I think for anyone who works alone it's probably a great idea.

I am slowly realizing that it's probably better to do it all myself. At first glance it seems counter productive, but the truth of the matter is it's very rare to find someone who sees things the same way, and is willing to devote to it as well to many anything successful.

I've picked up a few minor tricks, but it's pretty common stuff like limiting the states and using as many states / animations for as many different aspects as possible.

Also animating effects like "death" instead of showing an actual body. Perhaps supplementing text creatively in some places.

Other than that-meh. I guess I will just have to learn through experience.

I agree with Hebrons, working alone is probably the best choice. A lot of artists (me for example) would rather work alone believe it or not, but don't have that knack for programming (because we're too lazy no shit right?)I wouldn't suggest pixel dailies unless you actually want to do it. I don't see it as a way of improving but more of a way to get you to pixel art and have that drive to keep doing it (or if you're experimenting with your own style or something of the sort)

If you want to get better what Yut Put said is probably a good idea, limiting art load is actually a good skill to have. (since it's animation and that's a different kind of art you'll have to practice or something)

If anything stop trying to have everything look good at the same time, it's best to have details that you can work with. Hebrons' art or w/e shows what i mean, one color grass may look dumb but adding patches etc, tree and it can look nice. I've had this trouble with a lot of programmers (making me have to quit eventually) where they want everything to look good from the start instead of waiting on the finish.

Lastly don't worry about the end product, that hold too many artists back.(this is best shown when you're drawing) If you make a mistake see what you can do with it, and experiment as it can come in handy at a later date.
PS:Referencing helps out a lot too and is what helped me get better.
PSS:Srry for lack of grammar and all the stuff i'm not good at english or w/e

I don't think there's a problem with teams, as long as everyone is on the same page. The issue is too many chiefs- everyone wants to do things a different(usually their) way.

Someone doesn't trust person b-so they slack off and accuse others of being shady-when they are infact the ones being shady.
(Have had this happen twice with 2 different artists. They basically didn't do work for weeks or months, then when I called them on it, they got pissy and admitted that they were doing work and just not adding it to the project so they could get the code.)

Or they are too busy being petty (well..he's doing this so why can't I do that)

Or lazy-(needing someone to motivate them every two minutes-- which is the usual culprit. Needing to be baby-sat or coddled to, or hyped up in order to actually get any productive work done--which decreases productivity
Or fickle-- as in interested one moment and the next-- they are making excuses.

Or--too much ego (ALOT of people have that here. Despite the fact that they've never actually completed or finished anything to show for their level of supposed skill.)

In reality making a game is actual work. It's never going to be all fun. Team members can make game development fun though, as long as everyone knows their role and does their part.

That rarely happens for unpaid projects though-- as I said too many people with ideas about how things should be (and often times very unrealistic ideas.)

I concur with working alone being the ideal practice, although if you get teamed up with another person who compliments your weaknesses well and has the same drive, you could blow through work that would've taken you months on your own.

Finding a partner like that is really difficult, though. I've only worked well with someone like that once.

Why do you think that someone has to work with a team to bring about change? Forum Account didn't even make games and left a huge impact on BYOND. As controversial as it may be for some people, Silk worked alone on NEStalgia(to my knowledge) and it made a lasting impact on the community and showed that games made with BYOND CAN be successful and marketable.

Those are just two examples. Every game, every demo, every answered question in the Dev Help forum, it all brings about change and effects at least a handful of people. As for being easier, I disagree for the same "one man army" point brought up above.

As for talking about an issue to get better insight, that's what developer help and design philosophy are for. Hell, you can even do like myself and many other devs and just have a friend on Skype that you pester with ideas and approaches.

I really don't get your point, unless I'm misunderstanding it.

Lets all work together! forever! forever! together!

I don't really think my way of looking at it is naieve.
I've worked with several teams.

If you have 3 members and on one day.
Team member 1 who is 3 x as productive as the other two members does X amount of work. Sure that means that single team member is 3x as productive.

Member 1=3
Member 2=1
Member 3=1



Over time what happens is, more work is done regardless of how much a single member contributes. There's always the amount of work that members 2 & 3 would have done.

Same example, let's assume that the project lasts for 30 days. everyone works at the same pace as day one.

member 1= 90
member 2=30
member 3=30

If member 1 chose to work alone, he would in effect have to do 150 units of work in the same amount of time instead of the 90. This means over the long run, member 1 is actually spending more time than he would have working alone. Time is the one thing you can never get back-therefore it's important to maximize how you use it.

All that aside the fact is that a group of people working towards a central goal is what has pushed humanity forward since it's beginning. In today's society people don't see an overly pressing need for it, when ironically the truth is people will always achieve more when they band together for a common goal.

It requires putting a greater purpose ahead of one's own ideas or ego for that to occur--and my original point is it's here that people often fail--not enough people willing to compromise to actually do something.

Aside from all this, I'm a bit surprised at your point of view-considering the open sourcing your doing is exactly that- a way to get people to contribute to your project without forming an "official" team.

It's basically a way to avoid the pitfalls we've been discussing with creative thinking. It seems we just have two different ways of ultimately approaching the situation.

when i work in teams i do all the work myself and only recruit non essential donators who increase game content as long as they literally do anything but dont have any tasks that are important or necessary. that way if they leave or dont contribute, i lose nothing, but if they do contribute, i get a larger game

Oh. lol.
It just sort of seemed that way since you said you were discontinuing the game then open sourced it-lacking alot of the features you had been talking about--then a couple of days later picked it back up again.

So that was just the impression I got. My b.