Using Quake to teach gamedev

[mankrip]

I'm in a quite bad financial situation, and one of the ideas I've had is to give some private gamedev classes in my house. I'd be using Quake engines, because that's what I know best. My own engine, along with FTEQW and maybe Darkplaces.

Does anyone here have some experience with this kind of work? What to expect?

are my computers. It's not much, and I guess I'd be able to teach only a maximum of 2 people at a time, because the second laptop is too old and slow.

Some of the contents of the classes would be:
- QC;
- Alias commands, config files and installation;
- Texture / GUI image / sprite editing;
- Mapping (using Jackhammer).
MDL model editing shouldn't be featured, because it'd surely be far beyond the learning skills of anyone where I live.

And there would be maybe a few tech demos featuring those contents, using royalty-free free assets or assets made from scratch. Due to the "no MDL" rule, the demos would be limited to styles where 2D sprites works well (third-person side scrollers, top scrollers, or anything else where the camera doesn't rotate in 3D). And only action games; no RPGs, RTSs, simulators or whatever.

I'm still not sure about doing this. Many potential students would certainly be interested, but I guess very few would be able to pay anything. The audience would most likely be 11-25 year old people with very bad math skills and no English knowledge. Also, I have no idea how much of my free time I'd have to spend on this.

[Baker]

I'm sorry to hear about this and I hope things go well.

[xaGe]

I wish you luck with whatever you end up doing.

[mankrip]

Thanks. Anyway, I've always had the idea of doing something like this for free someday (which is why I wouldn't like to do it under the current circumstances), so I was wondering if someone else had similar experiences. I find it fun to teach, when the student is actually interested, and I've done some volunteer work as a class monitor ten years ago.

One thing I find quite valuable in Quake modding is that it forces people to think outside of the box. The engine and QC code architecture are exclusively focused in action games, and this encourages mod developers to learn their math and physics. The lack of string manipulation means that the developer would need to really think outside of the box to create RPGs and the like, and the lack of arrays means the same for several kinds of puzzle games. There's no easy way out, no simple way out, and no quick way out.

I think this "spartan" approach of Quake is what encourages its enthusiasts to learn so much, so I think it could be used as a teaching tool.

[JasonX]

I would definitely take some classes! Where do you live? Have you considered setting up a patreon for your engine work? Most of the guys here would love to support you.

[mankrip]

[qbism]

What about streaming classes or live development work on Twitch? Twitch has a subscription model. Might go hand-in-hand with the Patreon idea.
As mentioned in OP, there's probably an 11-25 audience. But perhaps an older dev audience as well who might want to get into it as a hobby. The kind of people making new games for retro platforms perhaps.

[frag.machine]

Vimeo and YouTube would be good options, too.

[mankrip]

Live streams are impossible because I don't have any Internet access at home (not even on a smartphone), and I intend to keep it that way. Internet access is really bad for productivity.

My engine won't work on retro platforms, and it doesn't work on the Dreamcast anymore.

Video editing takes a ton of time, so I'm not sure about it. I prefer to spend my time coding.

[mankrip]

I'm planning what to do with Patreon. First, I'm working on an engine feature that should help to exemplify the new direction of my engine work.

Also, I'm a bit shy about the whole situation, so I'm pondering about it a lot.