A PLEA: DON'T MAKE YOUR FIRST GAME A TEAM GAME

Hello everyone! A common occurrence I see around RMN a lot is the "Newbie Looking for Team" thread (And not specifically wanting to join an existing team, either). Instead, they have this great idea for a game, but have never made one before, and they want people to step up and volunteer to do all the things they aren't good at yet, usually asking for a composer, a spriter, an artist, a mapper, and sometimes a writer, too.

These threads almost always ultimately fail, with no one stepping up to volunteer their services. Why is that? Because the person asking for a team has nothing to show to grant any confidence to prospective team members. Ask yourself, if someone said "Hey! You've been doing spriting/composing/writing/mapping for years, and are pretty good at it. Would you be willing to spend countless hours helping someone make a game, when they haven't even shown they have the drive or wherewithal to make a single game on their own?" Would you be jumping at the chance to help them out for free with no guarantee that the game will ever be completed?



It really hurts when you spend a lot of time making something, only for the leader of the project to quit or lose interest and then you're left with all of your hard work going to waste. I say this as someone who has completed several games, and is still guilty of having this happen. Games take time, especially big epic games with sprawling storylines. We're talking about years of commitment in many cases!

It may or may not surprise you, but almost everyone who's gotten good at making games on this site started on their own. They made games without the help of a big group. You can do this, too! It's completely possible to start out with no RPG-making skills and with patience and work, learn all the skills needed to make something great. You'll have to contend with your first few games not being very good, but as you go along, you'll improve!




Having said that, I'm not saying that you shouldn't turn to the community for help. There are plenty of people here willing to help you out and advise you and steer you in the right direction. Most of us don't have time to join you on a team, but the community is a wellspring of wisdom when it comes to making games. Make topics asking for help or ideas, show off your maps-in-progress in the Screenshot Survival thread, and reach out for assistance when you need it. The site also has lists of sites where you can find royalty free music and tons of assets to help you with development (Check out this thread to find most of the helpful stuff on the forums, and here and here for resources.)

However, asking for the community to be the beast of burden to carry your game to completion on the hard work of other members just isn't feasible. We all have ideas for games that we want to see exist, and we're all working hard on those games. Asking us to set aside time to make your dreams come true when you haven't even made anything on your own yet is unrealistic.

My advice is this: Put the giant epic world-spanning game in your head on hold. Come up with a simple idea for a game, one you can make without a huge hassle. Show the community that you can complete a project. Yes, I know that those VX Ace chibi sprites aren't very popular and using RTP is limiting. But everyone has to start somewhere, and you can make a good game even with those limitations.



Once you have a game or two under your belt and you know the basics and have proven that you have the discipline to stick to it to the end, then people are much more likely to take your team requests seriously. If you want to form a team after that, I highly recommend Red_Nova's Teamwork and You articles.