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What Are the Best First Steps For Becoming a Game Designer?
todd10k writes "I've recently decided to go back to college. I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day. I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
Get out while you still can. I can't imagine a worse career path.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study?
Hmmmm, I'm not sure this is going to be a fruitful discussion. It's not too clear to me what kind of game development interests you most. The truth is that games have been written in many languages and developers often scoff at any guideline to restrict them from writing a game in -- say Java -- when there are more efficient languages. Assuming you want to get into console games and/or PC games, I would suggest starting out with simple authoring tools and just tinker with them. Download GameKit and get it building on your development machine. Then set weekly goals for yourself to modify the Space Invaders game by changing graphics, sound, maybe even mechanics. Once you've done that and are bored, move on to another kit/sdk.
... they are both great languages for different tasks. It's more important that if you want to be a graphics engine guy you understand how major APIs are laid out to implement tiles and shaders and renderers ... Go here to start thinking aobut what aspect of the game interests you most.
You see, I doubt the importance is that you know how C++ or Lua works
What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept?
This is a topic I could drone on for hours about. Enjoy life, man. They'll take you with a 2 year tech degree or less if you're built for coding. But don't do that. Enjoy the college expereince, go to a four year liberal arts college. Explore math, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, music, etc. I took enough music theory to major in music but I didn't. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?
You should really concentrate on one of three types of games: web, console, PC. While the last two are related, the idea of catering to hardware probably has an effect on games. Is a PC developer going to care about Sony's Emotion engine while a console guy might live and breathe it. Honestly, fool around with Allegro, SDL and OpenGL if you're looking to do serious game coding.
You've got a long difficult road ahead if you're going down this path. You're going to have your heart broken by Blizzard and end up over worked and underpaid at EA. Game programming seems to find you, you can only prepare yourself for it. Read John Carmack's story in Masters of Doom or just wait for the upcoming movie about it.
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
Don't forget to have fun and good luck!
My work here is dung.
But how old are you? Remember your going to be competing with god knows how many late teens/earlier 20s, willing to work 6-7 days a week to get exp/cause they're silly (hell I did it..).
I would say tho if your interested, graduate some form of game dev school which would cover a lot of the basics you need to know about. Then start interning/looking for entry level positions.
You may need to move around the country and or switch countries if your willing.
oogly boogly!
Game Programming? What in particular:
- UI / Tools
- Graphics, Physics
- Networking
- AI
- Mobile Gaming
etc
But in general if you want to go into Game Programming hit a CS degree and do a game development masters. All while learning C++ and trying to develop a nice portfolio of little games you've created yourself. Try and find a Masters program with hooks into the games industry because they will be your best bet to even get a foot in the door.
If it is Game Design they do an arts degree like English Lit and then do a Masters in Game Design. Same deal with the shoe in the door thing, find the college with the best links not the best course.
C. A taste for ramen.
D. A willingness to update your resume every six months.
E. The number of your State Attorney General's Labor Enforcement Division, to file a complaint when they suddenly decide to stop paying you and ask you to work for free until they close the next round of funding, which is always just a week or two away.
You'll get a lot of decent answers, and I won't try to duplicate any of them here. My addition: amidst many mediocre books about Game Design, there are a couple that really stand out. The first one to come to mind is "The Art of Game Design":
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965
While you are perfecting everyone else's good suggestions, give this one a read...
If your approach to a new career is to find out the bare minimum you need to start... odds are you're not going to excel.
There's not a lot of stories from successful game developers that start with 'When I got in at 8am' and end with 'Then I left at 5pm.'
If you think you've got 'it', do what the guy who did Braid did -- make it. Don't wait for someone to give you a stamp of approval. Sing it loud.
Otherwise, stick with your day job.
1) Just start doing it, start working on an open-source game like www.nexuiz.com
2) Don't do it in ASP
Simple, just get a job at EA. They quality of their recent products suggests they train on the job!
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Trolling is a art,
From Wikipedia: Game design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in an actual game as well as documentation that describes such a design. I think you are confusing game design with game programming. If you are designing the game, then you would be in charge of coordinating with the programming team (not actually programming). First you should develop a clear image of what you actually wish to do :)
why don't you do something less degrading, like suck dick for crack.
http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/txtSearch/hydra/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/467/Default.aspx I know it's 200 bucks but you're really buying the book more than the hardware. The book it comes with starts out at the very beginning of how console and computer hardware works and how it can be used for gaming. This is the best place to start. There's an entire community of people that can help you as well if you get this unit. When it's done you'll know everything from what signal is coming out of the controller when you push a button to calculating the inverse square root of a light source to produce shadows or however that's done. Once you grasp how to program for this unit you can easily graduate to more complex things.
See a competent therapist. No rational person would willingly sell himself into indentured servitude in exchange for a salary, and that's exactly what you'll be doing by becoming a game designer.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Get a few C++ books, learn how to draw pixelart and make 8-bit tracks. If you're dedicated, it won't be that hard. Make a small, but fun game entirely by yourself. Put it online. If you're really good, you will get noticed.
First of all, good luck, and I hope you succeed.
But what makes you think that having played games gives you the talent to be a game designer/programmer? Why is this a desirable profession?
Consider the example of cars (just because it's slashdot). I like cars. I like driving cars and doing some of my own minor repair work. That said, I would absolutely hate to be an automotive engineer. Being an avid driver or mechanic enjoying a particularly well built machine is entirely different from being the person in charge of designing and building a machine.
Or consider the example of popular fictional universes (like Trek or Star Wars). I imagine there are a lot of geeks who could spout any amount of minutiae about various ships, planets, races, etc. in a number of fictional SF worlds. That doesn't mean they would necessarily enjoy creating them from scratch. And even if they did create one, I imagine the soul-sucking mass of nit-picky fandom would quickly rob what little joy was left.
Are you sure you don't actually want to be a game tester? It seems to be more in the line of what you enjoy about games - playing them.
the more programming knowledge u have the more jobs you can get when it comes down to programming. never learn 1 single programming language and never only write code for a single architecture. the gaming industry requires flexibility, some people have tons of degrees and never cut it in a work environment and some have none and thrive. it all depends on how well you can work with others and how well you can share your knowledge and take criticism from non-programmers. it's a tough business to get into, allot of developers today come from linux and server programming community and have worked for nothing for years!
I haven't thoroughly investigated that possible career path - mostly because of the high burnout rate (not that I've seen any statistics - that's just an observation from anecdotal evidence), so I could be out in left field.
A designer and a developer are not equivalent - would you ask a construction worker to design your house? Or your architect to construct it?
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That said, IMO the best way to get into any field is not through studying - though that is important.
For example, if you want to get hired to work on games, you might start by making mods for existing games and releasing your work for free to the community. If you still love it, get some more formal education, while using that new knowledge in your work. When you graduate, you should have a good idea of what you're getting yourself into, plus you should have some street cred and excellent samples of your work.
With that sort of background, even if you don't get hired, you could at the very least hire yourself - if you are any good, that is to say.
Many modern FPS and RTS games have SDKs available where you can create mods of the original game. Pick your favorite, figure out what language it requires, study that, and make a mod for the game. It will get you used to working with level design tools, which you're going to need at some point, as well as programming in that language as it pertains to games. If you can bring in extra developers, that's good teamwork experience, which you'll need in just about any field period.
Companies like Valve have been known to hire accomplished mod-makers. Don't get your hopes up on that, but it's something to think about.
Game development is HARD. It's definitely in the "deep-end" of computer programming. You better know some serious math, too.
What I'm saying is, most of the game developers who have jobs doing it have been doing it "for fun" since they were kids. It takes YEARS of work/experimentation/dedication to develop the skills to write a modern game.
