I finally have time to breathe a bit after losing my mind in a sea of reddit messages. I will respond to some of your posts now.
As the previous poster mentioned. Don't quit your day job until you are sure that the project will work out.
First things that I would suggest you do:
Since you are looking to earn money with this - think of how you are going to monetize it. Be specific. Online or desktop game? Which platform? How would you earn money? (one-time price, subscriptions, advertisements, in-game items etc.)
Try to think, who your customers are, i.e. who your target group is. Estimate the size of the target group. Talk to some people that you expect fit this criteria. (Maybe with a prototype in hand.) Ask them if they would pay money for it. Put a specific price on it. Maybe let them put their name down on paper. (not as a contract, but a lot of people will say "sure, I would pay for it" just to be polite and you will notice the change in reaction when you record it on paper. If you can find a big number of people putting their name down -> you're good.
Create a small/rough prototype on paper and PLAY IT. It sounds all very nice, but also very vague. E.g. I don't completely understand how you intend to translate the formations to game rules or mechanics, i.e. what makes the large wedge powerful for breaking shields IN THE GAME. Do attack stats add up on one field or sth. similar? Can I decide on which field it will add up? Can I change it every turn? What happens when I create "combinations of combinations" - e.g. a large wedge with four groups on the left side, meaning it would also work as a shield wall. Play it and write down the rules as if you were creating a board game.
Other points that you should be specific about:
- When does a game end?
- Where do the units come from?
- Where do the gold/ressources for units/etc. come from?
- Exactly how will a battle between confronting armies be decided? (elimination 1vs.1, risk-rules, how much randomness, etc.)
- What do the different terrains mean? How do they influence units (movement, battle, ...)?
-- What will happen to grouped formations if you try to move them into different terrain (e.g. you move a shield wall by one field, which results in three groups being on grass and one group being on some swamp which might not be passable)
- How/when do the three layers interact with each other?
- What buildings do you need, what will they do and where do they come from?
-- What ressources are needed to build them?
-- Is there a time factor or do they appear instantly?
-- Am I allowed to build everywhere or at all?
-- Can buildings be destroyed? (I did not quite get, what the wall is going to do in terms of game mechanics. Is it just a defense-boost or are the armies behind it considered out of reach unless you approach with a ladder or sth.?)
- What menu-options do you need? (You mentioned sth. about trading standards - where would I do that?
You also might want to check out Battle for Wesnoth (
http://www.wesnoth.org/) (Open Source) for some inspiration. It is not as complex as your idea, but I think there is some overlap, which could be useful food for thought.
Awesome feedback, thank you. First off I was blown away with the amount of attention this got, it was completely unexpected, I thought I would get 30-40 upvotes, a pat on the back and go to bed, I drew this as an exercise to get better with photoshop and illustrator, and if I was very lucky, have someone like the visual style and hire me for a bit of artwork for their game.
It quickly became apparent that I hit some sort of nerve with gamers on r/gaming, they said they loved the artwork, and I got a ton of messages from old school hex gamers who thought the simple gameplay mechanics I outlined in my infographic were awesome.
Now I wish I had hung onto it all, I didn't realize how good my ideas were.
All that being said, I am now feel somewhat responsible for this, and would like to see it through in one way or another, be it a board game, or having someone take a similar concept and have me do the art for it.
As for all the specific things you listed, I have some pretty good ideas, and some bad ones, but I am becoming a little more hesitant to share my specific ideas. Thank you for your great breakdown of elements in the infographic, this is just the kind of feedback i am looking for.
I have played and admire the battle for wesnoth, it is a wonderful open source game, there are certain aspects of it i like, the rpg system and some aspects of the terrain system, but there is also a large part of the game i dislike, such as the strange scale of units compared with terrain, and the I hit you you hit me attack device.
You can also try to look for a programmer partner in
Collaborations or
Unpaid Work.
Artists tend to have the highest success rate of people joining with them, but the thing to remember about partnerships is that they are just that, partnerships, and if one tries to enforce an employer/employee relationship when money isn't exchanging hands it tends to go sour fast. Also, and this is no offense to you, but ideas are easy, execution is hard, and it is much easier to imagine a fun game than to make one.
Thanks for your advice and the link, I may go check it out. People keep telling me that ideas are a dime a dozen in game development or some variation. I have artistic talent and ideas so maybe I have a small leg up there.
I am not married to anything, my main goal is still to find work on any project that appreciates the visual style I displayed in the infographic I posted.
with about 3000 people upvoting that there i'm surprised you haven't had any offers of a programmer developing it for you yet over there. i didn't read the comments though so maybe you did. if that's all you are looking for with tigsource that's probably not the best reason to come here. tigsource is a community of people who give each other feedback on their games and suggestions for improvement, but you can't really give suggestions to improve something that doesn't exist
most people on tigs have their own ideas and are working on their own games and it's rare to find anyone who will be like 'okay i'll make your game for you, you do the art and design it, i'll just be the code monkey' (at least without pay). if it's more of a partnership -- that is, if you give the coder equal creative responsibility and don't boss him around or treat it as superior/inferior, then you'd find takers
i'd suggest finding a programmer partner (preferably one who has finished a game before; don't go with someone who is like 'oh yeah i can code your game it'll be easy, i've never made a game before but i know i can do it' -- chances are that person will not be able to do it), making a prototype, and then posting that in the feedback section here. it's only *then* that you'll really benefit from tigsource, since the best use of this forum is to post your partially completed game and get suggestions for making it more fun or more polished
Again I have a few ideas that I threw into an infographic with the hope of interesting people in my skills at game design and game art, I would absolutely love to find a programmer partner to make this game or something similar, I don't expect to just have my way with game design and boss folks around. Thank you for your words of caution. I think unless I get any offers that pull me in unforseen directions my next step will be to hash out more details and make a simple bard game to test things out.
Thanks again for all your feedback, this community seems really nice and knowledgeable.