If there is such a thing in the world of programming as getting a newbie to do grunt-work to help out with menial time-consuming tasks, then it is without doubt much more uncommon than in the world of art & graphics, if only for the fact that I have never even conceived of such a scenario.

You touch on an interesting subject here of "going back to your roots". In my personal habits, there is definitely a parallel to this. Whether it be in mathematics, programming, or competitive sports, I always like to keep an eye out for new people - see if I can spot someone smart, with potential. It's always very tempting to try and create a "mini me". I'm often attracted to new people who show a lot of intelligence but maybe aren't very hard-working, or very successful for that matter. But it's not like I'll high five them and congratulate them for being lazy and inconsequential like me, instead I often like to be strict with them and try to steer them away from things that went wrong for me in my own journey. [1]

I've had several cases like this to some extent. Usually someone 1-2 years younger than me who I'd like to see becoming my self that I hoped for. In school there was a kid who I found to be pretty smart, I'd often challenge him with math problems and logic riddles and it was very satisfying. In starcraft I had two cases of players younger than I that I tried to nourish. As for having a mentor, I don't think I've ever had one and I think I could've really used one in math. At some point I felt like Gust was sort of trying to mentor me; at some points he'd give me problems to work on, and sometimes he'd teach me random math things he found cool, before I even got interested in mathematics.

I get a very strong feel that Gust is also one of these people that wants to find a younger version of himself and grow him. He was pretty infamous for being a jerk to almost everyone, surrounding himself with a select group of people that he found worthy of intellectual exchange. Or at least that's what it looked like to me. All I really know is that he made good friends with delta.

This is also the mentality I lived with most of the time, maybe because I read Ender's Game too many times as a child. Regardless, it didn't really take off for me, I never really had more than one friend at any given time in whose abilities I had high trust.

[1]So... in other words, with the strong emphasis on "steering them away from things that have gone wrong for myself" aside, this is also called .. the mentor & student relationship. This is something I see to be very common in mathematics. I suspect it is significantly less common in the general field of "programming" if not only because it's much less academic and more chaotic and free. and also more money-driven rather than driven by the pursuit for knowledge.

I annotated my own post because I couldn't figure out where to fit this last paragraph.

I think this should sum up my take on the "nurturing new talent" subject.

Also hi Inglor ...

I'll be patiently waiting for your 2014 appearance. I have high hopes that in a few years you'll come back one time and no one will recognise you :-) hah

At 2/5/13 01:57 PM, Toast wrote: I've had several cases like this to some extent. Usually someone 1-2 years younger than me who I'd like to see becoming my self that I hoped for. In school there was a kid who I found to be pretty smart, I'd often challenge him with math problems and logic riddles and it was very satisfying. In starcraft I had two cases of players younger than I that I tried to nourish. As for having a mentor, I don't think I've ever had one and I think I could've really used one in math. At some point I felt like Gust was sort of trying to mentor me; at some points he'd give me problems to work on, and sometimes he'd teach me random math things he found cool, before I even got interested in mathematics.

Yeah i think thats a natural human thing, well for some people. I remember when I was younger and on NG specifically where I saw it as more of a competitive landscape in the art world, where you wanted to bottle up your 'secrets ingredients' and be competitive and alienated about stuff. As I grew older, or maybe it was newgrounds itself and its embracing of collaboration, i started to become more interested in the prospect of mentoring or atleast being around people who see the scene with fresher eyes. I dont think I ever formally took on the mentor/protege relationship but I think it just happens naturally sometimes. I've had the good fortune of being able to talk to different creative types on a wide array of levels in their professional career and its kind of rewarding to be able to give advice or even just anecdotal experiences to people pursuing the same line as work as you. I find that sort of shit INVALUABLE. There's only so much that you can learn in art school or college, and once youre done with school you really feel you're in a professional world unprepared. Or atleast I did... and its very tough to adapt to the things you have to learn that arent found in a book, which is most things.

So even if you're totally detached from Flash, or you've moved on to something totally different, i think newer users can always benefit from your experience good and bad. There's always someone out there who is as lost as you probably were at one point. It makes me feel old but its kind of cool to be in a position to share your time in the trenches.

At 2/5/13 12:54 PM, egg82 wrote: one of the perks of an OOP language is that you can have many people working on many different things and have a fluid product at the end. I'm not going to say it's easy to do so (it still requires a lot of communication) but it is possible. However, indie developers don't usually do this for various reasons; you tend to see this in large corporations.

