Attracting New Developers to the project.

Attracting New Developers to the project.

Postby Jastiv » 25 Sep 2011, 05:51

Okay, I'm having a difficult time attracting and retaining developers to my project.
I've gotten a few people interested in working on it, but then I think people don't really have the skill level to be of any help, or I never hear back from them. Being a programmer/artist etc, I'm really an introverted person, and I feel like I am stepping into other people's personal space whenever I ask them if they might be interested in working on it.

The other part of this Is I know a little bit of programming myself, but it seems like it is not enough to fix the major bugs in the code myself. I can draw okay, but with the amount of artwork needed, i could probably use artists as well. I've been told everything from why don't you quit working on it, to go back to windows. It is a fork of another (not very good game-play wise) project.

For your information, since the project is a fork, it does compile and run, and has significant changes already to the code base and artwork. With a lot of missing art tile, and a bad user interface it defiantly needs work though. I don't really feel comfortable making a release of it, but I have been also been tempted to do so in order to attract more talent.
User avatar
Jastiv
 
Posts: 285
Joined: 14 Mar 2011, 02:18
Location: Unitied States of America - East Coast

Re: Attracting New Developers to the project.

Postby Knitter » 25 Sep 2011, 12:45

Making a release would, in my opinion, be a very goog thing for the project. The other good thing is making people know what project it is... so what is the project? :D
You'll only attract people that are interested in the same thing as you are, they need to like the project enough to want to make it complete. Even if at start new developers seem to lack the needed skills they can still work with you in other areas. I don't do python at all but I'm trying to help Unknown Horizons (developed in python) in other things like translations, supporting the current team with testing, debugging or anything else I can that doesn't need coding skills in the programming language they use.

The only thing I can really say is that if you want to see the project grow, than stick with it, do what you can and make the project known by releasing often, publishing updates, talking about the challenges you had/have. Even if you don't have a website for the project use this forum, ask if you can use any other resource, use hosting services that allow you to have a basic news/website thing, but make noise :)
Knitter
 
Posts: 237
Joined: 03 Jul 2011, 22:52
Location: Portugal

Re: Attracting New Developers to the project.

Postby Julius » 25 Sep 2011, 12:50

Lets be honest about it... most projects are one man shows that are happy if someone contributes.

Especially in the early stages when the project doesn't have a mainstream appeal, you must really luck out to find someone dedicated to help out.

One tip though... this is especially true for artists with no programming experience: if they can't get art into the game without your intervention, they will loose interest quickly.
User avatar
Julius
Community Moderator
 
Posts: 3297
Joined: 06 Dec 2009, 14:02

Re: Attracting New Developers to the project.

Postby charlie » 25 Sep 2011, 19:37

Julius {l Wrote}:Lets be honest about it... most projects are one man shows that are happy if someone contributes.

Especially in the early stages when the project doesn't have a mainstream appeal, you must really luck out to find someone dedicated to help out.

One tip though... this is especially true for artists with no programming experience: if they can't get art into the game without your intervention, they will loose interest quickly.

QFT
Free Gamer - it's the dogz
Vexi - web UI platform
User avatar
charlie
Global Moderator
 
Posts: 2131
Joined: 02 Dec 2009, 11:56
Location: Manchester, UK

Re: Attracting New Developers to the project.

Postby Tranberry » 26 Sep 2011, 12:45

The meaning of QFT

I'm in with julius on this one, he pretty much nailed my toughs.
I agree with Q until I post differently.
User avatar
Tranberry
Community Moderator
 
Posts: 140
Joined: 08 Dec 2009, 21:46
Location: Hjo, Sweden

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest