next »

[Guillaume]

I like to consider us, indie game developers, as artists. And we all know that artists were, and are, all influenced by their significant other to some level.

How does that work for you? Does your girlfriend/boyfriend/fiance(e)/spouse know about your indie gam dev activities? How does (s)he respond to it? Is (s)he part of the creation process (if so, how?) ?


This question is just asked out of curiosity, to get to know a bit better how we work and what motivates us as artists.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Devlin]

Easy.

Yes, No and No.

[muku]

have none

[Seth]

I actually had a dream last night that my girlfriend created a really sick videogame and I was going to post it on here.  But she doesn't like video games.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I've asked my "s.o." to use some of her music in my games (she composes) but she doesn't want me to since she doesn't think she's as as my other two musicians (long dao and my father). She also doesn't play any games (like, literally has never played a game) but likes looking at screenshots of mine, and reading reviews of them. She also works like a 'secretary' to me, performing odd jobs here and there that'd help with my indie game business, such as emailing rapidshare/megaupload to take down pirated versions of the game, and so on. I also once made a game for her for the valentine's day tigsource contest (which she did play, but it's arguably not really a "game" per se).

[deadeye]

My girlfriend likes games, and I make her play what I make, but she's not very good with feedback.  She seems to like, and be impressed by, everything I make.  Which isn't very helpful.

[TeeGee]

She makes me some nice concept art and bangs me on the head when I go too over-the-top with flashy effects and overall manliness in my games. She also isn't a hardcore gamer, so she's great at giving unbiased feedback.
And she makes sure I do something other than sitting on the PC for the whole day.

[nihilocrat]

She nags me to no end because she sees it as a 20-hour-a-week (though it's more like 10) side job that makes no money. She says I love the computer more than I love her.



So yeah, not really any input. Except she thought it would be neat if I made a Cockpit Competition game where you controlled a cock-herder who had to herd cocks into a pit. I should make that for the hell of it, I have already coded a flocking algorithm before that would work well with such a game.

[CK]

I actually had a dream last night that my girlfriend created a really sick videogame and I was going to post it on here.  But she doesn't like video games.

[valkrin]

My wife enjoys playing video games, she just finished kicking my arse at Battle for Wesnoth. She isn't really a hardcore gamer, but she definitely is a casual gamer. She will provide some feedback about the games I make, sometimes it is helpful but most of the time she is just impressed by my ability to make computers do things. She'll drag me away from making games to do other things, like leaving my dark lair and going out into the sunlight world.

[valkrin]

She nags me to no end because she sees it as a 20-hour-a-week (though it's more like 10) side job that makes no money. She says I love the computer more than I love her.

Dude, my wife says the same exact thing!!!

[bateleur]

My girlfriend is pretty much my alpha playtester for most things. She's a gamer herself, which helps a lot because she understands that when I'm up late swearing at the screen trying to fix some bug this is my idea of recreation!

My daughter (7) also gets involved in providing feedback. Visual effects in particular I can run past her for a quick assessment on a scale of "That's cool!" to "What's that supposed to be?".

[Skirvir]

Nice question!

My wife plays games occasionally, but has no real interest in my development activites except she understands I enjoy them and fully supports those activities so I suppose more than any other thing, she provides support and pushes me along when boredom or frustration eventually settle in. (I'm a software architect by day so the added benefit is that the majority of my hobby game making activities directly feed into my professional activities).

She excels at bouncing ideas off of however, while she isn't as much of a gamer as myself, she understands the design point of view quite well and in almost any creative endeavor, definitly puts forth different ways of looking at things.

[lowpoly]

When my kids are a little bit older, I plan on using them as a test bed for everything :D

That being said, eventually I want to start making games suitable for them to play and enjoy, but more importantly understand that I made it and I can show them how to make something on their own. Early exposure to art is something I really missed out on as a kid. I would have killed for a GM-type, easy program when I was 12 years old. All we had was LOGO 

[Notch]

My girlfriend plays my games and claims to enjoy them. I assume she's not lying.
She was the last person to set a highscore in breaking the tower before people started hacking the highscore list, so she's immortalized there. =)
She provides a lot of feedback, almost all very constructive.
.. it's just that she and I have a somewhat different view of what makes a game good, so I have to keep finding nice ways to turn down her ideas. I don't want her to stop suggesting stuff.
She's very supportive of my hobby, but we miss each other when I go cave troll for a few days to ride out a spike of inspiration.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

if she has strong ideas about what makes games good you should consider getting her to learn game design, it might be interesting to see those ideas in a game.

[Klaim]

++

[Notch]

<Her> I think you should add monkeys.
<Me> And I think you should learn game design!
<Her> What?
<Me> And I'm not the only one!

:D

But seriously, I do try to listen. We're both stubborn, and I will never ever consider mazes good level design.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

mazes are great level design. most of my favorite games have mazes.

[TeeGee]

Mazes aren't great nor terrible level design. Great and terrible mazes are  .