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There is a lot of music out there, unfortunately, most of it is just plain bad. I honestly don't want to listen to a bunch of crap to maybe hear one decent song. With few exceptions ( a few you tube music videos) I mostly listen to stuff from http://www.opengameart.org/ because not only is it all freely licensed, it sounds better. But even that can't compare to the music I composed for my game, Wograld You can get all the music right with the game client. I actually listen to the Wograld music when I work out. https://sourceforge.net/p/wogr... I wish sorting by genre worked, but it doesn't because bad is bad, and a decent song, regardless of genre is still good.

Hide nothing from him for game development.
He can't have total focus on any particular aspect and be able to ship anything.
Buy this kid a new gaming-class computer every 2 years.
This investment could save you $100,000 in college tuition fees.

This may be advanced, but worth a shot: Game Theory

As far as gameplay goes, follow the mantra of Dwarf Fortress and FTL, "Losing is Fun!".
Occasionally place players in impossible situations so they can experience failure while trying their best.
A game that's too easy or too linear gets dropped quickly.

Maybe he'll pick up the art side as well and make a game before he's out of high school.
8 years is long enough for a really good game, even designed/developed solo - Uplink had 3 devs, Banished is a 1-man shop.
I started programming at age 15 - within a year of getting my 1st computer.
I could have done it earlier, but didn't have the $2000+ required in those days.

More resources
Unity 3d
Playmaker - an AI design tool using zero code.
Blender
Blender Guru
character rigging

Quick assets (some free):
CG Textures
Open Game Art
Turbo Squid

Easy scenery:
Terrain - Terragen
Plants - Speedtree

You'll probably want to pick up a framework that will provide a game engine or the tools to make your own. Why reinvent the wheel? If you're looking to stick with c# try Unity. Many popular games are written, or prototyped, in Unity. Unity is a game engine, and game making tool set, that will allow you to relatively easily make a playable piece of software. The only drawbacks for Unity are it costs money and has less flexibility; if you don't pay for it they display a 2-3 second ad at the start of your game and if you wanted to implement some quirky new mechanic into your game it may be more difficult than if you had also written the engine. Xamarin is another option, but it is also not cheap.

There are frameworks out there for making your own engine. The one I like is Libgdx, it is fast, free, and easy to use (its in Java but knowing C# that shouldn't matter). This also comes with Box2d, which I would highly recommend if you ever make a physics based game, or just wanna add realistic physics to any game. Box2d is used in many of the most successful mobile games: Angry Birds, Limbo, Tiny Wings... (You will be amazed at how little effort went into the Angry Birds code after using Box2d).

I would start with tutorials on Libgdx from youtube, my favorite are by a guy named dermetfan (links at the bottom). He covers everything you will need to know to start making a game with Libgdx and Box2d. This will help get an idea of what it takes to implement various mechanics in your game.

The most common advice I have heard for people trying to start making games is: reduce your scope. "Take the really awesome idea that you have, cut it in half, now cut that in half again, now it might be possible for you to make that in less than a year." Your first game cannot be the idea that made you wanna start making games, or else you will get frustrated and abandon game dev all together. Never start with 3d or multiplayer. Baby steps. Create really simple things that just demonstrate certain mechanics. Or my favorite, clone other games. Make a clone of tetris, or Angry Birds :) I usually pick old atari games.

Here are some links you may find helpful. Since you are most interested in methodology watch the talks given by Jonathan Blow and Will Wright, they contain better advice than I could ever give.

These talks by Jonathan Blow are a must watch for anyone interested in making games. In here he talks about the methodology and general mind set you should have about making a game on your own. Key advice includes, 'your biggest enemy is early optimization', 'quickly implemented specific systems, are often better than general systems', 'as an independent developer dont try to make a AAA game, make an indie game'
  How to program independent game - by Jonathan Blow
  Indie Prototyping - by Jonathan Blow
  The Implementation of Rewind in Braid - by Jonathan Blow

Game Design - by Will Wright

The Theory of Fun (must read!)

Dermetfan Libgdx Tutorials

iForce2d Box2d Turorials

Open Game Art

Indie Game the movie (for inspiration)

Sup Holmes (awesome interviews with indie game devs)

OpenGameArt.org can help you with that!

OGA is looking for people to help convert these assets into a more popular format and upload to OGA. Check it out here: http://opengameart.org/

I wondered why that was there!

SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
> Global Thermonuclear Wa^H^H^H Gamejam_

Bring your favorite libraries, and placeholder assets, or even snag some free ones online.

