following the "end of "one-man-army" indy businesses soon?" thread, I wanted to check how many of you are in a team and how many members are in it.

My team consists out of a hired graphic artist, and me (everything but graphics).

Me (programming & sound & admin)
Chaz (graphics & website)
Charlotte (design, testing, sound, and lovin')

Cas :)

Just me 20 - 51.28%
2 10 - 25.64%
3 5 - 12.82%
4 2 - 5.13%
5+ 2 - 5.13%

I would say the "one man army" lives on...

Oh, and it's just me :D

at the time i started the "end of one-man-army..." thread i was worried about being a solo developer. now that i see this poll i don't feel alone anymore :)

One Man Band!

It's good to be the king :cool:

Originally posted by Joe
It's good to be the king :cool:

Yep, I love being able to abuse my servants >=D

*wonders why his back hurts*

Depends on the project.

For the puzzle games, it's one man army for the moment (but that's going to change.)

For Trajectory Zone, which is huge in comparison, has 9 people on the team. Maze Panic! is a 3D title, and has 2 people on the team.

Then there's a collaborative project with another company that's been discussed, and that will probably land in the area of 5 people.

I forgot to include my webmaster.. So my vote should have been 3 people, not 2... oh well..:rolleyes:

For my current project, it's just me but for future projects, I will have to hire artist help.

It depends....Nobody's reliable in my place so we end up as 3! But we can handle it ^_^' A good point there is you rule (almost) everything.

Sodasoft, r u looking for an artist? I'm available but not exactly today:) contact me if you want a private dicussion

Just me really. My brother occasionally writes me some music, and he'll draw art work when he gets bored, which is a huge help seeing as I'm terrible at both!

(On a side note, at least now I know who got the name Soda Soft before I did ;))

My company is made of me but I voted 2 because my partner also has his own company but we work together right now all the time.


I program and bring my input on the design while he's a full time game-designer.

We hire outside help for graphic and music from time to time.


Nick

Just me, which is great - the only problem is the amount of time required...

Anthony is one of those uniquely talented people who can actually produce every facet of his game with exceedingly high production values. Too bad his games are insanely hard :P

I'm trying to mend my wicked ways, I swear! Trouble is, once you've spent 18 months making a game, you tend to be rather too good at it...

More beta testers is of course the answer...

Anyway, it's easy to make a game easier. What's hard is making a game that still plays out well when it's insanely difficult, and never actually becomes plain impossible. I think that's when the true character of your game design really comes out.

I feel much better once I get a game going that's incredibly hard, but still winnable, and still fun (to someone who's had a lot of practice, at least). In theory it means I should then be able to strip it right back to super-easy, and everything in between.

It's just a matter of knowing how far to strip it back - I'm beginning to realise that, at least at first, it needs to be so easy that you almost can't lose...

After all, losing isn't fun. What's fun is ALMOST losing, and then staging a miraculous comeback and winning.

Definitely. But it is also to do with where your challanges come from. In Bert the Barbarian it was very possible to just sit there swinging away and crouching and be invincible, but it was almost impossible to do the fun thing and actually charge at people.

Difficulty should encourage you to do the 'fun' thing. In Hitman 2, it is really, really hard to finish a mission by stealth, and yet there are very few that you cant finish way too easily by running in there and shooting everything, and it is finishing a mission by stealth that is fun and rewarding.

When games are difficult when you are doing things right, but because of the way that the game is meant to be difficult and not frustration with the controls and camera etc, and more difficult when you are not doing things the fun (and right) way, I think that is the sweet spot that it is best to aim for, and with that sweet spot, even games that are clearly too difficult for you still retain some enjoyment.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
What's fun is ALMOST losing, and then staging a miraculous comeback and winning.


your 100% correct, i never really thought about it that way before!


Originally posted by HunterSD
Difficulty should encourage you to do the 'fun' thing.
Hey ive been thinking about this too latley and I agree, but personally in a game when I see the distinction between the difficult way and the 'easy way' I tend to just get lazy and go the easy route.

in your example for Hitman 2 I would just rambo my way through all the levels because I could. Sure doing it the stealth way was really fun, but it just seems optional, which takes away from the whole experience.

Alien flux(heh sorry cas) is a fun game, but only if you get in the middle of the battle and get your hands dirty, which seens optional (you can just get outside of the baddies and circle around them, works 95% of the time), so it just loses the intensity. Mutant storm on the other hand, you dont have that option (with the border), so every level you have re-evaulate the situation.

I like games where the difficulty is not optional, when i hit that point thats when i lose interest in them.

Bert the Barbarian was an aborted project for good reasons ;)

I'm a "one man army" as far as primary game development is concerned, but I've contracted out for for modeling & music (and will probably have to do so for some of the art & web design). And I'm getting some (thankfully free) help with testing. So if I really included EVERYONE, I might have a 'team' of a dozen or so people.

But I'm the one carrying the project.

3 - me, myself, and I. ;)

I should probably get and artist soon, though.