I am an aspiring writer who is looking to work with a team of voluntary game enthusiasts who are talented in programming, visual and audio engineering, game testing, animation design, translating, analytics, storyboard direction, and writing. My goal is to create games that are inspired by retro, poorly received, or cancelled games. I have multiple games in mind that I could write a script for, but I have no way of going about it since I have no knowledge of how to program or design games. I have no method of paying anyone who decides to volunteer their time to developing whichever game(s) they decide to choose from, but I hope to make the games well enough to be sold and be well received on Steam, GOG, GMG, and etc.

Some background about me is that I am college student who is currently pursuing my degree in Political Science and Sociology. I am currently going to a community college, but I am planning to transfer to UC Berkeley, UCLA, or UC Merced in the next year. I was involved with multiple STEM clubs in my high school days, but I had many personal issues come up that prevented me from continuing my involvement in these clubs. Currently, I am an aspiring graphic novelist who has 4 projects, one of which is expected to be published within the next year.

Any and all help is helpful in order for us to fulfill our goals. I am also looking to get as many people interested in our game development to gain experience to further expand our/their knowledge and experience.

I hope that was enough information to know just a little bit more about me and my projects. My email is wonderstorms@live.com, if you want to contact me in interest of working together on a project.

So, you seek to make money by copying games that flopped or were outright cancelled... I must confess that as business models go, I've heard better.

I think it's an interesting goal, certainly more so than copying successful games. I wish him luck.

Not copying, but taking redeeming qualities from those games and creating something new. I should I altered my wording. My apologies.

Hi, whilst I wish you well on this, it is simply that so many people want this, and do not realise how much work is inolved. Have a look over at Unreal or Unity forums, there are hundreds of people who post these types of things each day. Not to mention modding teams etc. How many make it through to demo stage, probably less than 1%, and to market, even less let alone trying to make money of a small product through the likes of greenlight.

We all have our dreams, I for instance have programmed small games for the last 30 odd years since text adventures on the spectrum, this is a hobby, and unless I hit some magical formula it will remain a hobby and my skills go into the daily job.

What can I offer to help, well a suggestion. Start by doing something yourself, create a small demo of what you want to do, doesn't have to be DX11 super graphics, even plain boxes as placeholders, to show what it will do. Once you have a fleshed out product document - i.e. detailing all the elements which will comprise the game, and a working demo of it, plus anything else is a bonus such as story, concept art etc. then you would be in a position to start involving other people, otherwise they will have seen this a million times and either ignore you or mock you.

A final word of advice, choose a technology early on and learn it reasonably well, Unity is obviously quite big now, and has a lot of things pre-done on its store front, plus lots of help. This will get you started on your demo. This doesn't tie you into the tech later on, if you want to (or the team want to) move to other tools then thats fine, but choose something simple to get the demo out.

The key point is to get to a position where you can say this is what I want to do, this is how it will work, and have a go yourself to see if you like it - e.g. maybe only you will like the game - and then people may start to take notice and offer help on various bits, maybe moving onto a more formal game, or maybe a mod on moddb. But asking for help on something with very little to start with is going to end badly.

Again, good luck with it, games programming is probably one of the hardest software development roles to really get into as its so compartmentalised and complex.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the constructive advice. I am asking multiple communities such as GOG, Steam, and the like because I feel that more can be done with a large organized effort from people who wish to see certain games make a inspired comeback.

However, I truly do thank you for the advice. I do find the programming side of things to be pretty daunting, but I feel that with enough time, I can accomplish what I set my mind to.
Thanks.

I expect you'll be very lucky to find someone that will follow through with you like this.

Perhaps you could try something related that may be more suited to your present talents, like a physical card or board game. You'll have the knowledge to remain in control of your own project, and you won't be reliant on strangers for help. Thinking through the logic of your physical game is excellent practice for when you start a video game. Plus, I suspect that your finished product would be a reasonable way in to the video games industry. It's would demonstrate your skills as a writer, designer, and artist.

Finally, a small physical game may be a lot more achievable. In video game design, it seems that it is easy to overreach and then give up.

Super good luck!

Echoing what nightcraw1er and grimwerk said, you'll have much more success with such an endeavour if you have something to show for yourself.

Even for someone with no programming knowledge, there are tools available. Two I could suggest, considering your writing background are and [url=http://inform7.com/]Inform, that are both focused towards interactive fiction, and require no programming (kinda). That might not be the style or genre you're going for, but you should play towards your strength, at least in the beginning. Once you start building a reputation for yourself, and get a team, then you could move on to creating something larger in scope.

Some links to your work would definitely help improve your chances.

The second link doesn't seem to work, but the first one does. I am researching coding in games right now. All I can say is it is crazy how much work goes into making something like this. I know I can make this happen, so I will. Thanks for the links.

I think that nightcraw1er.488 has some good points. If you fail to find a team, I'd suggest that you try something that plays to your strengths. For example you're into creating graphic novels so you should have some art and writing skills. You can translate that into a visual novel or an RPG Maker RPG without requiring programming skills.

I've fixed the second link now, sorry. Also, I forgot about Ren'Py, which can be used to create Visual Novels like what ET3D suggested. It does require some basic programming in python, though...