Hello, my name is Paulo Augusto, almost 34 and Portuguese. I am a wanna-be game developer (which probably makes this the best forum for me to be in).
I started very lightly developing games while teen-ager. I developed a *foot*ball board-game, a chess-like board-game, several floor-war-games, among other board games, and i also developed computer games and mods. Now that i think of it, the chess-like and the floor-war-games were quite decent... I should have realised by then that that could be a future i should pursue...
I became a more-serious game developer a little more than 1 year ago because i really wanted to play Civilization with my friends as a board game but the best i had was Sid Meier's Civilization from Eagle Games, which was absolutely ghastly (i'm really sorry for those who developed it but .. i can't put it any other way, especially not after i've spent so much money on it). And there is no way to design a Civilization game without being seriously commited to it.
Now, after abandoning my old job and having become full-time student (at least for the next 1 year), the time and mental availability that was left to game creation allowed me to explore more that side and have some more game-designs creep up.
Just like the power-gamer i used to be and like the perfectionist professional i used to be, also in games creation i am aiming at almost ridiculous ammounts of game perfection, quality, testing, thought, experiment, exploration, knowledge aquisition. Let's see if, as a wanna-be game developer, i ever get any game to a point where i actually regard it as perfected enough.
I have been lurking these forums for almost one year, now, but i finally decided to created an account.
Peace and all of you be safe from trolls and fanboys.
Have you got any PnP versions of your previous games Paulo?
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Sorry for the lateness of the answer (seriously cutting down on computer using).
The only game i have ready for using is the Civ game. Concerning exposing/using it, i have these steps in mind:
#1 - Thinking about how the game plays out
#2 - Playtest by myself (solo)
#3 - Playtest with close friends (one of my usual boarg game groups)
#4 - Playtest with aquintance board-gamers (groups of board-gaming)
#5 - Try to playtest in national boarg-game conventions with complete strangers
So far, the game is going really well, good enough for ocasional* stage #3.
I .. don't know where in the steps list (and if at all) i would expose the game in the Internet or to the common public...
* ocasional since, because the game is still changing and there are a few issues with it, if i play regularly with someones, those someones will become numbed on the problems of the game and stop noticing them. So, as soon as i realized a few problems with the game, i reverted to status of #1 (thinking) / #2 (solo), until all that is ironed out, to preserve the fresh eyes of my friends and to not bother them with something not perfected enough.