If you are planning just to learn some programming and get a job in the game industry, don't be surprised if you get are stuck in entry-level positions for a LONG time. You aren't going to be game programming, per se. You're going to be debugging the installer for the game, stuff like that.
I've been developing games with XNA for the past few years as a hobby. Compared to using C++ with OpenGL or DirectX, it is very easy. The programming language is in C# (very easy to learn if you already know C++). XNA is created by MS and basically wraps around DirectX. It contains a good amount of classes that you normally see in video games, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to vectors, matrices, textures, models, managing your content, etc. My favorite thing about XNA is that if you pay for the Creator's Licence ($50 every 6 months), you can create games for the XBox360 and release them, and sell them, without going through the hassles of finding a publisher. Porting from the PC to the XBox 360 usually only requires a change of a few lines of code, if any.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Game DESIGNER?
Well, you could try to create some board games or your own pen & paper RPG. No programmers required for either of those.
"what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
You seem to have confused "game designer" with "game programmer". A good game designer would be able to create a good game out of a story, a die, some arbitrary rules, and his imagination. It sounds like you are thinking of a different job description.
In the UK the level of degree doesn't hugely matter, although impressive shiny degrees do look impressive and shiny. But degrees don't mean anything if you don't have the demo.
There are a few games companies that have sections explaining what they're looking for in applicants - http://www.bizarrecreations.com/jobs/ one comes to mind, although I know there are others. http://www.gamedevmap.com/ is your friend.
Games dev is hard work and you will end up pulling long hours towards the end of a project - especially as a coder. If seeing your name on the credits when the game is finally released isn't enough of a payoff, it's probably the wrong job for you.
Good luck!
The big story I think of is Portal which came out of a Freeware game created at Digipen called Narbacular Drop. So, that's the kind of thing that gives me a (perhaps innaccurate) view of Digipen. Hey, some students from there went almost straight from there to Valve! And have a hit video game under their belts to boot!
Now, what does that mean? Well, looking for an equivalent program where you are going to school would probably be a start. I don't know how Full Sail, I know a guy who went there for film and works for a newspaper now, but that might just be because of his personality and overly cautious nature. (They have a game design program too, which is why I bring them up.)
Note: Game programming, designing, etc, is notoriously horrible as a career. Don't take my advice as me saying go into it as a career, but if I were going to, this is where I'd start.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
As a 6 year veteran of the games industry, my best advice for someone who wants to be a game designer is simple: make games. Make games every day. Make board games, make flash games, invent physical games played with sports equipment, whatever. The medium is less important than just spending time designing fun games and then watching real people play them in front of you. Make a mod for an existing game or engine, make your own twist on a classic game like Tetris or even chess. Just make games.
If making games isn't something you'd do every day for fun anyway, then it's not the career for you.
First off, forget the college degree if all you want it for is to design/develop games. You can do so on your own without the degree. *** I'd suggest laearning C/C++ and at least one .NET language as well as studying/learning UI and graphic design theories.
Now - I see a lot of comments previous to mine that suggest getting out and not working for a game company. I agree wholeheartedly. If you want to design just games, start your own game company. You will want a niche market - DS games, PC games for Thai Children, Mainframe Games - and focus on doing just that. Then you can expand out. One designer I know who's been somewhat successful is Bill Kendrick. He writes multi-platform educational games. My kids love them: http://tux4kids.alioth.debian.org
Good luck out there.
*** Now, I have recently hired two developers who got the job partially because they worked on games while in college. They had collaborated on a C++ based game which was installable and playable. This put the two of them above the average applicant who had only done coursework. Keep in mind, I manage a government-based software development group so we don't "do" games here. However, their experience did help them get an edge when starting. (We do most development in C#/.NET.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
I don't think people often learn programming because they love gaming. Rather, they learn programming because they love programming.
Take a programming course. If you are a virtuoso, you might make it even with the late start.
Otherwise (or perhaps instead) take inventory of the skills you have now and find a way to apply them to the gaming industry. If that's a dead end, then you are starting from scratch anyway, and it will take some effort on your part to figure out what the best niche in the industry is for you.
"Good grief, who the hell wants to be a [code monkey]? what a dull occupation that must "
Fixed that for you.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Just because you have "played games for most of your adult life" doesn't mean that becoming a game delevoper is the best career decision for you. I am also an avid gamer. And like you, I also had aspirations of someday becoming a game developer when I was younger. I started out by tinkering with mod tools and working on game maps and such.
I decided to take the next step and pursue a degree in CS. I quickly discovered that it wasn't for me. It's not that I couldn't do the work; I just found programming to be tedious. The amount of work involved to write even the simplest program was frustrating for me. I came out with a higher respect for programmers, and a degree in IT.
Look around any indie game developer forum and you'll see tons of posts about games that sound great, but only a handful of posts about games that are working and finished. Many of these get through the initial design stages, but their creators stall out at some process after that. Sometimes the design is simply too complicated for a first project. Sometimes they get a few lines of code down, but never return. Sometimes they implement all the interesting parts, but get hung up on the final details necessary for making a release.
My first suggestion is to use Apple as a model and never talk about things you are planning. Only talk about things that are finished or very close to finishing. You may need some outside programming help at some point along the way, of course, but there's rarely a need to get too specific about your game when asking for help.
Second, finish something. It can be a simple as a pong clone. Doesn't matter if anybody ever downloads it, just finish it and release it. Just getting that far puts you above 90% of the indie "developers" out there.
Not a typewriter
Designing a game is very very different to programming one. C++ isn't going to help you get a design job at all. If you are expecting to be a programmer in the industry, and want to influence the design aspects of a game, then to be perfectly honest you are going to be disappointed. It doesn't happen.
If you're aiming to be a programmer, then yes C++ is pretty much required, along with a host of other languages:
- lua/ruby/python or other scripting language.
- GLSL/HLSL/cg
- C#, mel, vb, tcl/tk for tools programming.
In addition, you may also want to get experience of:
- trig, linear algebra, quaternions, collision detection
- SSE intrinsics
- Animation and physics coding
- Geometry deformation techniques
- Space partitioning algorithms
If you really want to stand out from the crowd, start putting work into your art portfolio, and get a lot of experience of animation and modelling tools (max/maya/xsi).
Sorry if the paragraph breaks end up jumbled here; Slashdot is being weird for me.
Disclaimer: I am a professional game developer
Why are you asking how to be a game designer, and then turning around and asking about programming languages? Decide which job you want.
Truly, the best way to immediately become a designer is to start your own company. Outside of that, nobody will want to hire an unknown to design things, unless you somehow have an extremely impressive portfolio. No matter how many games you've played and how great that experience is, it is an entirely different beast than designing a game.
The best experience for designing, if you still want to continue down that path, is to read about it constantly, and actually do it, also constantly, and get lots of people to tell you how you're a bad designer, until they stop saying that. Get a subscription to Game Developer Magazine, read books on game design, and by all means design your own games. Start simple and write a complete design document for an existing game such as Pac-Man. Maybe even figure out how to make it better and incorporate that into your design. Join the nearest IGDA chapter and go to meetings. Form relationships with people in the industry and ask them to critique your design documents from a professional viewpoint.
Now, you asked about programming languages, which is totally not what a designer should be asking. But if you want to go that route and be a game programmer, then consider what platforms you want to target, and learn the languages appropriate for that. For the iPhone, learn Objective-C++. For consoles, C++ is generally the way to go. For websites, probably ActionScript in Flash, or you could try lua in WildPockets. And if you have aspirations of being a level scripter (much easier than arbitrary game programming), then you should learn to make a mod in a variety of engines using their native languages: lua, python, UnrealScript, QuakeC, etc.
