Goons for Hire: Get your Developers here

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Goons for Hire: Get your Developers here

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

change my name posted:

I was thinking of putting together a simple Canabalt styled iphone game, but I don't have any sort of programming skills (or a mac). So if anyone's interested in flexing their mobile muscle, shoot me an email at jhilburg@gmail.com. Also it'd help a lot if they knew a good pixel artist for the art assets, but I can always just find someone else separately.

I'm confused, you want to make a really simple iPhone game, and you want someone else to do the programming and someone else to do the artwork. What exactly are you contributing?

# ¿ Oct 28, 2010 02:45

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 12:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

That sounds like an awesome position that would fit me pretty well, too bad I just started a new job.

Perhaps another time.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2011 05:20

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

"We have plot and art, all we need is someone who can make the game part of our game. PS we can't pay you."

"UDK team and a Coder" I'm not sure what this means. Wouldn't the team working with the engine be made up of coders, not just one?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 21:31

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

quote:

How did you calculate that 3+1 programmers would be needed?

He didn't. He thought he only needed a single programmer (he thought "coder" meant someone who does level design and/or modeling, for some reason).

Unless you're making an indie game with a tiny scope (in which case you sure as heck wouldn't have an entire "marketing" or business team), you need more than one programmer.

JMilton posted:

I think I've already made it clear that most of us are unaware of any meaningful jargon that'd disarm you. Most of what we know is whether or not it looks like poo poo. I mean, we're paying the developers MOST of the money, can't we be afforded that luxury?

Tell me more about how you will know whether code "looks like poo poo" without being a programmer yourself. Are you going to wait until they've worked on the game long enough to have a working alpha before you descend from your throne to pass judgment on the results? Because that would probably be hundreds of hours, at a minimum (if you're talking working with something as complex as UDK).

quote:

I wanted to add that we get coding something is different than debugging something and it takes a lot of time.

Debugging is pretty much part of coding. Especially in this case since you're not gonna have professional testers.

quote:

Please refer to your payment.

What? You keep on saying things that make no sense.

quote:

You're inconsolable. You're a pedant and you attack me for using "arbitrate" at probably a good enough time.

This is a good example. He's not sad, so he probably doesn't need to be consoled. You seem to have a habit of using words that you actually don't understand the meaning of.

quote:

I don't know why you're asking me about interns, but I'd like to know why though!

Because even programming interns in CA are making like 60k/year equivalent (the competent ones, anyway). You're offering 0k/year dollars, with a slim promise of fortune. Meanwhile, these days coders can work on their own apps for iOS or Android in their spare time and keep 100% of the profits to themselves, rather than give away a bunch of money to a "marketing team" filled with PHBs.

quote:

Yes, you would have to sign an NDA. Honestly, if any serious developer wants to sign that piece of paper and sit down with me and hear about our game idea, storyline and marketing plan, you'd find it compelling I'm sure. We've spent many hours on it. But hell, to us it's all about the game's content anyway. Even if it was coded in some dinky engine, if the gameplay felt good and it got the storyline out there, we'd be happy.

You have no clue. Oh no, someone will steal your game idea! Except, there are about bajillion awesome game ideas floating out there constantly, and the difference between successful games and crap ones is rarely the idea, but the execution of that idea. Every decent coder comes up with at least ten times as many awesome ideas as he could ever actually execute on.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2012 22:21

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

JMilton posted:

Bro, we have a good writer. His story is really good.

Well we all know what makes FPSes sell these days is a good story! Except not. (Portal is not an exception to this, it sold based on cool puzzle mechanics and Valve's good name; the well-written story was a bonus) Seriously I'm all for better story in games, but if you were to rank gameplay mechanics, overall design, visuals, audio, and story, story is easily the least critical. It enhances good games, sure, but by itself does little.

Also, never say "bro" unironically to a developer, you're liable to get your head torn off (or more likely, a developer that turns mute and slowly backs away).

quote:

We've already spent well over 50 hours researching the potential market and probably another 50 hours assembling a business model; it's not unreasonable for us to want to protect these things, and our NDA literally specifies what we're protecting--it's not some bog standard, open source NDA. It's just until lately we never dealt with anything software related, even though we're a software company. Sounds nuts but don't you wonder why you're paid so much? It's because to most people it's a crazy moon language that works by magic.

