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By Chris Sanyk

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About Me First exposure to computers c. 1980 Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Apple ][ Game concepts on paper at age 6 10 + years in various IT roles

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Programmers Great ( Me ) f(x) = Greatness++ 0

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Christmas 1981

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(Bad?) Influences

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Sadly, most of those original conceptual docs no longer survive if they had, this slide would have been a really awesome collage :( Early Paper Designs

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BunnyBots, c.1982

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I have no idea what architects really did with this I used mine to make video games.

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Pixel Dreams

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College

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1993

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1990s Game Industry maturing =

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Fizzle As a result, I questioned whether the game industry had a future for me that I still wanted. I put programming aside graduated thought about grad school Played around with computers instead, until I ended up with a career in IT.

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~2005: Independent Devs

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The Dream Lives 2006: IT took me back into software development. 2007: Tried, failed. 2010: Tried again

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30 years in the making

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Better late than never

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Boobie Teeth!

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Concept

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Game Maker

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Pros Cons Cheap (Free/$25). Quick to build simple things. Easy learning curve. Its capabilities grow with you. Developer community is relatively strong. Slow script interpretation. Object-based rather than Object-oriented. All variables are public. Weak on debugging. Weird data typing.

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sfxr

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Paint.NET

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How I happen to do what I do

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My Development Process Vague list of ideas Pick one Build it Test, Tweak Freeze Document Build Release

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Stuff I learned You are ready. You are not ready. Now is the best time. Take small steps, make many of them, start right away.

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Stuff I learned Programming is harder and easier than I thought.

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Making games is more than programming

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Unsure how to proceed? The best thing to do if youre not confident about how to proceed is to DO ANYTHING and watch. Do the smallest/simplest part of what you think you need to do that might possibly work. Run it. Learn. Iterate.

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Heed your calling. Do what you were meant to do.

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Be a development fiend Read like a fiend. Code like a fiend. Test like a fiend.

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Document Everything

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Make mistakes!

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Game craft is the art of fakery

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Refactor at every opportunity!

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Learn to ask for help

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Talk to People

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Money so what? Stop worrying about whether and how it can make you money. Do something cool first, figure out how to monetize it later.

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Do things that you would happily do for free.

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Try to do everything at least once.

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Your obsession is you.

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Questions? chris@csanyk.com http://csanyk.com/rants/releases Hands-on demo after this talk Playtesting feedback desired Looking for: designers, programmers, artists, sound/music people to collaborate with on this or other projects.