For any route you want to take, the most important thing for you to learn is everything. By that, I mean study all kinds of topics that you might think are completely unrelated to game design: history, fashion, languages, art, avionics. After you've gotten yourself into the habit of learning with great breadth and depth, and hopefully applying your new varied knowledge to your ideas, the best way for you to get a job in the industry is to meet and hang out with people who are already in it. To that end, join your local IGDA chapter, as I mentioned two paragraphs ago.
C++ is the language of choice, as I understand it, but a Bachelor of Computer Science is really what you need. However, as parent said, there's no way you're going to get in with just a degree. Think of how many gamers there are out there, and how many of them want to make a career out of games: almost all of them. That's who you're competing against.
You'll need a substantial portfolio of game dev work you've done, so get coding right away: Join open source game dev projects online, build your own games/programs, show what you can do that most others can't.
Game dev is an EXTREMELY competitive field, and if you don't have the drive to devote the majority of your life (and soul) to it, then...again, as parent said, stick with your day job.
Everyone is saying learn this... watch that...etc.. But the reality if you want to make a really great game you have to make it psychologically addictive and ideally very social. You have to know the strengths/weaknesses of humans. Their insecurities and what makes them feel great. Give them that rush of victory but also remind them that without this game they are nothing. (See most WoW players)
what are the best languages to study?
Considering you ask about computer languages too, I'm assuming you are being literal. Hindi and English.
What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept?
High school dropout with proof of code.
Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
C++ and LUA.
IMHO Listen to the "don't do it responses".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
The days when a guy who designed the game's main gameplay might also build the levels and code even parts of the title are long, long gone. If you learn to be a games programmer, you will be coding the engine and/or producing tools for the people who will do the actual game design work, or at the very least adapting middleware for those same purposes. You will have no official creative say in the project, and aside from a few exceptions (Kojima's MGS2 team notebooks) your creative input will not be appreciated by the design team, who have plenty of their own ideas to deal with.
As far as level design goes, you'll want to learn to work with the main creative tools of the trade, actually building levels. Some experience with other CAD software and 3D modelling could do you well there. As far as deep-down games design goes, you're only going to get a job doing that if you are a very, very shit-hot level designer who gets promoted to head of level design and beyond, or you create some incredible mod that goes commercial, or you actually design your own games on your own time and eventually get hired by a developer or build up your own company. I think that the time when you could work your way up from head of testing by proving your experience with games design are long gone.
Basic message: if you're not a game designer, you have to become one first, and then try to get the job. You can become a codemonkey on the back of a good CV, but that's all.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
There's not going to be a simple answer to your questions. If you want to make games, make games. You can write them in Flash or Objective-C or Perl or PHP or Lisp or C++ or... Obviously you'll have a little trouble writing an iPhone game in Flash, or a Flash game in !Flash, so choose the right tool for the job; but if you're in college, your goal shouldn't be to learn a single tool and then pretend that all the jobs you might get later in life use that one tool.
Also, most of the game industry doesn't care about your degree(s). They care about what you can do, and in particular how you've demonstrated that you can do things by having done things. So do things, and get them done. Get the degree to help you have a career to start on, a career to fall back on, and a career to move on to... burn out is common, and doing this your whole life and then retiring is ridiculously rare.
--Matthew
Back when game development teams consisted of 10-20 people, everyone on the team had a good chance of eventually becoming designers, if they had the skills.
Now however, teams are made up of hundreds of people, and every one of them, programmers, artists, level editors and QA monkeys, are aiming for that design job. This means that if you want to have any chance of becoming a game designer, you're going to have to master the dark and unholy art of Office Politics.
Even if you do eventually get promoted to designer, if you don't crash and burn beforehand, you'll find your creativity constrained by marketing, who'll tell you exactly what the focus group for this game wants, and you sure as hell better give it to them if you want to keep your job.
1. learn all about games, start by playing every available game.
2. Whatever (I'm still not done with stage one)
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
You question is a little confusing. You say "designer" but then talk about learning C++. I will assume you mean designer.
As far as I know, companies like EA don't easily hire junior game designers. But a graphics arts degree would help you express your design ideas better than a computer science degree would, especially in an interview. If truly what you want is design, then you really should be approaching it from an Arts direction rather than a Science & Engineering direction. Design is mostly a creative process. Development is mostly a technical one.
One way around becoming an artist is to make a few indy games (PC or iPhone or whatever). When you're an indy developer you have to do the design, and the programming. If you find a programmer who doesn't want to do much design that you have chemistry with, you can go far if you have any natural talent at design. The experience will be valuable if you decide to join a big team at a game company. And if you make anything good there is a possibility that a big company will just buy you out for your intellectual property. Usually it can be arranged that you become part of the staff when you get bought out, if you so desire. I know a few people who got jobs by when their 1 or 2 man company was bought. Without an experienced programmer to work with your ability to express your designs will be very limited, and the results will likely not be very impressive if you do all the programming yourself.
I would avoid things like Hydra, they have little to teach because the environment is weird and too low-level. It is lower level than the original NES. I would recommend Gameboy Advance programming(pretty easy, can be done in C) or even NES programming(fairly hard, must be done in asm for useful results) over Hydra. YBox2 is cheaper and a more interesting game platform than Hydra, but lacks documentation. But it is also weird in a lot of the same ways, but YBox2 has an 8-core processor on it which lets you decouple a lot of the ugly video generation code from your game.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Here's one example, it's in Canada. There are many others.
http://www.upei.ca/csit/videogaming
Good luck!
Sorry to burst your bubble but game designer/game programmer is one of these professions that you can't just say "hey, I know what I wanna do in life, I want to be a X. Now I'll just go to college to become that!". You can't right out of the blue suddenly decide to go to college to become a successful game designer/programmer/pianist/geologist/astronomer/graphical artist, because to have a successful career in those things you need a passion, and if you had the passion for it then whatever you want to make into a career would be your hobby to begin with.
From what you told us you don't seem to have any such passion, it sounds more like you decided "hey that sounds kind of cool, I'll just put my mind to it and surely I'll succeed". It doesn't work that way, because half of your colleagues will be people who code 512 byte demos in ARM assembly in their spare time just for fun, and who've been doing that type of thing since a decade before you had the bright idea of considering making games. My advice would be, either follow whatever passion you REALLY have, or go for a job that doesn't take any.
You just got troll'd!
So far, you seem to say you are interested in programming games because you are interested in playing them.
What you really need to figure out is "are you interested in programming".
Just because you like playing games does not mean you will enjoy, or even have the aptitude for, programming.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
> You should really concentrate on one of three types of games: web, console, PC.
Which are all spiraling into oblivion at this time. Certainly footnotes by the time the OP finishes courses. Talk about out of the loop.
iPhone.....mobile gaming - do it - do it now.
EA used to guarantee 80 hours a week with free overtime!
Excellent for all those salaried programmers!
So if you like working... a lot, go for it.
And buy C++ direct3d game programming book.
Too advanced then buy a beginners book.
Game design is as much about programming as telescopes are to Astronomy.
The question is horribly muddled.
I want to be a game designer and then... "Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
Sorry, lets start from the beginning. Do you want to be a game designer or a games programmer? If it's the former then language isn't really important, you should be focussing on being able to create a good interactive story so you probably really need to study something like literature or perhaps even a screenwriting class would help if you can't get an explicit game design class. Don't expect to get far though, really there's a lot of people who want to be game designers, in fact, probably too many, because everyone wants to be in control of a team that will make their dream game for them, very few actually come up with ideas that everyone else thinks is awesome too. You have to be able to develop games that everyone will enjoy, not that you think would be cool which isn't as easy a skill as many probably assume. Programming will be a help to some extent, but it's not the first thing to worry about if you want to be a designer.
If you in fact want to be a programmer, then you need to get some basic knowledge of programming, the fact you suggested ASP is puzzling, I'm not even aware of any web based games written in ASP - I've only ever seen them written in PHP. I can only guess then that you're just throwing around terms you've seen about the net to make it look like you're anywhere near close to even beginning to work towards your ideal career. The issue is you can't even get started as you don't even seem to have a basic idea of what you want to do, or what is involved in these roles.
So here's the best advice anyone can give based on your question - go read some places like Gamedev.net or Gamasutra.com. Actually figure out what you want to do first. Don't come back and say I want to be a programmer, come back and say "I want to be an engine programmer", or "I want to be an AI programmer" or whatever else.
If you're wondering why a lot of responses here seem hostile, it's because you seem to be expecting answers without even bothering to put as little effort is required to even figure out what you need to ask first. If you had at least done that and figured out if you want to be a designer or a programmer you'd probably find better responses.
Still, the Slashdot editors should've at least picked that up, I'd like to think they vet questions to see if they make sense first but judging by this one it seems like it was streamed straight from their inbox onto the front page.
I hope this response will in itself give you a good start though as again you really need to figure out what it is you actually want. When you do finally figure out what you want, may I suggest you start by working with an indie or a mod team to at least get an idea of the facets involved in building a game first hand. I'd suggest you also read some books and so on, but most importantly perhaps - just get involved in a community like that at Gamedev.net or somewhere that produces indie focussed engines like Garagegames or the C4 engine community at terathon.com or perhaps even get involved with an open source rendering engine like ogre.
If you are asking the question you probably don't have the drive to actually to do what it is you are asking about. I'm not trying to be rude but one of the traits of those that are good at what they do is their ability to research on their own. My brother has often in the past asked me where he should start... to this day he has not even applied to college or for that matter even read a book about programming on his own. The lack of self initiative is a good indicator of future success. You probably just think it would be cool to be that but when it comes down to it, the work to do it will be too much.
I can't tell you how to become a game designer. I can tell you how to go about becoming a programmer. Learn C, learn C++ and then learn any other language you want. What's important is that you learn how to solve problems using the language of your choice. It's about process more than procedure. Programmers think like programmers. Becoming a programmer is about learning to think like a programmer.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If it's to your taste to have little, polished games instead of the big huge epic games that are common on consoles, you could go into the Flash game field. Here's the thing: I know a pair of Flash devs, and they work HARD. Seriously. Spend two hours looking through your ActionScript code looking for the rare scenario of where the game modes overlap and the player gets twenty boss enemies at once instead of two, and you'll want to pull your hair out. (Yes, they are two guys who have specifically complained of this particular scenario, and they are already most of the way bald. :)
Design is not the same thing as programming in the big guns' world. In the small end of the world (Flash games, iPhone apps, etc.) yes, you can do both ends of the business but you will need to do a lot of work. There aren't many people that pull it off.
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
I ended up getting a job as a game producer thanks to Quake. I was playing online in a clan, and was one of the worst in the group but having fun. To help my score I "cheated" by figuring out how to modify the models in the game, and then adding the rocket attribute to all the player models. This caused them to smoke when they ran (pretty funny) and more importantly glow in a way which allowed me to see them when they hid in dark areas or were just around the corner.
This was long before Punkbuster, wallhacks, or any other cheats. The result was I played a lot better. One of the guys in the clan found out what I had done, and his father owned a game development studio. Next thing I know I was on a plane for Silicon Valley and working as a game producer for a few dreamcast and playstation games.
Unfortunately I was only able to continue to work until my life savings ran out. Yes the jokes about eating Tap Ramen are quite true. I was making only about 70% of what I needed just to cover basic expenses. When I asked for a raise I was told in no uncertain terms that there were plenty of other kids living with their parents who would gladly work for what I was getting.
I'm now a sysadmin living in the midwest making about 3x what I was making in the games industry, and my mortgage payment is less than the rent on my studio in Silicon Valley. I love what I do, but am really glad I took the opportunity to work in the video games industry. Have I thought about writing something on my own, sure I have. I even have a couple notebooks with fully fleshed out game designs. And I have time to do those because I'm not working 90 hours a week on somebody else's game.
So my advice for somebody wanting to get in is simple. Do something, anything, to stand out from the other potential applicants. Find a game you enjoy and mod it. If you're into graphics, find an open source game and help them out (Open source games are notorious for needing graphical help) Write flash games, make something with the XNA. In short, just do something. You'll find out a lot about yourself, and if you have the drive and dedication necessary to make it. Set yourself timelines, make milestones and meet them. But most importantly, do SOMETHING.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
simply to make contacts and friends with people in the field. That's true with 90% of all jobs.
So, go to user groups, get on forums and make contacts, buy a few lunches.
Now, if they are real friends they will flag you off and point you to something that allows you to have a life.
I was moving into game software met a bunch of people and realized a couple of things.
These people are at work 12+ hours, they get paid shit and treated worse.
Now, I was married at the time. If I was a single male, 19-24 maybe I would have done it.
Now if your long term plan is to get some experience and start your own company, go for it becasue that's the only way you will make bank and still enjoy your work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not that I'd recommend you seek servitude there, but it explains some of the roles in game development: https://jobs.ea.com/about/roles/role.aspx?id=1 (yeah, it's ugly. so what?)
I suggest picking up a copy of Torque Game Builder or TX2D from http://www.garagegames.com/ and start making 2d games like tetris. Then work your way up.
As an Indie game developer having published a few titles myself I can tell you, don't quit your day job...
Game Designers are rarely hired from outside the companies. Usually it's who kisses more ass gets the job (at a meager salary). Most game companies won't hire a game programmer without a bachelors degree, 2-3 years experience, and at least 2 shipped titles. Game Designers have even more hoops to jump through with regards to getting a job. So many "colleges" say they teach game design but really they only teach how game concepts are implemented, not how to make a game. For example, Full Sail University teaches Game Designers how to do basic modeling, basic texturing, basic programming, basic audio, and finally a small section of your last year to piece it all together. This ISN'T enough to get a job at a decent salary. I'm an indie game developer by choice because I can make more money than if I worked for EA (who starts their game programmers at a lousy $40k / year).
Did you ever consider studying in the Netherlands? We have a nice program here, called IGAD (International Game Architecture & Design). There's a visual art specialisation and a programming specialisation. 75% of the staff is 'foreign', and so the language is English. 90% of the staff has 10 years or more of game industry experience. And, best of all: Studying in the Netherlands is cheap. Check here: http://www.nhtv.nl/made . (end of shameless plug)
I'm a game developer, having worked at Elixir and Lionhead, and now running my own indie show --> http://www.positech.co.uk./ Parent poster is right, most people who now work as game designers started young and worked for years. i wrote my first code in 1981, aged 11, so that's about 28 years to get to where I am now (albeit with some major detours, you can do it much quicker).
Key points to be aware of are these:
1) The competition to be designer is harder than any other role, so the chances of getting work as a designer are way way lower than getting a job as an artist or coder or tester, so you need to be uber-good.
2) What most people consider to be game design is being 'lead designer' or even better 'concept designer'. These roles are even rarer. You need to run/own a studio or go solo to get this job.
3) 50% of the coders and artists at each game company also harbour design ambitions. They are also ahead of you in the queue.
Having said all this, you can do it, I certainly have. I've even designed games for Maxis (SimSocial) as well as my indie stuff. The key thing is, that I did it through the route of programming. I didn't have to persuade a coder to make my idea, I could code it myself, which is 90% of the battle. I have to employ an artist or three, but at the start, you can get away with coder art.
In short, if you are one of the game design wannabes who aims to never learn any code and is afraid of C++, you are very likely doomed, unless you get in through the route of game testing, and then work your balls off or show incredible ability. Even given that, you are looking at 5+ years minimum before you get to really design. Thats 5 years of checking that barbies new riding game doesn't crash with a French keyboard and other exciting tasks.
On the other hand if you are happy to learn some code, and willing to start out small, you can do everything yourself. With platforms such as wiiware, iphone, the web (flash and PC downloadable) there are many opportunities to get to be a game designer on a smaller scale.
Indie dev may not sound as exciting as working at epic, but today I spent my working day fine tuning the circumstances under which AI-controlled space cruisers retreat to engage auto-repair systems*. It beats working in a call center :D
Good Luck!
*that was for this -> http://www.gratuitousspacebattles.com/
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Best Language to study:
Not so much a language, as the phrase:
"Hey, do you have any spare change? I need a cup of coffee."
Altogether too many people want to make video games, god knows why, considering how tedious programming is. After you finish taking all those god awful courses in C++ and OpenGL/DirectX, have fun competing with the other 100 million delusional people who also want to make games. Also, take a look at a company like EA's policies: Hope you like 60-hours w/ no overtime and working 6 days a week, only to bring home somewhere around 45k (if youre lucky). And just remember: there's plenty of people to replace you who also think making video games is glamorous.
Moral: Don't do it. There is better money to be made in other programming areas, and considering you don't know a language yet(or paradigms, or design patterns), I'm betting you'll give up somewhere around your 5th sleepless night trying to write a memory manager.
While most game designers know how to code, they're generally not masters as software engineering. Game Developers do the heavy lifting.
A good game designer is like a good movie writer. They know how to keep the audience engaged, they make a good story from the game, they have visuals in mind and can storyboard a game.
So if you're going back to school to learn how to be a game designer, you probably should study cinema or other forms of entertainment. Its a science about designing puzzles and systems for advancing in the game. In many games its more about the statistics. So statistical analysis class is important.
What I will say is to ignore those who say you can't just jump into it. There is some truth to that, you'll have to get in through some angle. The truth is that most people who make great game designers would do it anyway, whether its their job or not. So if you do pick up coding skills, and you have a knack for designing good ideas, you'll likely end up doing it on your own dime and if you're good at it, you may attract the attention you need to get into doing it as a job. But if you suck, then you're probably going to join the ranks of the many wanna-bes.
Having worked in that industry- it doesn't pay well. Its fun, but not as fun as you would expect. The atmosphere isn't as magical as you would think, there are still fights and disagreements and compromises that make it feel blech. But having left it, would I go back if I could support my lifestyle from it? Absolutely.
My advice- spend the next 3-5 years learning some coding skills and trying out your ideas and then join an independent development team. Don't expect to join as a designer unless you've demonstrated that talent somehow. Remember, software engineering is a discipline that takes many years to master, and so 3-5 years still makes you a beginner.
Professional game programmer here, I've worked at (and hired for) several large companies, so I've got a fair idea on what they look for, at least on the programming end.
First, as several people have pointed out, design and programming are different aspects of game development. Really, it's broken down into a ton of areas that you can aim for, which include (but are definitely not limited to!):
* Design / Scripting - these are the people who use an engine to make boss fights happen, in-game cinematics, things of that nature. Mostly the player interaction work.
* Design / Level - these are the people who use an engine to lay out the level you play in. They set up doors, lay out camera tracks, etc. Often combined with Design / Scripting
* Design / World - this is more of a writing position. You come up with the world, the people in it, etc., and others fill in the blanks. Usually the lead does this, or lead + combination of others.
* Programming - lots of fields here. UI, tools, engine, AI, sound, networking, graphics, the list is rather long. Out of college, you'll likely start out as a gameplay or generalist coder, unless you've specialized or someone has needs for you to specialize.
* Art / 3D modeler - build models in 3D Studio Max or Maya. Expensive, but more or less the standard at most companies. Often this role is just working on the geometry, but sometimes combined with other roles.
* Art / textures - apply textures to the above geometry. You have to figure out how to lay out the texture for optimal use, know where to use alpha/translucency, mirroring, and other effects.
* Art / skinning & animation - take that geometry, then attach the vertices to bones so the character can walk around.
* Art / concept - draw out sketches and paintings to show what the game and characters can be.
* Q/A / Test - testing a game is not that similar to playing a game. You're going through the same broken area over and over again to figure out exactly what is causing the problem. You try to write it down, or take a video or screenshots, then you have to do it all over again with the next build to see if the problem is really fixed, or mutated into something else. Really good testers are hard to come by, because most people don't want to stay in Q/A. But those that stick it out are extremely valuable.
* Q/A / Lead - come up with plans on how the game should be tested. You need to work with the designers and programmers to figure out when parts of the game will start working, plan out your resources (Testers) so that they get exposure to different areas of the game so that individuals don't get locked into their way of playing, make sure that as much of the game can be tested in a limited timeframe, etc. Again, great Q/A Leads are super-rare.
* Production / Assistant - help out by keeping track of deadlines, assets, making sure that people are on target for their tasks. When something goes wrong, help figure out how this impacts the schedule. Take screenshots, videos, and so on for marketing.
Check out the credits on some of your favorite games. You might find areas of development that you'd like to try out.
If you want to get into the programming side, I would recommend getting a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Not one of the game development degrees that some places offer, but a straight-up CS degree. That gives you a solid foundation to build your game skills on - which you should do in your spare time. There are a ton of websites dedicated to game development, and the things discussed therein will make more and more sense as you progress through your degree path.
When you apply for a job, be sure to bring home projects to the interview, or submit them with your resume. These show what you can do, but also that you have passion for the job. If possible, have a variety to show off - tests to try out interesting ideas, simple games that are complete (main menu, levels, player victory, etc.), that sort of thing. If you're aiming
Hi, I just recently looked at the local Jr. College and it seems that they are now offering some classes in game design. Pima.edu. I am sure that a college near you might have the same offerings. I think also that you might want to look at taking some classes on ITunes U on IPhone app design-- I think there are some huge opportunities in this area. You will need to check out some books in Objective C-- It will help you if you already know some C as Objective C follows much of the same rules. Most of all, I would say, if this is really what you want to do-- make a promise to yourself that you will follow this through to the end whatever the roadblocks. Never loose sight of the end result and never give up on your dreams.
You might find my own story interesting with regards to this subject. I more or less fell into game design, and although I still don't get paid for what I do, I get a great amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from it.
As for languages: a familiarity with C++ is a must. Once you have down the basics, most other "C" based languages will be pretty easy to pick up.
The project I work on has also recently released the source code for the Medusa Engine SDK, a fully featured MMO development platform. the same one we are using to create the game DarkSpace.
Medusa is being licensed under one of three different licenses depending on how you want to use the source code. In a nutshell, If you want to make money off the source code, then you will have to pay a fee. If you just want to make games and release them for free or just for fun, the source code and engine is free of charge. Download it at http://www.palestar.com./
The following text is an except from my blog on http://www.mmoprg.com/ (http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Drafell/022009/3337_DarkSpace-Development-Blog-Introduction), giving an overview of how I got into game design.
I hope you enjoy it.
- - - - -
First, I would like to introduce myself to you all, and explain my role in the DarkSpace community.
Several years ago, I was idly rambling through cyberspace,looking for a new game to play, when I stumbled across an odd title called DarkSpace. Although not your classic MMO, something about it appealed to me, so I downloaded the client and got sucked into losing the next few months of my life.
The initial introduction was bleak. There didn't seem to be a great number of players, and I was a little confused to start with as to what exactly the aim of the game was. I was on the verge of quitting when a clan offered to teach me the ropes and learn the basics on how NOT to die. I realized that a small community did not automatically mean that a game has no future, and I soon became an avid supporter of the game, administering the DarkSpace arm of a clan fleet called the Shattered Star Confederation. Six months later I was asked if I would like to join the DarkSpace Moderation team - a group of player volunteers who help police the community, dealing with player queries and helping to prevent exploitation of the game system.
Naturally I said "Yes," and real life was postponed for another couple of years.
As time passed, I gradually took on more and more responsibility whilst seeing the game evolve through many variations, and just helping out where I could, or where I saw a need for assistance. Note that I have had no training, and no formal education with regards to community management or public relations. This is probably very apparent from my particular style of communication, and I have a tendency to ramble into totally unrelated topics, such as now...
As time passed, I started to get more and more into actual game development. I had an interest in music, and so made a few, somewhat questionable tracks (you have to admire anyone that can actually write and produce music. It is not as easy as it may look, or sound). I also developed an interest into graphics, and through playing a multitude of other games, I got interested in the concepts of game balance and design.
Eventually this coalesced into me and a friend (Jack) submitting a general balance proposal to the owner of the DarkSpace game and head of development, Richard Lyle, and despite having few coding or development skills between us, we were given access to the source code and development environment for the DarkSpace game. I was getting into LUA scripting, and had messed around with creating my own little DarkSpace themed HTML game, and somewhat cheekily stated that I would probably be able to learn C++ in a few weeks. Ignorance is bliss, and a few years on my "C" skills are still questionable, to say
This is great advice. However, you need to realize that what you love is playing games. This is not the same thing as programming/designing them - much like driver a car has little to do with building one.
Complete the game. And never ever buy services or a "degree" -- they are trying to rip you off since nobody is really making money at games anyways...
Really, most studios won't require a "game designer" to know how to program. Knowing how to work with a language like LUA or C++ will certainly be to your advantage, but it's not going to land you paying job. The only way a company will hire you as a game designer is if you can show them a game that you've designed.
I would recommend that you start by taking an existing game and making a mod for it. A large number of games for PC ship with the development tools included: Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, Oblivion to name a few. You'll probably need a high-end PC to even run these tools. Anything with less than 4GB of RAM will give you nothing but misery. Search the web to find a modding community and you should find some tutorials to get you started. Start small with a single room, test it out to make sure it works, then expand it to build a larger level. You might also want to pick up a 3D modeling suite, such as Maya, 3DS Max or Blender, so that you can create your own art assets as needed.
Another alternative would be to start with a pen and paper game, board game, dice game, or card game. The main idea is that you want to have some kind of game that you can include in your portfolio as you shop your resume around. The main rule of thumb in the industry is, "It's not what you know, its what you can show."
Good luck!
Fight or flight its all the same
Live to die another day
--Ryan
I ended up getting quite a few job offers after my Neverwinter Nights modules became successful. It was flattering, but the reality is that my current job as a developer in the healthcare industry is way too good. I've managed to keep it in a recession while the gaming industry has become far more cutthroat.
I still love making games, but purely as a hobby.
The answer is easy. If you want to be a game designer, make some games. You dont need a college degree to download and start coding on any number of platforms. Everything from the PC to the Xbox360 to the iphone have free tools available and enough documentation to have you creating stuff in a couple of days. Then its up to you to keep doing it until you get good at it. But the first step is to do it.
D
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So I'm posting anon because I understand that there are a bunch of people out there that want to design games for a living and may take offence to this post. The people who I encounter who have this goal have no chance or no idea what it really takes. You know them, the kids who do nothing but play video games and go around like it is some great accomplishment. Not saying that playing a shitload of videogames is a waste of time, I do it myself. But just because you're a fan of video games doesn't mean you have the capacity to help make one. But perhaps even worse than those people are the ones who do happen to have a small idea of what it takes to make video games (i.e programming knowledge). These people assume that if you know how to code, you want to design video games. I had to take an online JAVA class my senior year in HS and usually sat in the library to work on assignments when these people come up and ask you what you're doing. When they find out you're writing a program, they immediatly talk about how they could never understand all those lines of gibberish and waste 10 minutes of your time having you explain what each line does. Then they always ask if you're going to make video games for a career. Then I go on to explain I prefer to make programs that solve problems or perform tasks and that games are basically GUIs on steroids because the code doesn't have to solve anything, only act based on what the user tells it to. Then they're like, "Wtf is a GUI" and I'm like "sigh" and get back to work.
The answer is.. if you want to do it, do it. Don't wait for people or schools to feed you the answer.. make a game. Get kicked in the ass by each problem, overcome them, figure it out and simply do it. I suspect you dont want to be a game designer or programmer if you are asking this question and have never lifted a finger towards making a game, you are really looking for someone to hand you the answers on a platter so you can enjoy the Rock Star life (music, not developer/game company) and you will find it's not really like that. It's more like hell in a handbasket 20 hour days and thank God its over when you finish... just to go thru the hell again.
...is English.
I am serious. I make games for a living and the most useful tool overall is written communication with the rest of the team. Nobody can remember how every nuance of a game should work so being able to go to the internal wiki or wherever and re-read the explanation is hugely important.
Also, make games. Lots and lots of games. Board games, card games, dice games, any kind of simple game. Look at other games - start with very simple games - and think about them critically. Examine each part of the game and try to figure out why it is that way. If you can't deconstruct games like this you've no business being a game designer.
Graham
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Look at the top 20 games on www.boardgamegeek.com. If you haven't played any, don't tell me you "have a lot of experience with games". As a mere coder, that could pass. But as a designer you would need to understand the mechanics that makes each game ticks.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
if you want to be a painter paint
if you want to be a sailor get a boat
if you want to design games then design them
design like the wind and keep your day job until the time its realistic to swap
note: that time may never come.
[)epending on your location it is not possible to throw a rock without hitting a "game designer" everyone wants to be one but one could argue how many of the positions actually exist
anyhoo
use anything: flash, action scripting, c++, java... visual basic, python, sculptures, mock-ups, little pieces of paper and post it notes - documentation, concept art... flesh out the idea as far as you can before pitching it to anyone.
(C)opyright all your ideas, send them to yourself - document everything - learn every facet of your intended game then bam! youre a designer.
intellectual property, ideas and concepts can be ripped off - so - create as much as you can to develop the idea/concept/property before unleashing it on the public
make the game
the idea of collins college etc or any other that will get you a degree in game design is laughable outside of the fact you get time on their machines - if you have your own resources and some talent its a better gamble than hoping for industry placement after "graduation" - and depending on the content created - if its done on school time then its owned by the school - so you can put it on your resume - but that game you made during school time isn't "yours" - another argument for make it yourself
the game industry is high derivative so deconstruct and enhance your favorite existing game - its a good starting point
best of luck
>I've recently decided to go back to college.
It's clear that you already have a job.
You did not mention your age, if you are above 25, don't ever try to write games, it's a vocation and you need to start young (I started at 18, I'm now 44).
> I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day.
Okay, this counts as ZERO EXPERIENCE.
Having played with games leads to no experience at all, and it may even be a drawback, since you are accustomed to known schemas, so you won't ever do something original.
The world is full of people dreaming about writing their own games, but only a few are able to write something.
Writing a game seems very theoretical when you don't have experience.
If you really want to write a game, start NOW, or forget about it !
> I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
I have no diploma, and to my knowledge, diplomas are useless for games (I'm a french guy, and in France, it's really important to have diplomas).
What you need the most is MOTIVATION.
Show that you can accept ANY task, and you'll progress thanks to your dedication.
About the programming language, the replies here show that nobody knows what game programming is.
You have several parts:
1) AI/engine coder: you need to know ASM/C/C++
2) Game coder: you need to know C++
3) Game scripter: you need to know a scripting language (in general, every company uses a specific language, but I recommend that you try LUA or Python to get the bases).
