I've been meaning to learn DM for a while now, just haven't got around to it as college has been my primary focus since September.

Now that I've finished the first year, I have around about 2 months of free time. I'm going to attempt to learn DM regardless of whether or not I have a tutor to guide me, but if someone wouldn't mind offering their time, something similar to what Folak is doing would be beneficial to my learning, most definitely. Not only as motivation to not disappoint and waste the time of my tutor, but experienced, one to one guidance.

If anyone is interested, shoot an email to writing-a-new-one@live.co.uk and we'll sort something out that works for us both.

TEACH ME!

I'm not quite a novice, but there's still a million things I need to know!

I'm self-taught up to this point not having one day of college and mainly relying on BYOND's user-driven resources as my source of learning and developing my developmental abilities.

A great idea! Although I do think that the novices could at least learn the basics on their own. You can gain that knowledge through a 10 minute Zilal tutorial. Only things you should need a teacher for are more complicated aspects, like AI as Kidpaddle suggested.

Forum_account wrote:

It takes more than programming to make a game. People should focus more on game design. If you don't have any good game ideas, it doesn't matter how good of a programmer you are.

The first thing I did with my novice was walk him through planning out the game and writing a design document.

There's no reason to have a designated teacher - people can post on the developer forum or on their own blog to ask for help.

Personally, I learn best when I have someone there to talk with live and help walk me through the problems that I'm having and bounce ideas off of.

Don't get me wrong, the forums and existing articles are great, but there's just something about having someone dedicated to me personally that motivates me a little more. Just like working on a game is more fun working with a team, so is learning.

Writing A New One wrote:

I have a feeling that learning something like DM is going to result in a hoard of questions, every day, for the learner.

Oh for sure, especially since the majority of people learning DM have no prior programming experience what-so-ever.

Well, I wouldn't mind learning under a experienced programmer in order to better my knowledge of DM I tried this once with Loduwijk Not to long ago, but he had very little time between work and family and we never got to finish. But the information he gave me was amazing and helped a lot in learning the little I did. we made a neat little game that didn't really do anything but was the basis for a small project.

I think this is a wonderful idea, one I have made post about on the forum before.

I think this is a much better alternative to having people constantly asking for programmers to help them with there projects on the classified ads, as well as an interesting way to get more people interested and learning DM properly and connecting community members to have support outside of the forums if they need help. The forums aren't always the most friendly place to go when you need help. Especially when you are a novice and the answer maybe obvious to everyone else but you.

I think this is a decent idea, but the ratio of people who want to learn and people who are qualified and willing to teach is staggeringly unfavorable, unless everyone who was going to teach taught 3-5 beginners.

I propose that, rather than teaching people individually, a few of the more capable/experienced developers get together and make a page/forum where lessons can be posted and support offered for complete beginners. It could cover every aspect of creating a game, design, programming, art, music, etc. We could try to get some people from the art society/audiophiles to pitch in for their respective sections, so that beginners interested in those aspects could learn their trades as well.

Obviously, this is more work than individually training new programmers, but it also doesn't rely upon both parties being available at the same times(with more teachers, it is more likely that someone will be available), and could reach a wider audience than one on one tutoring would.

I suggest this because, as it is, the only good tutorials we have right now are ZBT, Your first world, A step byond, and the blue book. We could base the lessons around the DM guide, but make it more interactive and more up to date. Provide a centralized support specifically for people who are getting started and have little to no experience developing games, and live chat for people with issues.

I believe that this would also expose the potential new developers to a wider range of experience than simply tutoring them one at a time, as it would allow them to interact with a variety of developers, each with their own strengths and areas of expertise.

Alright,I'm doing just like you're doing F0lak. =D


http://www.byond.com/games/Kidpaddle45/IrukaClassroom

ExPixel wrote:

At some point someone has to update those damn youtube videos. I would but I don't have a mic on this and I would be stabbed if I tried to borrow my sister's studio mic :P

What youtube videos? BYOND has youtube stuff?! Since when?

ExPixel wrote:

Yeah some people tried to make some tutorials but they only go as far as how to change icons and things like that. No one has done anything about that for a while.

That would be because youtube videos are an inefficient way to teach someone something. It would require several takes to make perfect as well as a decent amount of editing if you ever need to add anything to what you had already stated.

Incremental chapters with exercises for the student (exercises that actually require them to put what they learned in the previous chapters to use) are the way to go, but hardly anyone would really read them let alone perform the exercises. Most users of DM don't really want to learn how to develop software; they just want to learn the quickest, most cookie-cutter way of pumping their game out there.