Game Development Advice

[Aureon]

Awesome list and I 100% agree with point #3. In my opinion, that kind of fan fiction is just plain lazy writing. Overall, this is an excellent set of advices for folks looking to get started in creative creativity. +D

 

[Reynard Frost]

Bumping this so newer members can have a look.

 

[Fablesinger]

I love how witty and zany this tutorial is. You sir, get a thumbs-up badge from me.

 

[RyanA]

Sound advice, my good man! :3

 

[Levi]

I agree with, and follow, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7. I have trouble following 5, 9 and 12 :angry: I get part way through a game, then get an awesome idea and start another game...

I was planning on starting an Arum game this weekend... but seeing as I have 3 unfinished projects right now, I think I'll dedicate this weekend to one of my existing projects. Granted these are my first 3 projects, and two of them are pretty well "Frick around" test games... I should still get something done. I'll make a Project Development Thread for my game this weekend. Hopefully that'll motivate me and keep me on track.

Jesus... I feel like I've got RMADD. Haha.

 

[Kaelan]

14) Keep Backups! Thanks to Ichi

Make sure to keep a copy of your Design Document and your project folder on an external harddrive or memory card in case something happens to your main version. I recommend creating a backup every week, if not every day of your data. If you

feel secure enough to use it, Dropbox is also a good alternative.

Forget backup drives or dropbox, use some kind of version control. Seriously, absolutely everyone should do this.

It's incredibly easy and simple to setup a basic SVN repository, it only takes a few minutes and it will save you an enormous amount of headaches down the line. It's also much safer and less of a hassle than keeping secondary drives or re-copying your entire project every time you need a new backup. Since it's not stored on your machine, you're guaranteed to be safe and you can work from any computer with internet access (I do this to sometimes work from my laptop, other times from my Desktop).

There are plenty of places which give you free hosting (my favorite, which I'm currently using, is Assembla). I commit my changes to my project at the end of every day I work on it, and it only takes two clicks and about 5 minutes of my time. You also have a project history for free, in case you ever want a copy of an older version to take a look at an older script you no longer have, for example.

 

[Elements]

I can vouch for Subversion's usefulness.

though honestly it is probably too much complication for the average user lol.

I know it isn't, but to a lot of people, it will seem like a bunch of additional steps of procedures they had never heard of before.

Regardless, for the curious ones, Subversion is definitely the best way to keep organized,up to date backups.