4) Graphists, etc..
About the salary, game scripter is a little bit more paid than the guy who cleans the toilets, so don't expect to be rich from that (royalties ? Bwahahaha).
About game design, there are several parts:
1) Scenario writer: it's the most gratifying part, but you work only a few months on a game, this means that you won't be able to work full-time. It's a job similar to a novel writer.
2) Scenario scripter: it's the least gratifying part. You are basically a slave who enters tons of code to create a logic in the game (whatever game it may be). Since in the hierarchy, you are below coders, don't expect any pity from them when you'll have some bugs (sorry, I was a coder, and I only helped scripter girls).
My advice: FIND SOMETHING ELSE ! .NET developer: better pay, less hours, and better human environment (did I mention that the gaming world is full of bastards ?).
I changed a few years ago, by becoming a
I'm a game designer. I've worked for three AAA studios and a couple of startups. With the current state of corporate (I don't mean that derogatorily) game development, there are really only two paths into game design--take a low level QA or CS position, work hard, show you have a passion and understanding of game design and game development and get promoted to low level assistant designer, or go to one of the few major universities with Masters Programs in game design. I personally have never hired anyone out of the MA programs as their view of game design tends to be horribly skewed. They tend to have never used source control; to have rarely had to make excel do anything complicated; if they are lucky they have used one world building tool and no scripting languages; they have absolutely no concept of modern game development assets that would help a designer to understand where things can be taken and what they can do (animations, shaders, skeletons, etc), and in general they tend to believe that they are going to get to sit in large white rooms in bean bags and wax poetic about game design. Obviously this is a generalization, but that's what you're asking for. :-P :)
Now, with that being said, many of the large development houses bring on massive amounts of these candidates for summer internships, and quite a few end up getting to stay on because they are hard working forward thinking people, but they would have learned more about game design by being in the trenches for 2 years than they did in their graduate work. There are some designers that have started out as artists or engineers and made the switch over (these two are "clearer" paths into game development), but I think I am not alone in my belief that most of these people really never stop being artists or engineers, they just spend more time in Word and less time in Maya or compiling. I won't pretend to be able to comment on independent game development as it's not something I've been a part of, but clearly there are some very small avenues to success to be had there as the old school "all in one" game development methodology.
At the end of the day, one of the biggest problems in game design is that everyone thinks they have great ideas, and while a game designer needs to have great ideas occasionally there is so much more nuance and foresight and insight and social-life destroying hours of playing games you don't want to, that most people just aren't good at it. In fact, I've never met a great game designer that actually thinks they are a great designer, it's just everybody else that thinks they are. And there are so many below average designers in the industry right now doomed to repeat the same failures over and over again.
But, after all that, if you want to give it a shot in the corporate industry I'd recommend:
Study writing, math and statistics, art theory.
Learn to use Photoshop, Excel, Visio, Maya, Word (any other visual tools or thought description tools can only help)
Become familiar with as many scripting languages as you can, Flash, Lua, HTML/XML (understanding memory management will only make you a worse game designer)
Get your hands on as many world building tools as you can.
Play as many games as possible, but start playing them thinking about why certain decisions were made and what things could have lead to those decisions.
There are many different breeds of designers, some that do nothing but write, nothing but script, but the most effective ones understand as much as they can about how game systems work and what it takes to build them. Good Luck.
I was a student at the Oregon Institute of Technology, and my roommate was a software engineering major. His senior final project was a simple (3D Action/RPG) video game (he had to produce his own rendering, physics, particle, GUI, etc., engines). I did the models/meshes/graphics for him. It is insane. If you think you "enjoy" games before, you may not after. My work took a significant amount of time (meeting memory and polygon requirements), but his work was on another level. Countless sleepless nights, no extra-activities. Debugging code alone took weeks, and I had to watch him do it. He had a dev team, but even with work divided, the work load was preposterous. We ended up running his complied .net code (C++/C#/Java) on a modded xbox, and it worked, but the experience gave me whole new respect for the dev community. If you enjoy playing, you may not enjoy "'making." I've done dev code for simple MUDs, but his project let me know that game developer was not a career path for me. If you are not yet in college, play around with modding 8/16-bit emulator games, and see if you love it. If you don't LOVE it, you will not make it in today's market.
Saying you're well qualified to be a game developer because you have lots of experience playing computer games is like saying you'd make an excellent mechanic because you drive your car lots, or that you're a master of cellular biology because you breathe.
May I make a non-car analogy? If I wanted to be a writer, what's the most important thing I could do?
A) Read lots of books
B) Go to university and get a Masters in English Literature
C) Begin writing small stories and see how it goes
In a couple of weekends you could teach yourself how to write a basic game with PyGame or something. Why not give that a try and see how you like it? It's hella cheaper than 4 years of university, and will get you what you want much faster.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
Yeah, definitely, ASP is the way to go.
Game design is not the same thing as programming. For most game companies, a special team writes the story line, sets the objectives, creates the art, ect, which is probably what most people think about when they play the video game. Programmers on the other hand, are more about following those sets of instructions to make the game do what the designers have laid out for them. There are schools that teach this if you can afford them. http://www.fiea.ucf.edu/ is one that boasts a 95% hire on rate in the industry after graduation. You can either take game design or game programming tracks. You do have to have a Bachelor's degree to get into that school because it is for a master's degree.
Its been said time and time again threw here. As a person that loved computers and gaming I was like you. I thought it would be great to work with what I loved for so long. So I went to school and got a degree in IT. I did trying the program and devolpement run but found out very fast it was LONG hours with ZERO rewards. So to make a long story very short don't make what you love to do your pay you begin thinking about how dull your life is. I have changed my job into something most would think dull as hell but its 9-5 weekends to my self, and great pay. Now as for the computer thing I have joined a moding comunity and code with them and beta test software and hardware on the side, keeping me happy with my hobby and paid in the real world. All in all, join an online group first and see where that goes before you pay big bucks for something you run from.
I discovered something over the last few years related to this. I've been wanting to go into game programming for the last 10 years or so. Problem is, I've 20 odd years of gettin' paid to program. 10+ years of that in networking and security.
Seems I've too much experience. For that type of work, game companies expect someone to have lots of experience actually shipping games, and they sure won't hire me as an entry-level programmer. Even in this age of MMORPGs and multiplayer games like L4D.
When I was first lookin', seems they were either hiring veterans, or kids just out of college (or with no college at all) who would work cheap and long hours. Is this still the case?
Fortunately, I was able to find something in a related area, so I'm good now :)
There are tons of people that want to be game developers... just like there are tons of people that want to be web designers. The reality is that probably about 1% can make a *decent* living at it, and 1% of that 1% are good enough to get rich doing it.
If you are doing this because this is your passion, and you don't care about the money, then go for it.
If you think you've got 'it', do what the guy who did Braid did -- make it.
If "it" is the design document for a multiplayer party game that could be the next Super Smash Bros., then how does one get the console developer kit? Or is one supposed to develop a comparatively simplistic game for Microsoft Windows and publish it before developing his real project?
My work is programming but its not game related right now. When i get home i code like mad on the dozen different unfinished gaming projects ive rotated between for the last ten years, much of it done during vacations from the office. I have scraps of pieces and parts of games im always trying to work on laying around machines at home and a server at work. Some of it is just modding for morrowind, oblivion, or UT. I may never actually be a game designer for a living. But if the opportunity comes up that i could go contribute to a game project or work for a game company i have no shortage of partially and mostly complete things to show during an interview. And its a mix, some of its directx in visual studio, some of its old junk laying around in c, some of it is just textures and animation collections, some of it is mud or mud like with flash and/or php. Most of the people I come in contact with through my job are the same way, lots of pet projects, server emulators, game mods, whatever, its not like we sat down one day and said hey lets be game designers. It was something that happened with most of us shortly after we got breathing and pooping figured out. Your just that way and you have to be building the shit in your head as quickly as possible or the urge to do it will scratch a hole through your head.
