Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length

 
Advanced search

1411275 Posts in 69323 Topics- by 58380 Members - Latest Member: bob1029

March 28, 2024, 07:31:41 AM

Need hosting? Check out Digital Ocean
(more details in this thread)
TIGSource ForumsDeveloperBusinessMy teammate refuses to show the demo for the past 6 months. Is it okay?
Pages: [1]
Print
Author Topic: My teammate refuses to show the demo for the past 6 months. Is it okay?  (Read 1907 times)
dsmfool
Level 0
*


View Profile
« on: April 09, 2014, 09:59:37 AM »

Hello!

I've bumped into the forum to ask one question that you can read already in the 'subject'.

I've been working on the game project with my teammate for a year now. He is a programmer and I am an artist. We live in different countries so we make the game with the help of the internet. The programmer says that he is skilled because he had been learning how to code since the middle school. I am a newbie in the game development so for sure I don't know everything. Gamedev is just my hobby.

For the past 6 month he refuses to show me the demo of the game. He has all art (backgrounds, objects and enemies) needed to make it. We had 1 demo done 6 months ago and I know that he has problems with controls and he was changing them. They are not finished yet. I know that he hasn't started on the level design. He promises to show it soon but it's been a half of the year already. Is it okay?

If you have any additional questions feel free to ask!
Logged
erebusman
Level 2
**


no one of consequence


View Profile WWW
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2014, 11:29:57 AM »

Largely unacceptable unless your involvement is extremely low.

For instance if your 'teammate' actually paid you a contract to produce a certain amount of assets; and you fulfilled that contract six months ago and then they showed you a quick demo they have no further obligations.

If however you are in an on-going process regularly submitting work to the 'teammate' in an active development team and you are a vested member with share in the profits/company/team then there should be regular interval builds available

Not all teams will give an artist or other design staff access to doing builds themselves so that is not a requirement; but often enough teams might actually just automate nightly builds or builds that kick off as content is added.

At worst ( fairly often in extremely small teams) builds are manually done by only one person and you may have to actually ask for it; their answer should be 'yes' with a possibility of " I have something breaking the build, I should have it fixed in x-amount of time and get it to you then" and keep to that within a reasonable time.

How are you supposed to see how your art is integrating and adjust/test it ?

How are you supposed to verify that your 'teammate' is keeping up their end of the bargain by actually producing the code content if you see no progress in 6 months? 

Maybe they are playing too much XBox and you are busting your butt for no reason ; a game they will never finish but don't have the guts to tell you they cant bring themselves to touch it any longer.

There are a few reasons that I can think of if you are a vested team member to withhold builds from you such as:
- you have broken confidentiality
- you released things that break some contract/agreement that the team has about showing the content to the public

Your just a dude on the internet telling one side of a two-sided story .. so I am assuming that your presentation is fair/right but it may not be.

Try approaching your team mate and ask for what you need in a straightforward and fair way.  Give them a chance to respond.

If they do not respond, or wont accommodate your needs then make some decisions for yourself about if this is worth it and let them know how you feel if the behavior is going to continue.

Finally if they cant turn around then its probably time to move on. Six months with no update sounds like a freaking dead project to me.


 
Logged

Infernohawke Entertainment
dsmfool
Level 0
*


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2014, 12:34:31 PM »

Thanks you so much for your reply!

We are a small team of 2 and I work for free right now but we'll share the income from the game sales, no contract for now (while I write this I feel like I am a loser.. but I already stated that I am quite new to this business :/ ).

I've asked the other member if he needs any additional art or if there must be anything fixed in existing assets and he replied that everything is okay. When I ask for the demo he says the next week and there is no demo the next week. Last time he told me the exact date when I'll receive a demo so I could check controls to have an idea how to draw new attacks of the character and he got sick and emailed me a week after when he recovered and complained that since he was sick we wasn't working so no demo.

I've explained why I need the demo not once and didn't receive it. I feel like my teammate is ignoring this request while complaining that we don't work and just talk about the game. I work almost everyday on this project because I have a lot to do and we talk mostly about my work since there is nothing to talk about on his side because yeah... no demo.. I'm very concerned about not seeing actual work I did in-game so I could fix all flaws I have because I'm sure I have some.

I did let him know how I feel but he told me that I'm not serious and I am not motivated to work because I did a couple side-projects (but it took me less than a week to finish them and I did them after my work for the game). I am not motivated to work because I haven't seen any progress on his side for 6 months.. I think you understand me. That's why I decided to make a post on this forum.

Anyway I'm really really thankful for your reply! Thank you for your time!
Logged
Jubjub
Level 1
*



View Profile
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2014, 01:34:26 AM »

I think you really should look for a different programmer, because it's quite obvious that he isn't working at all on the game, and giving you a new excuse every time you ask for anything, like being "sick" and telling you that you're not serious (when he's the one that isn't even working on the game).

At least you have all the art, so you won't be starting from zero this time.
Logged
ink.inc
Guest
« Reply #4 on: April 10, 2014, 01:51:47 AM »

if what you're saying is accurate then you're obviously being fucked

ditch him and find someone new (or learn to program yourself)
Logged
dsmfool
Level 0
*


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: April 10, 2014, 02:00:06 AM »

Thank you for taking your time to reply to me, guys! Any opinion is valuable for me right now.
Logged
Murilo
Level 0
**


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2014, 04:23:58 AM »

if what you're saying is accurate then you're obviously being fucked

ditch him and find someone new (or learn to program yourself)
I second that.
Logged

Randomasta
Level 1
*


wait, what?


