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Help Wanted > Do you want a game written or ported for the DS?

#137424 - simonjhall - Sat Aug 11, 2007 6:44 pm

This is my attempt at cleaning up the many requests this forum sees. I'd like this 'guide' thing to grow, so contributions are very welcome :-D
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So you're looking for piece of software for the DS and you don't think it exists yet. This would normally mean that you fall into one of three main categories.
Which one are you?

1) You want to contribute a significant amount of work to getting it onto your handheld
- for instance, you could be an artist, a programmer or game designer - but you'd like help from others to make it happen.

This is the best scenario. By offering something you're giving others the incentive to work with you. The chances of you getting the help you want are good!
To encourage people to work with you, you should really have the homebrew equivalent of a CV (or r?sum? for you folks who call it that). If you've already started your project, some pictures or demos of how it's going so far are also good.

For example:
    Artist: a web page with your art, or some videos of your animation
    Programmer: some applications, games or game demos that demonstate that you've got programming skillz
    Designer: a design document for your game or application, to show you've thought it out properly

A few examples of requests like this:
The thing to note from these threads is that they receive positive responses.

2) You want to get a group of people together to make the program
- and you somehow want to 'lead', but really you know you will not be doing any real work for the project.

There are sadly too many requests like these - and the worse thing is that these people do have a lot of enthusiasm for their new idea, but can't actually pin down what they will be contributing to the project. They can't (or won't) draw or code, nor formulate a design document for other people to see.
If you don't offer anything, why would people want to work with you - free web hosting isn't enough! Put yourself in their shoes - if someone came to you wanting to make a game with nothing but a title and a genre, would you work with them?

You've obviously got a cracking idea - so show it off! For instance, if it's a game do some screen mock-ups! You need to show that your idea is both fun and do-able. Once you've caught their attention, show a nice and fleshed out game design to show you've thought through all the juicy parts of the game. Making a game only to discover what you've made is not fun to play or has seriously big gameplay holes is not a cool thing.

A few examples of requests like this:
Note the usual response they get - "what are you going to contribute?", or "I'd like to see a see a design document".
And to quote Kusma's epic flipcode "team wanted" post,
Quote:
[ ] and since ideas are the *hardest part* of games, I'm the most important member. You are lucky to have me and my genius.
- acting like this will get you zero help. Again, put yourself in someone else's shoes and read your post!

3) You just want it on your DS as soon as possible
- but you don't want to be part of the process.

Good examples of these would be porting requests, where no homework has been done on the feasibility of the project. In order to make a port work the system requirements must roughly match those of the DS. As a rough rule of thumb, if the game runs ok on a ten year old PC or console then there's a chance your port is do-able.
Also essential to getting a port going is the source code to the program must be freely available. Having an ISO captured from the PS1 game you want to play is not good enough.

Fitting the system requirements to the DS goes out the window when the program you want is an emulator: even if the target console's system specs sort-of match the DS' internals there is normally zero chance that emulation of that system is feasible in real time. This is one reason why there's no N64 emulator for the DS - yeah, they both have 4MB main memory and roughly equivalent CPU clock speeds but since have different architectures N64->DS emulation will be very slow. Stop asking for it! 33MHz ARM7 + 66MHz ARM9 != 94MHz MIPS R4300!

If on the other hand the source is available and the system requirements match, you need to show in your request where this code (and assets, if freely available) may be found. Providing a link to the PC demo is not normally helpful. Also, aquiring stolen code and putting it on rapidshare is not helpful.
Finally, rekindling people's memories of this game is also useful in getting someone to port the game for you :-)

Examples of this type of request:

Things which aren't going to happen any time soon:
    N64 emulation - the hardware specs are vaguely similar, but the specs of a PC emulating an N64 are not similar to the DS.
    GBA slot-1 emulation - this is harder than it sounds. Just go buy a slot-2 card or an EZ flash 3-in-1.
    Half-life - I'm sure the game would run just peachy on the DS, but since the source is not available and Valve are still selling the game through Steam, I doubt they're gonna release everything we'd need for a while.
    Half-life 2 - the source was leaked, but this doesn't mean the game will be winging its way to the homebrew scene any time soon.


4) you cant spell count or use punctuation :-p
- things arent looking up for you are they?

You need to make people be able to believe in you and love your ideas, but if your thread looks like some kind of brain dump then people will immediately stop reading what you've written or poke fun at you. At least give yourself a chance at getting noticed - don't ruin it by omitting every capital letter, comma and full stop that you can!

