Thanks,
Posting stuff like this is super hard for me. I wrote a full on RPG a while ago. Combination strategy & Resources management game and LARP (don't judge!). I was in the final stages of it, after about 6 years of work. I was just going through final polish when... one of my "friends" took a copy, reworded some of it, then copyrighted it as his own. I had known the guy for over 10 years, and basically since he was a kid, and it's been a struggle to want to put anything creative out anywhere for anyone to even look at because of that.
Slowly getting over it, so hopefully this will help me get past one really bad experience.
I can't negate what must have been an awful and scarring experience for you - and the truth is such things can happen so you need to cover yourself as much as you can, making sure that anything you share - even with friends - is adequately licensed and so on. Using something like GitLab to host a private repository while you develop also provides a time-line and code trail which would easily counter any claim anyone else made on your work.
But for every bad egg there are lots of good people out there willing to help and encourage simply because they themselves are in a similar position of have gone through it in the past, or just because they are enthusiastic about game development and want to see what you come up with.
One of the great rewards of game development is to see people playing and enjoying the fruits of your work. I suspect that applies to any creative endeavour.
Thanks I need to be reminded of that sometimes. I am working on getting it out there. I do know I do much better on deadlines when I publicly announce them. The pressure is on then, and I want feed back on how this whole thing goes. I'm excited for what's in store for it.
I also need to do more with Git. Ugh... I've been putting that beast off for far too long.