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2014, 04:46:17 AM »

I've been in situations like this. Either he's not working on it or having some troubles but doesn't want to admit it (probably simply not being good enough yet to make it). If it's the first definitely find someone new. Heck, you should probably do it either case anyway.
Logged
Julien
Level 2
**


View Profile
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2014, 06:32:02 AM »

Cut your losses Smiley
Logged

Chris Koźmik
Level 5
*****


Silver Lemur Games


View Profile WWW
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2014, 11:20:07 AM »

Obvious advice, DUMP HIM. It's not even about motivation and fairness or anything. He simply seems to not enjoy coding (sorry, I can't see myself not coding anything for a whole 6 months! not to mention the silly "I was sick", I love coding when I'm sick, I have no distractions and no one expects me to do anything, so it's the best time (sure the code quality is maybe lower and it takes longer, but still)). Also, he uses a dangerous term "work" when connected to coding, which is a kiss of death when doing a free project.

Dump him, dump him, dump him.
Logged

Stellar Monarch 2 (dev log, IN DEVELOPMENT)
Stellar Monarch (dev log, released)
dsmfool
Level 0
*


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2014, 02:21:56 PM »

Wow! I did not expect so many replies at all. Thank you!

I think now I understand what is going on with this game project. I am going to email my teammate and let him know everything I learned on the forum and if he still refuses to show the demo I'll leave the team.

Thanks for your support!!  Hand Thumbs Up Right
Logged
joe_eyemobi
Level 3
***


Fledgling Indie Developer


View Profile WWW
« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2014, 12:50:56 AM »

I agree, that is not cool at all - your teammate does not have the spirit of collaboration.  I wouldn't put up with that.
Logged

RudyTheDev
Level 1
*



View Profile WWW
« Reply #12 on: April 11, 2014, 01:50:31 AM »

Is it okay?

Oh god, no! Judging grom your side of story, it is completely unprofessional, nonconstructive and largely unethical.

.. refuses to show me the demo ..

I have hard time comprehending this. What kinds of secrets could there possibly be? How are you supposed to tweak or change anything or even see if art works in-game? If he refuses to share even a dev build, then what chance is there things will go smooth if any kind of money becomes involved.
Logged

bitserum
Guest
« Reply #13 on: April 11, 2014, 02:42:33 AM »

Let me echo everyone else here.
After 6 months of delays and no tangible progress it's time to move on. You just gained a valuable experience from all of this and it was worth it even if the art you created so far never amounts to an actual game. Don't cling to it.

Alternative course of action would be to announce to him you're leaving the project if you see no progress in the next few days, then follow through with it if he tries to delay again or actually shows there's close to no progress.
Logged
Klaim
Level 10
*****



View Profile WWW
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2014, 04:14:40 AM »

As a gamedev but more skilled in programming than other parts of game dev, I agree with most recommandations around here.

What I think you should have done, or should do next time, is to have a shared access to the code repository and resource repository (if separated). What I mean is that the coder certainly have something like a SVN or git or mercurial available somewhere online at least as backup. If there is absolutely no repository, for a more than a week project, I would consider it as a red flag.
Assuming that there is no way for one of the teammate to prevent the other teammates to see their progress (all the team must own/be able to admin the repos), there are several advantages to have all the code and resources visible to the whole team:

 1. Backups: the whole team have backups of other's of the team work;
 2. Each member can see the progress of other members. One progressing will often motivate others to do more efforts.
 3. In case similar to yours, just pointing that no progress have been done in the repository (which basically mean there have been no coding - except if the progres are not upstream yet which is easy to fix if there is indeed code not pushed yet) is an argument that can quickly get to a discussion about the problems of the team, and take a resolution about it (continue, stop, etc.)
 4. In case the programmer is facing massively difficult challenge, you can still see that the problem is not his will but his skills, which is always possible to overcome with time and efforts toward fixing this (and external help can improve the situation radically sometime).
 5. In case the non-programmers are facing difficulties, it's easy to point to the currently available resources in the repository to show exactly what is not working.

Basically, you should not be working blindly ever when in teamwork: the whole team is working on the same thing and should be able to see the whole thing even in an non-executable state.
Logged

dsmfool
Level 0
*


View Profile
« Reply #15 on: April 11, 2014, 05:09:14 AM »

Basically, you should not be working blindly ever when in teamwork: the whole team is working on the same thing and should be able to see the whole thing even in an non-executable state.

Absolutely! I share all my work and even WIPs. I have a folder on the cloud hosting where the other team member can see all my arts so I am open about my work, progress and problems that I face sometimes in work. I just don't see the same "thing" from my teammate and now he doesn't want to chat on skype and writes me that he will talk via emails only... I find this very disrespectful to me as I am just waiting for the reply in the anxiety.. 1 hour of chat could cover 2 weeks of emails :/ I think he is aware of all this situation but he can't admit that he failed his work. I don't have any regrets on doing this project and I understand that sometimes you can fail your work and it's okay cuz it's life. It happened to all of us, right? ...but I feel his disrespect to me as a team member and it's the only thing that bothers me. Or we just deal with sexism nowadays cuz I'm female.. you know.. when 'male is always right and he can blame female cuz he is male'. Dunno :/

I guess I'll just leave this topic open because it's a valuable experience. I was working so much that I lost my control of the time and when I saw that trees became green I realised how many weeks went by and I didn't see any demo for a long time.  Check your work, guys! Stop working for a second and look around you Smiley

And again I'm really thankful to everyone!
Logged
Pages: [1]
Print
Jump to:  

Theme orange-lt created by panic