Well, gathering a team base isn’t impossible, but it is just very challenging. It is rather easy to just jump on a forum and try to assemble a team, but I have some advice that will probably be very helpful in your quest.
What you are dealing with…
Programmers in general are pretty occupied people. We all have our own agendas and projects we are working on while battling the toils of real life. As such, if the project leader fails to get our attention with some good detailed documents, chances are, we aren’t going to look his way. In order for a project leader to be successful in getting people to help, that person is going to have to put in some work.
The Quote…
“We are going to code for fun and learning.”
That isn’t going to cut it. We are already coding for those things in our spare time, so the project leader is going to have to get more savvy than that. People, but programmers especially, like order in the work we do. Disorder in work shows badly for interest in any project as far as programmers are concerned. So, in order to get these people, we have to bring our project to their level of thinking.
The idea…
All games start with an idea. The first step to try and consolidate your idea into one sentence. It can be something very simple like…
“I want to make a Pac-man game.”
or something a little bit more abstract like…
“I want to make a game about space pirates harvesting planets from killer aliens.”
The idea is the most important tool in the project leaders arsenal. It helps us tell others what the general focus of the project is going to be.
The technology…
After that, the next best course is to find the technology that would be best suited for hosting your game. (In this case, since your on a Java forum, I would think it would be Java.) However, you just scout around reviewing the different technologies available, and look for one that will allow you to complete your game. If the reasoning is simply because you want to know more about Slick2D, for instance… more power to you. (This section is also the place where you decide if you’d want to make a single-player or multi-player game.)
The detailed document…
The next step is to start charting out the details for the game in question. Usually, the best place to start charting this out is with simple sketches and a notepad. You want to start charting out the settings, the objects, and the statistics of how the objects are going to interact. After a while, you’ll have a pretty large document of all the features planned for the game. The most important aspect of document writing is to be as detailed as possible. Try to get all the ideas planned and out there at once.
Trim down…
After this, you want to trim down the game into something a little bit more manageable. Try to get the game ideas all down to a few pages, and split up those into smaller chunks so you can create small levels and worlds in your game.
Try it…
Then, you start the coding process and use whatever placeholders you may find to start bringing your project to life. It doesn’t necessarily have to be complete, but any little bit helps.
Marketing…
Now you are ready to market your idea out there for people to look at. Many people will look. Some might not give it a second look, others might pass it by, but there will always be a few onlookers looking at the project. Keep persistent at it and some people will look to help out if they see your effort is great enough.
tl:DR
Getting people to join up for anything is a lot of work on your part. The best way to learn about a programming language is to either go to a class, or just practice it yourself. Even though being in a group is an ideal working condition, it will add a whole new flurry of problems to the programming process.
However, just because it is hard, doesn’t mean you should give up. The more work you show as a programmer with your ability, the more people will be drawn to your work. The key is to keep working toward your goal of getting a team. If you follow those steps above, it will help you get a better starting position on attracting programmers. (It should also help you attract artists and musicians as well, but just make sure that you post at a place where they would be abundant.)