Hack together a fun little game in 12, 24, 36 or 48 hours. It's called a Game Jam. Games are just about the only program where you can use the entire gamut of a computer's capabilities and mathematics skills. Everything from text based adventure, to moving squares on the screen, to fully 3D flight simulators or procedural systems with learning AI. You've got optional Music, video in / out / overlays, every kind of algorithm you can possibly think of can be applied in a game. You can't do as much in a 48 hour window for just about any other kind of software, but at the end of a gamejam / hackathon, you'll all have lots of little somethings to take away, and show off, and a whole lot of fun in the process. Welcome to the next level.

Last summer there was the Liberated Pixel Cup challenge, http://lpc.opengameart.org/

It was a contest to produce game art in one month, and to write free/libre games the second month. You might like to browse the entries, pick a few and try to compille and play them. But you might have bad luck and find a few that are actually engrossing.

Or you could improve them, because they're all CC'd and/or GPL'd.

OGA founder here.

3D models are difficult to deal with. For some reason 3D art in general tends to have a lot of sticky licensing problems. This is partly because the most popular texture archive on the internet has a license that prevents redistribution of their textures. As such, a lot of models people would otherwise want to upload aren't acceptable in free and open source games, so we can't accept them on OGA.

We've started our own texture archive as a way to hopefully deal with this in the long term, but it's going to take some time.

The other problem is that 3D art costs vastly more to make than 2D art. We commission a lot of 2D stuff, but we just don't have the budget for any worthwhile 3D commissions.

Bart

And browsing the links from tha original article, it looks like Open Game Art is just what I want!

Write something. Participate in the Liberated Pixel Cup http://lpc.opengameart.org/ or write a game on your own. I just wrote one and it was fun: http://magigames.org/runestone_defense.html

The best programmers learn on their own. They tinker at home. Don't rely on school to teach you everything, or even most things.

Or you could just party and drink and get laid. :)

Not sure how serious you are, but as in terms of "dates" the contest dates are set in the rules: http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/lpc-rules

And if you want to "buy it"... well you can donate to us here! :)

Hey folks!

Founder of http://opengameart.org/ here. I noticed the bandwidth spike, so I thought I'd take a look at the referrer link, and I'm glad to see someone finally mention us on Slashdot. Honestly, I'd love to have a *real* slashdotting. The server's hefty enough to handle it, and the publicity would be immensely helpful. :)

At any rate, one of our underlying missions is to help FOSS games move beyond "programmer art", and we do that by taking donations and then using those to commission artists to do art. I run the site mostly out of pocket, and with all the commissions, it costs me a good $500 monthly, in addition to the roughly $100/month in donations that we bring in (mostly community members with recurring subscriptions). Shameless plug: If you subscribe, even for $3/month, that's money we can use to buy art for everyone that will never go away. :)

One of our current projects is an art revamp for a Smash Bros. clone called Ultimate Smash Friends. ( http://usf.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Main_Page )

Here's are the first two characters we've commissioned:

Xeon: http://opengameart.org/content/xeon-ultimate-smash-friends
Awesome Possum: http://opengameart.org/content/the-awesome-possum-ultimate-smash-friends

It's a lot of work, and it's not cheap, but there's a lot of FOSS game code out there with a lot of potential, and I think it's worth it. Plus, all of the assets we commission are CC-licensed, so they're reusable as part of the commons.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or ideas. If you have thoughts about the site interface (we're still working on it), there's a forum thread discussing planned changes for OGA 2.0. I'd love to hear what you think!

Peace,
Bart K.
http://opengameart.org/

Hey folks!

Founder of http://opengameart.org/ here. I noticed the bandwidth spike, so I thought I'd take a look at the referrer link, and I'm glad to see someone finally mention us on Slashdot. Honestly, I'd love to have a *real* slashdotting. The server's hefty enough to handle it, and the publicity would be immensely helpful. :)

At any rate, one of our underlying missions is to help FOSS games move beyond "programmer art", and we do that by taking donations and then using those to commission artists to do art. I run the site mostly out of pocket, and with all the commissions, it costs me a good $500 monthly, in addition to the roughly $100/month in donations that we bring in (mostly community members with recurring subscriptions). Shameless plug: If you subscribe, even for $3/month, that's money we can use to buy art for everyone that will never go away. :)

One of our current projects is an art revamp for a Smash Bros. clone called Ultimate Smash Friends. ( http://usf.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Main_Page )

Here's are the first two characters we've commissioned:

Xeon: http://opengameart.org/content/xeon-ultimate-smash-friends
Awesome Possum: http://opengameart.org/content/the-awesome-possum-ultimate-smash-friends

It's a lot of work, and it's not cheap, but there's a lot of FOSS game code out there with a lot of potential, and I think it's worth it. Plus, all of the assets we commission are CC-licensed, so they're reusable as part of the commons.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or ideas. If you have thoughts about the site interface (we're still working on it), there's a forum thread discussing planned changes for OGA 2.0. I'd love to hear what you think!