50 hours? That's it? You realize a standard work week is 40 hours, so you're saying that you've spent ~6 days' worth of a single person's work time to do research to convince others to spend thousands of hours working for free in the hope of riches.

edit: And based on your writing, I have my doubts as to whether you could actually identify a good story. You know you're bad with words when a room full of CS majors is criticizing you for your language.

To make this post at least slightly helpful (I'm actually a nice guy in many other threads, believe it or not!), what you need is some kind of hard, useful skill. If you want to make games I would highly recommend picking up coding, or level design, or modeling, or composing, or something along those lines, and then producing something that displays competency. Saying "well that's not my specialty, I'm just gonna handle the business end of things" sounds suspiciously like "I don't want to do the hard work, I want to write press releases and schmooze with clients and then pick up my check."

For example, even ultimate businessman Steve Jobs knew how to code, and had he not been able to code he probably wouldn't have been able to pick out Woz as being an awesome programmer in the first place.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 21, 2012

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 01:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

bobua posted:

Sure. We're flexible on the Java thing, it's really just a request so that our in-house developer can take over a lot easier down the line.

I shouldn't have even mentioned it's a person I guess, as it could be just an 'object'. I should be able to hand your code 1 'blank' or background image, and 3 images with a foreign object somewhere in it, and your code tells gives me to coordinates of the approximate center of the object so we can crop the image down. No need to actually find the outline or anything fancy like that.

Why would you want the center of the object? Don't you just want the bounding box? (you can get the center from a bounding box but not vice-versa)

Also I have a hunch that this problem is more complex than you realize (because to a layman it sounds pretty simple) and that your budget is too small for it, unless there's some pre-existing library out there that already does this sort of thing and a coder just needs to wrap it in a script/tool. As Moreleth said, with lighting/time of day changes, the base image isn't truly "fixed", which ups the complexity by quite a bit. What kind of budget do you have allocated for this?

# ¿ May 18, 2012 01:17

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

quote:

In turn, we sometimes work crazy hours, and on the flipside we sometimes have lulls that give us the freedom to work on any innovation projects that catch our eye.

I like how the 'flipside' to working crazy hours is working normal hours.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2013 06:19

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Does anyone have any experience or insight into American programmers getting jobs overseas? I've been working for one of the big four software/tech companies for a couple years, thinking this might be a good time to change things up.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 05:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Analytic Engine posted:

No idea personally, but here's a discussion about Berlin startups where some people are asking about Visas:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6598934

Thanks!

NZAmoeba posted:

Some countries you'll be able to get a work visa without having a job offer first. Countries like New Zealand.

In fact I'll just leave this right here: http://www.xero.com/nz/about/careers/job/1407468 (sounds like my workplace is getting more serious about importing talent)

(PM me if you apply)

A neat idea I hadn't really considered, but I don't think I have the risk tolerance to move to another country without a job lined up first, especially since I have a wife and kid.

Funnily enough, I've already checked out your company's site before from your earlier posts. I'll definitely consider it.

Otto Skorzeny posted:

A number of folks think Curtis Poe's blog about the subject is informative (although many also find his writing style insufferable).

This looks like it has some good info. Thanks, I'll definitely be reading this.

genki posted:

Any reason you wouldn't just transfer within the company? I think it'd be much easier to move internally with the company so you don't have to worry about a job on the other side, and they'd probably deal with most of the legal stuff.

I suppose the question is whether you just want to try working in a different country, or if you really want to change jobs and also possibly work in another country...

I've looked at my own company's job board too for positions. It's possible I'll end up going that route; I think it's unlikely, but I can't really say why without giving away which company it is. I'm not sure if I actually need to be secretive at all, just paranoid I guess.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 17:56

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Not paying for relocation is stupid and shortsighted.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 19:37

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

musclecoder posted:

We're really hungry for good developers

quote:

I can check on re-location assistance, but the last time that came up (early 2012) Speed did not offer it.

Haha! Oh wait, this isn't a joke? :confused:

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 18:58

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 12:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

You forgot the part where you tell people why they should care what you need.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2014 22:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Goons for Hire: Get your Developers here