[Survey] What would you want to see on a causal games development site?

[ExtraProgrammer]

Hi all,

I am thinking of doing a portal on causal games development, with stuff for technical and non-technical people. I'm just wondering what to concentrate on, so I come up with this little survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=YmhLWiaPi7qm9jUOpoCmOg_3d_3d

No private information will be collected; the questions are all about how did you learn games development, where will you rather learn, and what are important things to you when learning. That's sort of thing and it would only take less than 5 minutes :-)

Thanks a lot in advance, and thanks to Dia Kharrat for the permission to post the survey here!

[monjardin]

Your survey seems to imply that only beginners are interested in casual games? I don't believe that is the case. In fact, it seems most complete newbies are more interested in over the top MMO schemes. ;)

[SamuraiCrow]

I agree with Monjardin on this one. I've been programming as a hobby for over twenty years and I'm not sure that what you're offering would be any help to me at all.

[ExtraProgrammer]

Actually, the survey has two tracks - one for total beginners, and one for those who are already good at programming (though not sure if SurveyMonkey's logic skipping is perfect!). For the experienced developers I also want to know what sort of struggle they went through to get to where they are now :-)

The idea is I have come across many people who falls into two categories

1. They have ideas and want to make game, but can't grasp programming
2. They want to make games and the first thing they want to create is a full-featured 3D RTS with all sort of advanced shaders effects

I was just thinking - causal games, in general, are more realistic targets for beginner. Of course, experienced programmers can also make causal games. It's just that for beginners, using causal games as a learning milestone may be better...

The only thing I believe would be of help to experienced developers is the sprites and other assets.

monjardin, what you've said is precisely the reason I am pushing causal games development to beginners. A lot of people I know personally started with big vision, wants to do AAA titles, couldn't form the teams (or thought that a group of talented people + money = instant success) and experienced lots of failures. They got bitter and moved on in life...

SamuraiCrow, you make a very interesting observation indeed. So far the ideas I have in mind only carter to beginners and your comment jolts me to other possibilities. What would experienced developers want? I see from some of the responses that some have difficulty forming teams; I could put in a "Friendster-Style-Team-Building" thingy, but I believe the GreatGamesExperiment already has that.

[Reedbeta]

By the way, ExtraProgrammer, it's "casual" not "causal". (I'm only pointing this out because you've made the same typo three times in this thread.)

[ExtraProgrammer]

By the way, ExtraProgrammer, it's "casual" not "causal". (I'm only pointing this out because you've made the same typo three times in this thread.)

Actually, a lot of my friends have pointed it out - no worries :P

This is what happened when you rely too much on spell checks!