This is hard to do, there's a lot of overhead involved in making sure your code structure is set up properly to have multiple coders work on it, which is why you sorta need a "lead programmer" if you're doing this stuff, 2 programmers working on something might not be much more efficient than 1 (unless they have heavily different talents / specialties) since you'll spend so much time making sure you arent trampling over each others feet. If you have 1 person dedicated just to the organization stuff of it all, then you can start getting some returns there with multiple programmers on the project.

That said, I've been learning Unity, and its pretty cool how compartmentalized everything is, its super easy to just drop in scripted objects into a scene, and I could see it being fairly easy to work with another programmer on a unity project.

At 2/5/13 05:15 PM, Innermike wrote:

At 2/5/13 05:07 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: That said, I've been learning Unity, and its pretty cool how compartmentalized everything is, its super easy to just drop in scripted objects into a scene, and I could see it being fairly easy to work with another programmer on a unity project.

I've tried to get into Unity about a billion times but I can't get over how much it reminds me of the flash IDE and dragging objects into the stage etc Like I want something to get me into it starting from a straight code perspective and moving into using its 'stage' features, 'cause I really want to use it but its just a little overwhelming. I don't know maybe this is just a problem I have, how hard to people generally find getting into it?

Yeah, same thing happened to me when I tried it last year, I wanted to code but instead I was learning how the damn editor works.

So I just was like fuck it, this time I'm not using any built in junk, and I'm gonna start right away on the coding (using C#), just jump right into it, place a cube in the stage and attach a "new script" to it, and start coding that script. You'll ask yourself questions like "ok so now how to I get it to do ____", look it up and figure it out, ignore any answers that are like "well here's something in the asset store that does that (20$)"

Probably best to have some vague idea in mind of what you want to make, so you have a general direction in mine (need camera controls, need jumping, need collision, need to be able to create objects on the fly, etc)

I like the comments about comparing Unity to the flash IDE! I worked in Unity for a project last year and I immediately drew that comparison thinking it is the Flash of the 3d world! Though it is pretty damned good at what it does!

As others have said, working with 2 coders on 1 code base can be pretty difficult, working with a fellow coder remotely makes it so much harder too! Given that flash has come people coding on the timeline, in classes, several languages AS2/3/Haxe, it'd take a while to get onto the same wavelength.
Also, every more experienced coder I've come across always seems to be so swamped with their own work they can't really fit the time in to take someone under their wing. I'm not saying that artists are less busy!....maybe they are just better at managing their time!

At 2/5/13 05:07 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: This is hard to do, there's a lot of overhead involved in making sure your code structure is set up properly to have multiple coders work on it, which is why you sorta need a "lead programmer" if you're doing this stuff, 2 programmers working on something might not be much more efficient than 1 (unless they have heavily different talents / specialties) since you'll spend so much time making sure you arent trampling over each others feet. If you have 1 person dedicated just to the organization stuff of it all, then you can start getting some returns there with multiple programmers on the project.

I half agree with this. It can be a difficult feat to get two programmers working fluently together but it's just like any other "work relationship". The more time put into it the better you'll find yourself working together. Sometimes I'll look over some code by the second programmer I often work with on projects and it's enjoyable to both see how they accomplished something but also to pick it apart and help improve and criticising their work is something I wouldn't have done when we first started working together (possibly out of fear they'd take offence to it, who knows). Works vice-versa so all in all you get a good experience out of any project.

As for the mentoring aspect, I don't think I ever had a mentor. I had a lot of people help me as I was learning to program but never one consistent person. Toast is notable, though. He always felt like the middle man of knowledge between Gust and myself because I never actually spoke to Gust, but Toast spoke highly of him. Not to mention him helping me on my maths <3

I remember trying to follow this OOP inventory system and being completely baffled. It's strange how far almost any programmer who stayed here longer than a couple of hundred posts has come. Mike and Archawn impressed me purely because they seemed to go from 0 to good programmers in the time it took me to go from the same level to "OK programmer".

I did, however, mentor a friend of mine for a brief period. This was way back when I started to learn AS2. I'd show him something and he ended up getting really interested and it came to the point that he was pointing out things in my code and understanding them. I brought him up to speed as far as my knowledge allowed and from there it was more of a peer learning relationship. It's mad because now he's a web developer and has earnt more money than I have off any programming. Makes me proud but also competitive at the same time.