These examples pretty much nail my point:


Final notes
- People won't do anything for you without some incentive - it's just the way the world works. I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about getting ideas, art, code etc from you.
- Be realistic with what you ask for.
- Be polite.
- Use punctuation.
- Finally remember that there's a search function, so do try to search to see if someone has already asked for this, or to see if it's already been written!

----

Suggestions? I really want people to give themselves the best chance at getting heard when they make game requests, so that's what I'm aiming at here.

Btw: if you've made one of the threads I've linked to above please don't feel insulted or anything - I've tried to show both good an bad examples.
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Last edited by simonjhall on Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:45 am; edited 2 times in total

#139944 - sonny_jim - Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:25 pm

simonjhall wrote:

4) you cant spell, count, or use punctuation
- things arent looking up for you are they?

Pot, kettle black and all that
:-)

p.s You put in a ' when you remove a letter.

#140596 - simonjhall - Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:41 am

sonny_jim wrote:
simonjhall wrote:

4) you cant spell, count, or use punctuation
- things arent looking up for you are they?

Pot, kettle black and all that
:-)

p.s You put in a ' when you remove a letter.
I was being ironic :-)
Notice how I also put that there are "three main categories" yet still list a fourth.
_________________
Big thanks to everyone who donated for Quake2

#155691 - nsm333 - Fri May 02, 2008 9:26 pm

simonjhall wrote:
4) you cant spell count or use punctuation :-p
- things arent looking up for you are they?

You need to make people be able to believe in you and love your ideas, but if your thread looks like some kind of brain dump then people will immediately stop reading what you've written or poke fun at you. At least give yourself a chance at getting noticed - don't ruin it by omitting every capital letter, comma and full stop that you can!

These examples pretty much nail my point:


[

i love the second one. he keeps going!

#155706 - silent_code - Sat May 03, 2008 12:24 am

simonjhall wrote:
- things arent looking up for you are they?

more than two major flaws there. should read:
Quote:

thinks arnt lookin up 4 u r they

;^D

greetings!

ps: nice guide! i really appreciate your work on that!
pps: haven't you duke nukem forever 2 done, yet? ;^p

@ AN: i5707

Last edited by silent_code on Sat May 03, 2008 11:21 am; edited 2 times in total

#155711 - Alphanoob - Sat May 03, 2008 3:26 am

well, you seem to have found the sticky all right =). oh, and in the way of grammar and things:

5p311!n6 !5 600D, !5n'7 !7?
translation from noob speak to English: spelling is good, isn't it?

@ silent: i5707? what does that one mean... istot? I guess I need to spend for time on forums/mmos, lol.

Last edited by Alphanoob on Sat May 03, 2008 3:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

#155731 - sgeos - Sat May 03, 2008 1:04 pm

Quote:
[ ] and since ideas are the *hardest part* of games, I'm the most important member. You are lucky to have me and my genius.

And if the ideas are no good, the game will be horrible. How many projects have you led to completion?
What are they? How many downloads did the free games get? How many units did the commercial games sell?
A homebrew DS game is a bad place to start leading projects. Try leading a few flash games first.

Quote:
Put yourself in their shoes - if someone came to you wanting to make a game with nothing but a title and a genre, would you work with them?

To quote a friend, "how much is this gig paying again?"

-Brendan

#155964 - nsm333 - Tue May 06, 2008 2:07 am

sgeos wrote:
Quote:
[ ] and since ideas are the *hardest part* of games, I'm the most important member. You are lucky to have me and my genius.

And if the ideas are no good, the game will be horrible. How many projects have you led to completion?
What are they? How many downloads did the free games get? How many units did the commercial games sell?
A homebrew DS game is a bad place to start leading projects. Try leading a few flash games first.

Quote:
Put yourself in their shoes - if someone came to you wanting to make a game with nothing but a title and a genre, would you work with them?

To quote a friend, "how much is this gig paying again?"

-Brendan


it's paying crap. loads and loads of crap. oh well. oh yeah, sonny_jim, great post. i may just be here, but those retarded porting threads are annoying.

#157505 - AerosolSP - Mon May 26, 2008 5:25 am

I'm somewhat weary of posting a topic for help now, but I'll take my chances. If you guys decide to kill me, atleast do it quickly yea? I'm not to fond of prolonged pain.
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