Quote: "You ideally need an author, a technical writer, a coder, a modeller and an animator just for starters"
I strongly disagree. Not to pick argument intentionally but really you don't need all those people to make a good game, seriously.
What does an author do? Plot. Bah. You don't need this for a good game. Any half brained monkee can come up with a plot, and in comparison to most commercial games they'd do a better job too.
What does a technical writer do? Instruction Manual. Bah. You don't need this for a good game, besides it's the job of a publisher anyway, all you have to do is a quick document saying what gadgets do what.
A coder. Yep.
A modeller. It would be more correct to say some form of artist as not all games need be 3D, but yes you need someone artistic in 2 dimensions or 3.
Animator? Only if you go 3D and your modeller/programmer cannot animate. A fair proportion of modellers and programmers can - it's actually harder to find a texture artist, but then if someone can make a mesh and not a texture then they aren't really a modeller - else I could earn a fortune
So out of all that all you really need is a programmer and someone who can draw or model. You also need a musician. You can find plenty on mp3.com or on these forums and if your giving the game away for free most people will happily be a part of a reasonable quality project without charging you, either way music need not delay development - it's all out there and written just waiting for a game to be put in
Let's put this in perspective of Banshee Studios:
1 Full Time Programmer / Animator
1 Full Time Programmer / Modeller
1 Part Time Assistant Programmer / Low Polygon Modeller
1 Part Time Animator
2 Part Time Musicians
Not a technical writer or author in sight, infact if someone came to me with 'this idea' i'd just laugh at them and send them on their way. Anyone into games with a creative personality gets 18 ideas a day.
Banshee have two commercial games under development at any given time. We're on target to complete our first commercial game after 5 weeks of development. Of course when I say complete it's likely to receive some attention at a later date to polish off something or irradicate a bug, but that's inception to completion in 5 weeks and another game well under development in the same timescale.
Now I understand very few of us are full time, but it does highlight that most of the team requests we see just list a whole load of skills and staffing requirements without much consideration.
The reason Banshee are suceeding in achieving our goals is simple, we don't attempt anything we can't do when we start the project. If you need to learn a new trick or technique then you are going to realise a 'better way' mid way through and want to re-write the game.
I do the challenging aspects of the game code first so that I dont get stuck on them later, by doing this I find that the tinkering and learning process becomes the start of the game - although sometimes the learning process results in something unsuable, but i've not wasted a project on it.
Once i've achieved the difficult parts I then step back, design the rest of the game within my current abilities and stick to the design.
It's my opinion that until you finish a game you are'nt a programmer but instead somebody who enjoys to tinker with code - this is fine, but if you want to see the rewards of people playing your games and enjoying them then you have to be a programmer to achieve that and believe me, it's far more rewarding to be a programmer than a tinkerer.
Even though there are a few idiots who'll do nothing but display envy of the fact that you are something they can't be, a programmer.
Pneumatic Dryll