Peace,
Bart K.
http://opengameart.org/

Hey folks!

Founder of http://opengameart.org/ here. I noticed the bandwidth spike, so I thought I'd take a look at the referrer link, and I'm glad to see someone finally mention us on Slashdot. Honestly, I'd love to have a *real* slashdotting. The server's hefty enough to handle it, and the publicity would be immensely helpful. :)

At any rate, one of our underlying missions is to help FOSS games move beyond "programmer art", and we do that by taking donations and then using those to commission artists to do art. I run the site mostly out of pocket, and with all the commissions, it costs me a good $500 monthly, in addition to the roughly $100/month in donations that we bring in (mostly community members with recurring subscriptions). Shameless plug: If you subscribe, even for $3/month, that's money we can use to buy art for everyone that will never go away. :)

One of our current projects is an art revamp for a Smash Bros. clone called Ultimate Smash Friends. ( http://usf.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Main_Page )

Here's are the first two characters we've commissioned:

Xeon: http://opengameart.org/content/xeon-ultimate-smash-friends
Awesome Possum: http://opengameart.org/content/the-awesome-possum-ultimate-smash-friends

It's a lot of work, and it's not cheap, but there's a lot of FOSS game code out there with a lot of potential, and I think it's worth it. Plus, all of the assets we commission are CC-licensed, so they're reusable as part of the commons.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or ideas. If you have thoughts about the site interface (we're still working on it), there's a forum thread discussing planned changes for OGA 2.0. I'd love to hear what you think!

Peace,
Bart K.
http://opengameart.org/

Hey folks!

Founder of http://opengameart.org/ here. I noticed the bandwidth spike, so I thought I'd take a look at the referrer link, and I'm glad to see someone finally mention us on Slashdot. Honestly, I'd love to have a *real* slashdotting. The server's hefty enough to handle it, and the publicity would be immensely helpful. :)

At any rate, one of our underlying missions is to help FOSS games move beyond "programmer art", and we do that by taking donations and then using those to commission artists to do art. I run the site mostly out of pocket, and with all the commissions, it costs me a good $500 monthly, in addition to the roughly $100/month in donations that we bring in (mostly community members with recurring subscriptions). Shameless plug: If you subscribe, even for $3/month, that's money we can use to buy art for everyone that will never go away. :)

One of our current projects is an art revamp for a Smash Bros. clone called Ultimate Smash Friends. ( http://usf.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Main_Page )

Here's are the first two characters we've commissioned:

Xeon: http://opengameart.org/content/xeon-ultimate-smash-friends
Awesome Possum: http://opengameart.org/content/the-awesome-possum-ultimate-smash-friends

It's a lot of work, and it's not cheap, but there's a lot of FOSS game code out there with a lot of potential, and I think it's worth it. Plus, all of the assets we commission are CC-licensed, so they're reusable as part of the commons.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or ideas. If you have thoughts about the site interface (we're still working on it), there's a forum thread discussing planned changes for OGA 2.0. I'd love to hear what you think!

Peace,
Bart K.
http://opengameart.org/

1) Multiplayer foss gmes are more common because it is easier to get into touch with other people who like to play (and) code multiplayer games. Which is blessing as they can agree on game design and mechanics because they usually want to clone one specific game (which is good thing because project where developers can not agree on basic mechanics die fast.).

2) Decent detailed 3D model of one humanoid creature can take month or more. Skilled artists simply do not have enough free time to do it as hobby. At best, you either end up with quickly made models of low quality by someone experienced.

3) Storyline is major pain and i frankly prefer f/oss games without story because if they have one, it is pretty terrible thanks to internal group dynamics where plot is decided by comitee (where everyone wants to have "his" contribution, especially people who do not know much about to how to create good story but which were nursed by whatever crap paperbacks local game store had). You really need able writer and devs that do not mess it up.

4) It is very hard to dismiss submissions as low quality. Hurt feelings, vendetas, splintering of groups. Game eventually end up being mess of assets that you can not get rid of without major political struggle.

But hey, sites like this: http://opengameart.org/ exist and they are awesome!