zombie win if they zombify everyone else? If yes, winning seems very exploitable. If no, what motive is there to zombify your teammates?
>>331138687
Might be a good idea to consider acquiring someone with experience if you're serious about this. A group of fresh college grads won't have the skill to pump out the product you desire. Also they probably can't create strong art assets.
Hey OP,where do you live?
I did this once before with the same kinda working setup as >>331145273 but it flopped for a stupid reason that revolved around one guy's trees being shit and him getting buttmad over it.
>>331146986
an online FPS. I need good netcode, so Unreal might be my only option here. I might even have to end up tweaking the engine myself to have better compatibility with 64 slot servers.
>>331147470
You get points or some type of reward for both finishing the map and infecting the most people. Since people will be running all the time, two trolls can't mess up the entire team.
However, I do want instances where a zombie will appear in the middle of a human cluster, and hilarity ensues.
>>331146947
>64 player online shooter
If it's not free to play then it will be a dead game in 2 weeks. The concept doesn't sound very interesting, there are already popular survival games. Don't waste your money.
If you really want to do this I would suggest something minimalistic (minecraft tier), sell it for cheap and see if someone gives a fuck.
>>331147849
Even at it's worst, it's one server in NA-West, one in NA-East. Two servers with 128 concurrent players isn't a high bar to expect is it?
>>331146947
Could be interesting, but I can easily see people just losing interest and leaving after some time, so this 64-player model is suspect. You should look at all those niche gimmicky shooters like Natural Selection or Tribes to see how the playerbase usually evolves. The issue of balance is very important and raises some questions right off. What does "the slowest" mean? You can't make noobs into zombies as there are fewer zombies than humans and so one failing has more impact. And if you use the player's progression through the level as the metric, nothing stops a player from just standing on the spawn point to become zombies by force. Also elaborate on the immense health, how immense are we talking compared to average human DPS? Are the zombies slow or fast? Different guns or just one gun? Classes for humans? Is turning to zombies instant? How do you deal with the guys that get bit on purpose becasuse they wanted to play as a zombie but weren't chosen?
>>331148059
Dude even popular Steam games are dead after like a month or 2 if they are buy to play.
Well you could use bots.
>>331147535
No, anon I'm sure Unreal can work fine for online multiplayer. Surprisingly enough both Unity and GameMaker do the job rightfully as well.
But, holy shit, you're literally aiming at the hardest and most time-consuming kind of game to develop. I know an 15-man team that developed a literal disaster for an online shooter FOR 8 YEARS, and it wasn't even a first-person perspective game.
My boss did the right thing and decided to start getting income from small, mobile games before starting to develop for consoles/PC.
If you're still stubborn enough to go for it, the best of luck.
Again, what country are you from?
>>331148338
What if, there was a fun, mechanical solution to literally everything you listed. Would that make a genuine fun game?
I can show you in private, but just answer me this.
>>331138687
How the fuck DOES Hitmonlee obtain sustenance if not through a mouth since it DOESN'T have one?
>>331139027
Why 2000? Just rent a normal apartment.
ask here, they should redpill you about this stuff
>>>/vg/135506525
>>331148484
But the thing is, I can literally go out and make a basic FPS online arena using the resources on the internet within the week. I'm not completely inept.
But I do need someone that is skilled enough to make me go "what shortcut does that?"
Canada
>>331148059
I'm sure there's a tricky dynamic to this. Like you need the capability to run significantly more instances than you can expect so that your playerbase can grow. You're probably better off googling the logistics here first.
>zombie
I thought the fad is finally dead?
>>331148970
That should be fine, I can start out using google or amazon as hosting. I don't think it'd be easy to drown a google server.
>>331138687
Can i be ur social media manager
150k+ is fine
>>331148514
Sure it would make a fun game, but fun is rather precarious at times. Speaking about Natual Selection, it abounds with potentially fun mechanics like the commander, strategic element, fun classes of aliens, but alas the playerbase is dead and it actually died pretty quickly following the initial peak mosty due to balance issues. I'm interested, though, toss an email to [email protected] with your secret solution.
>>331148805
Almost every apartment ever will have things that make this something they can and will evict you for as well as take you to small claims court for because you're violating everything in the lease and what the living space can be used for.
>>331149480
No wait, that's wrong, it's [email protected].
>>331138687
sure, count me in.
I don't know shit about programing or coding or that computer crap, but I got street smarts
>>331148895
I believe you. This Tuesday I witnessed that you can make a fully-working 3D FPS all with WASD keybindings and jumping mechanics with literally no more than 3 drag-N-drops in Unity. It fucking blows my mind. It took me an entire weekend of trial and error to understand projections and visualization of camera angles to code a 3D effect, let alone the FPS shit, and now Unishit lets you do all that shit with literally no effort. No wonder why there are so many so-called developers lately, it genuinely pisses me off a bit.
As for your question, I think your issue goes the same way as every other company in the world. You need to go search far and wide: If you hit the lottery you'll get a really smart and talented guy, if not you'll struggle with a literal memester.
>>331138687
I think you are too eager, lad. You may have the dough, but being just an ideas guy never works work. You should be able to start on a prototype of your idea by yourself before dragging others along.
Also how long have you thought about this game of yours? If you haven't spent at least half a year dwelling on it, chances are it's probably not going to be any good or you are overlooking an important game mechanic. Really expand upon it and make sure you have most of it detailed. Sure, you may be thinking "Oh, I have this cool idea for a shooter," but make sure the gameplay could actually work.
>64 player zombie shooter
You're gonna have to think smaller than that, especially if this is your first project. Netcoding is difficult, and I'm not even sure if 64 different connections in a game such as yours would ever run smoothly.
>>331150401
Man, I've had dreams of making this for around 6 years now. I can't find a flaw with it. Why?
It's a copy. It's a literal copy of a mod of an already popular game. Like what DOTA was to league, or DOTA2. I want to make a standalone of a popular mod.
>but dayz
fuck dayz that shit was horrible and the devs bit way too much for what they can swallow. If this is strategic, proven and methodical, it has mechanics, tension and is a literal copy, why wouldn't it work?
>Oh hey neat, a Game Dev Tycoon thre--
>It's just some ideas guy hoping to bait some desperate or retarded programmer clucks to bend to his will and make his game for him
>>331149746
do you have access to your uncle's car?
>>331139586
that's ~30k a year.
Short answer: no.
>>331154472
>says the UE4 dev with no experience
It's minimum wage yeah but how much do fresh out of school with no credentials usually make? Not OP but I'm curious.
>>331155759
>fresh out of school with no credentials
I meant to put a "programmer" somewhere in there. My b.
>>331143068
That's crazy son, but I like it. What's you idea? Just roughly.
>>331138687
You get what you pay for. You hire only cheap, shitty devs you get a cheap, shitty game. You would be better off finding one experienced dev and basically commissioning your idea and investing in his company.
>>331155759
I had a 65,000 salary job lined up 2 months before I even graduated. In the midwest, so that's good money. Programmers -- good programmers -- make quite enough and the jobs are so numerous that there's no reason to ever consider lowball offers unless you suck at what you do and can't interview because of that.
In other words, anon will get shitty programmers.