At 2/5/13 05:01 PM, Innermike wrote:

P.S. anyone know when that zrb forest game is coming out?

It looked so amazing.

If only answering forum posts counted as mentoring someone...then we could all say yes to that. Multiple times per day.

There is one guy who posted here a while back that I helped out, but he's been busy recently with school. And we're the same major, so naturally I'm swamped too (3 tests thurs, group project tomorrow, fml everyday). He got about halfway through a game before the workload kicked in, and it was a pretty good arcade/make-in-a-week game. I didn't have a mentor per se, but I learned a lot from reading responses to forum posts and testing small mechanics out myself. As far as game design, PSvils showed me a few helpful articles.

I wouldn't be able to work with anyone who doesn't cuddle their braces. Heartless bastards.

At 2/5/13 02:17 PM, Luis wrote: and its very tough to adapt to the things you have to learn that arent found in a book, which is most things.

They should make a book about that stuff. I'd pay $150 for it, and for the next 5 editions which only rearrange problems, fix spelling errors, and have new covers. Btw I hate this semester of college. I'm starting to drink tea to help my stress levels.

At 2/5/13 08:23 PM, MSGhero wrote: I wouldn't be able to work with anyone who doesn't cuddle their braces. Heartless bastards.

I feel that way about people who dont name their symbols on the art side, who shows that much disrespect for a symbol to not even give it a name. just what kind of father are you.

Just read Tyler's post on Unity just now and suddenly it clicked with me a lot more. I too was distracted by the editor at first, but I think I am starting to understand now. I would be really interested in doing some 2D stuff, but taking advantage of 3D features. I was trying to get a sense for using the orthographic camera to do this.

heh http://www.glaielgames.com/unity/iso/morecubes/

At 2/5/13 08:33 PM, Luis wrote: I feel that way about people who dont name their symbols on the art side, who shows that much disrespect for a symbol to not even give it a name. just what kind of father are you.

Pssh, who names things these days?

At 2/6/13 12:46 PM, Mattster wrote:

At 2/5/13 08:33 PM, Luis wrote: I feel that way about people who dont name their symbols on the art side, who shows that much disrespect for a symbol to not even give it a name. just what kind of father are you.

Pssh, who names things these days?

youre disgusting.

At 2/6/13 12:46 PM, Mattster wrote:

At 2/5/13 08:33 PM, Luis wrote: I feel that way about people who dont name their symbols on the art side, who shows that much disrespect for a symbol to not even give it a name. just what kind of father are you.

Pssh, who names things these days?

every time i see something like that

At 2/6/13 01:49 PM, Luis wrote: you're disgusting.

that was bothering me >.>

At 2/6/13 02:05 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 2/6/13 01:49 PM, Luis wrote: you're disgusting.

that was bothering me >.>

I was cringing just trying to making that screenshot...

At 2/6/13 03:47 PM, Mattster wrote:

At 2/6/13 02:05 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 2/6/13 01:49 PM, Luis wrote: you're disgusting.

that was bothering me >.>

I was cringing just trying to making that screenshot...

I'm having horrible memories of organizing collabs back in the day

At 2/6/13 04:46 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: I'm having horrible memories of organizing collabs back in the day

Ah .. I have here a beautiful testament to the horror of NG collabs :-) It was of course a parody on collabs, but we unintentionally had a symbol mixup of our own. Half the people, including myself, hadn't named their symbols, and since I submitted mine last, the collab submitter (ninja chicken?) thought it would be appropriate to just choose "copy and replace" for all symbols, turning half of other people's movieclips into my crudely drawn ninja chicken movie clip.

