Awesome community, figured I'd say hello!

sheymyster

Hey everyone, I found gamesalad a week or two ago and downloaded the program, I work 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day usually so I piddled with it here and there. During the day I kept a little notepad with me and fleshed out an idea my dad and I had been thinking about. From what I had learned from youtube and forum tutorials and a bit of adventuring in the program itself I understood a lot of the basic logic/rules/behaviors so I was able to "plan" out how it was going to work, even though I knew it would require testing and tinkering before it actually worked.

I finally got a few days off work and have been going hard in the paint to get at least the backbone of my game to take form and I have to say, I'm loving Gamesalad. I have tried to learn to program a few times but never really put enough work in for it to stick, and definitely not enough to be able to make an app, but I feel like I understand Gamesalad. I have gotten stuck a few times already and gotten frustrated but a bit of playing around and I managed to either do what I wanted or come up with a more clever and resourceful approach that worked for what I wanted to happen.

I'm sorry for the wall of text but I'm very excited and have already gotten the first part of my game working well enough, I am currently tackling the most difficult task I think I will face, getting an inventory to function to my liking, but I'm feeling confident and I've already gotten so much help by perusing the forums every chance I get and observe issues other people have had and the solutions that other members have so graciously provided. =D

One question and I'll give your eyes a rest, I have been designing my game with mostly rectangles as placeholders, if I can make the game function how I want adding in graphics and images of what all the actors actually are is simple, but I fear I will not be able to just "learn" how to make professional looking sprites, so are their people who take orders for stuff like that and is it affordable?

I plan on buying the Pro Gamesalad of course once I get comfortable enough to think that I'm getting close to a semi-finished app, so I don't mind putting a little money into buying graphics as well, but it can't be too unreasonably priced or I will just try to learn to make them myself, thanks!!!

jigglybean

welcome and enjoy your stay

-Timo-

Welcome

TheGabfather

Welcome!

There are some people here who offer art + music services -- you can use the Search function of the forums to look for some past posts.

In case you are having trouble looking for an artist you like, you can also consider looking through the dA forums. You can either post a Job Offer for artists (make sure to list your price to make things easier), or you can skim through the Job Services threads and look for an artist you like.
You can also try Behance or even fivver.

UtopianGames

Hi and welcome,

There's plenty of artists on here so shouldn't be hard to find one but i would use placeholder art for now and see if its still fun to play without proper art then go looking.

Darren.

BoomshackBarry

Hi there! I'd say if you do have the ability to (learn to) create your own art it's a great help, as you obviously eliminate artist costs and you also have the ability to make any changes you want on the fly without having to rely on your artist being available.

But @DeepBlueApps advice is great, make sure your game is fun to play first before you sink too much time/money in to the graphics.

Good luck!

StormyStudio

Hi... welcome to the forum and that wave of satisfaction you get when 'how GameSalad works' starts to click into place.

Agree with above comments, you can pay for artwork which I'm sure can be found for the right price but if your willing to put the time in to learn to do it yourself you'll save your self money and have a great set of skills to put into a number of industries not just game design. Checkout vector art software inkscape for free, or ideally if you can find an old copy or afford the latest one look at Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Great software used by professionals the world over... plus there are a millino tutorials out on the web

Good luck and look forward to seeing your first game/app.

BazookaTime

Welcome. There are some talented artists around here, that won't be a problem.

sheymyster

Wow, didn't expect such a response, thanks everyone for the welcome and for the advice about artists. I've always loved art and consider myself at least alright at it, I've just never done ANYTHING on a computer, always real life paper and canvas, but I think I may try to tackle adding my own because I can see the hassle of trying to work side-by-side with an artist, especially since I am new to gamesalad I may realize a piece of art needs to be different and need a change right then and that could become a hindrance if I didn't make the art to begin with. I already downloaded inkscape and I have an older version of photoshop somewhere around here I think, I'll look into illustrator as well.

If I just can't make my art work I am glad to know that the resource is there for hiring talented and experienced digital artists just in case. Also, thanks @DeepBlueApps for the advice, I was thinking about that as well, I didn't know if it was normal or not to do but I was thinking about making my entire game with just roughly drawn actors from paint done by me and like you said, if the game sucks I won't have wasted all that art developing time as well, THANKS!

Braydon_SFX

Welcome to the forums, @sheysjunk@gmail.com !

jonmulcahy

welcome to the forums!

artwork is something I always struggle with. I know enough to get by, but am put to shame by the good work here people do. I've done my own artwork, hired people and bought stock vectors. do whatever helps you reach your creative vision (on budget!)

I always flesh out my game using placeholders or graphics grabbed out of google. You can only look at colored blocks for so long . Once I like an idea I start shopping around for assets.

sheymyster

Hmmm, didn't think about grabbing images from google, thanks @jonmulcahy ! I suppose as long as I don't publish or anything with those images they would be easier on the eyes while building the game, awesome!

gyroscope

Hi @sheymyster too and welcome to the Forums. :-) Best of luck with all your game-making.