I got started on this game in particular because I'm kinda sorta part of the [aspiring] indie community here in Baltimore. I say kinda sorta because I joined the Facebook group and planned on going to meetings. It's not like there's any barrier of entry to that particular community/group. So that group put together a game jam (
http://bmoreindiegamejam.com/) and I said cool, this is an excuse for me to get off my ass and start working on a game again.
There are various things you can do to help contribute to a game but the 2 core roles you'll see in a game jam like this are Programmer and Artist. With a side of musicians or sound engineers. I'm of the programmer variety. I've known for a long time (since high school and I'm 30 now) that I've wanted to program - whether video games or otherwise so I've always focused on programming. In any case, if you want to get into video games, my best advice would be to just start. Start with Unity or GameMaker and pick up programming as you go. Tom Francis, the guy that made Gunpoint did just that. He had no programming or game making experience and made Gunpoint in about 3 years in GameMaker and is now working on his next project in Unity.
It's cost me nothing but my own time so far. Right now it's a team of 4: me, 2 more programmers and an artist. Since the 2 additional programmers have joined, I've played more of a mentorship/management role - helping them learn Unity and maybe even a little game dev in general. And the artist has really transformed it from the look in the first gif to the look in the second gif. He made the models, animation and the water. I may have to invest some money depending on how I approach monetization and stuff but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.