I was cringing just trying to making that screenshot...

egg was referring to the fact that luis spelled "you're" without the the apostrophe. evidently the two have not spent much time together :P

At 2/7/13 01:49 AM, Toast wrote: Ah .. I have here a beautiful testament to the horror of NG collabs :-)

what did I watch? o.o

egg was referring to the fact that luis spelled "you're" without the the apostrophe. evidently the two have not spent much time together :P

I was trying to pass that off, but yeah xD
and also right, but i'm not saying I wouldn't mind getting to know everyone better. I haven't really talked to many people here, yet :P

optimized the fuck out of this today http://www.glaielgames.com/unity/iso/tesselate/

instead of rendering the tiles now it tessellates the geometry like this http://i.imgur.com/0vignxC.png which lets me have massive worlds rendering pretty fast

I have an idea how i can get it to have tiled textures on it too, involving a 3D texture for tile index and a 2D texture for tile graphics, will probably implement that tomorrow

At 2/7/13 01:49 AM, Toast wrote: Ah .. I have here a beautiful testament to the horror of NG collabs :-)

I tried to watch it on my phone, but I guess it wasn't on the swivel priority list.

At 2/7/13 01:47 PM, Innermike wrote: So have the game jams just stopped then or what?

i've actually been thinking that, myself. Since the last jam, learned OOP, (I like to think) most of AS3, a couple frameworks and engines, and have built a few libraries of my own. I'm ready to kick some ass and take some names.

At 2/7/13 01:47 PM, Innermike wrote: So have the game jams just stopped then or what?

sort of.... its just tough to run them when theres not someone dedicated to moderating the jam. It was supposed to be in my realm of workload, but over time my priorities have started to revolve around web development/design rather than community initiatives. I hope once the mobile related things are wrapped up to a point where they are on cruise control i can dive back into collabz and stuff. I have the ghost busters song stuck in my head now.

At 2/7/13 02:37 PM, Luis wrote:

At 2/7/13 01:47 PM, Innermike wrote: So have the game jams just stopped then or what?

sort of.... its just tough to run them when theres not someone dedicated to moderating the jam. It was supposed to be in my realm of workload, but over time my priorities have started to revolve around web development/design rather than community initiatives. I hope once the mobile related things are wrapped up to a point where they are on cruise control i can dive back into collabz and stuff. I have the ghost busters song stuck in my head now.

If one was run where it was just a theme given and no registration and people are responsible for making their own teams and stuff, what type of extra mod work for that would there be?

At 2/7/13 03:00 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: If one was run where it was just a theme given and no registration and people are responsible for making their own teams and stuff, what type of extra mod work for that would there be?

Yeah, it could totally be a community run contest. Just as long as winners are not chosen by portal score.

Although I have to say, I really did love the jams where teams were randomly chosen. It felt a lot more official in that you only got to start getting in contact with your teammates as the 72 hours were counting down. And it was nice to step out of your comfort zone to work with people either below or above your skill level.

What does everyone else think of random of teams?

At 2/7/13 03:47 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: What does everyone else think of random of teams?

sure, why not?

my biggest concern is people not participating or wanting to participate.
think getting the word out may be a problem?

At 2/7/13 03:47 PM, 4urentertainment wrote:

At 2/7/13 03:00 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: If one was run where it was just a theme given and no registration and people are responsible for making their own teams and stuff, what type of extra mod work for that would there be?

Yeah, it could totally be a community run contest. Just as long as winners are not chosen by portal score.

how about just not having it as a competition with a winner? Everyone is a winner

At 2/7/13 04:13 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: how about just not having it as a competition with a winner? Everyone is a winner

that would mean fewer participants. As a programmer, you should know that time is money. You can't expect people to spend 72 hours creating something as best they can for free. They could be spending that time making something shite (compared to what they can do) and selling it later.

At 2/7/13 04:16 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 2/7/13 04:13 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: how about just not having it as a competition with a winner? Everyone is a winner

that would mean fewer participants. As a programmer, you should know that time is money. You can't expect people to spend 72 hours creating something as best they can for free. They could be spending that time making something shite (compared to what they can do) and selling it later.

If you're doing a game jam for money.. you're doing it wrong! That's not what they are about at all! potential exposure on the front page for a game jam game should be enough incentive I would've thought. I was well chuffed when my entries where on there!

At 2/7/13 04:11 PM, egg82 wrote: my biggest concern is people not participating or wanting to participate.
think getting the word out may be a problem?

I don't think getting word out would be a problem. It'd be the same as every time, Tom would post about it and someone goes around spamming flash forums about it. (I used to do that :( )

At 2/7/13 04:13 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: how about just not having it as a competition with a winner? Everyone is a winner

Actually, that's much better. A game jam is an event, not a competition. There could just be incentives like how Ludum Dare does, "Most Innovative Game", "Best Sound", "Game with most cats in it".