Sometimes they implement all the interesting parts, but get hung up on the final details necessary for making a release.
How often is it the case that a console-style game was developed on and for Windows, and "a license from the console maker to port the PC to the console" is one of these final details?
This is sort of like saying:
"I've recently decided to go back to college. I have a lot of experience with movies, having watched them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day. I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best cameras to learn? What are the minimum scriptwriting qualifications that movie studios will accept? Finally, is method acting the way to go? Expressionist? Mime?"
A mainstream game nowadays is made by a team of specialists: the guy who designs the gameplay is not the guy who draws the textures, or the girl who produces the concept art, or the ASM god who writes the engine, or the AI wizard who scripts the NPC behaviour etc. etc. etc.
Even a small team like the World of Goo guys has specialists.
I started out programming some OpenGL applications for visualizing realtime complex data sets. After the project was over, I continued playing with it because it was fun.
I then got to the point of making an application to animate some machines and robots I had made in a CAD package. Later I got to the point of rendering a model from Poser/DAZ. ... etc etc... All very good fun.
Then i got into particle effects, played some with shaders
Then i got it into my head that i wanted to make a full 3D game, and got to the point of matrix palette skinning a mesh of a character. Off course I wanted next-gen graphics, so I kept the polycount very high.
and here's where i started realizing this was not for me. Getting a mesh to an acceptable polycount and still have it looking good is hard enough. But skinning a high poly mesh is not just A LOT of work and very time consuming. It is also very hard.
Just like Sierra And Lucas Art back in the day could get beautiful (for then) graphics in QVGA with 256 colors, it requires a special breed of man to take a high poly model and downsample it to acceptable levels, both for the eyes and for the available processing power.
Join the nearest IGDA chapter and go to meetings.
I looked at the list and couldn't find one in, say, Indiana. How does one find the money to move to a state that has an IGDA chapter?
A game designer writes the plot, or storyboard, or just draws how things should work. A game developer takes the design and art from the art department and uses code to make everything happen. Do you want to design games or develop games? Do you want to work on small things, like iPhone games? Large things, like console RPGs? If you want to design games, start designing games of all types. Build up a cache of ideas. Go from there. If you want to develop games, you can download the XBox game studio for a low monthly fee. Same with the iPhone one. The PS3 is reputedly a pain in the @ss to develop for, and I'd ignore it. I'd focus on C++ first, and perhaps (later) pick up C# (XBox XNA) or Objective-C (iPhone Cocoa). If you wanted to use a scripting language to build upon a game engine someone else has already built, Lua is popular, but that assumes you have that game engine to run the darn scripts. If you already have any degree, you'd probably be much better served by either just taking the very minimum of classes necessary, or self-teaching this one. Hands-on experience just *doing* this will be more useful than formal education.
First you need to ask yourself "do I actually want to become a game designer"? Most people think that the game designer comes up with the idea for the game, and such, but this isn't really the case. Ideas are often a collaborative effort by several members of the team mostly coming from different backgrounds. Yes some studios do it differently, but most of the successful studios make games by committee. Also you need to remember that ideas in the game industry are a dime a dozen so if you think you're an "idea man" then you're going to be worthless to 90% of the industry. Back to the topic at hand. Being a game designer means you hash out all the details of a broad design. You map out how the UI is going to interact, or write how you want a system to interact. You could be part of the level design, or mission design team that helps create the world. Also your work is always at the whim of a rogue artist or programmer who "thought it might work better this way". It seems like most people that don't know much about the video game industry want to design, but few are good at it, and most can put their skills to better use in other fields. While programming is a good/necessary skill to have it always seems like those w/ art backgrounds have a much better idea on how to design things. Most companies can hire a handful of "code monkeys" to do your programming for you, but it's hard to find a good artist, and even then communicating art isn't an easy task. I highly suggest doing art, over programming if you want to move over to design. Next you'll never get anywhere in the game industry w/out experience. Now it may seem like a catch-22, but if you're persistent opportunities will pop up. Also just because it's not professional experience doesn't mean it's not worth trying out. Companies will hire people w/ modding experience over those w/out, and if the mod experience is with their own software then they might take you over somebody w/ professional experience (don't count on it though). Last is do you actually want to work in the game industry. Playing games is necessary for the industry, but just because you like playing games doesn't mean you'll like working on them. First off if you're qualified to work in the game industry somebody else will pay you more outside of the game industry. If you make $60k a year expect to make $30k in the game industry. Second you're going to work much harder in the game industry than anywhere else. Though management in the industry is getting better it's still common for people to sleep at work, or pull 80+ hours in a week. Missing a deadline can be very expensive, and you're working w/ some of the most complicated tech projects in the world. Also just about everything you know now will probably become useless in 5 years. The technology and design in this industry change so fast that being ahead of the curve means you're already late by the time your product hits the shelves. So you'll always be learning in this job, and if you take a break from the field you're probably going to need to start all over again.
I started out programming some OpenGL applications for visualizing realtime complex data sets. After the project was over, I continued playing with it because it was fun. I then got to the point of making an application to animate some machines and robots I had made in a CAD package. Later I got to the point of rendering a model from Poser/DAZ. Then i got into particle effects, played some with shaders ... etc etc... All very good fun.
Then i got it into my head that i wanted to make a full 3D game, and got to the point of matrix palette skinning a mesh of a character. Off course I wanted next-gen graphics, so I kept the polycount very high.
and here's where i started realizing this was not for me. Getting a mesh to an acceptable polycount and still have it looking good is hard enough. But skinning a high poly mesh is not just A LOT of work and very time consuming. It is also very hard.
Just like Sierra And Lucas Art back in the day could get beautiful (for then) graphics in QVGA with 256 colors, it requires a special breed of man to take a high poly model and downsample it to acceptable levels, both for the eyes and for the available processing power.
You also need an arsenal of 3D software (many of it commercial)
And you need a very good basis in higher math, so that you can at least understand some concept by reading about it.
I just am in the process of becoming a game designer.
And NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING did advance me as far, as all-encompassing, and as fast, as reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246563455&sr=8-1
It is from Jesse Schell, professor of entertainment technology for Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and former chair of the International Game Developer's Association. Someone who created everything from board games, to MMORPGs to rollercoasters and virtual reality rides!
The book's design methodology was also developed at that center, that was co-founded by Dr. Randy Pausch, of "Last Lecture" fame.
And this all does not matter, compared to the fact that it contains FAR more than just how to program a game. Because actually, programming is just a very small piece of the complex process of designing a real game. It contains pretty much everything. All the areas. All the experience.
I can not think of a better book to start getting serious at making games.
(Now I hope that nobody thinks I am some payed guy because of that rave review of a comment. ^^)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
This is the standard link for the "How do I get into games?" question.
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_here/
Fnord.
So much wrong with this post.
First, having played games is nothing at all like or relating to making games. Yes, you should have played games in order to make them, but that doesn't really do anything to qualify you. It's like saying "I've plugged things into the wall before, so I have experience with electrical engineering."
Secondly, game designers don't often program in c++ (or any other low-level language). They don't MAKE the game, the manage it's development. Mostly they are doing scripting, writing documents, and acting as the bridge between upper management and their team. They also, SOMETIMES decide the direction the game will go in development (if you're Miyamoto or whatever), but more commonly, you have to follow the game document you submitted to the producer company (the people who finance the game and publish it when it's done).
Thirdly, there are maybe two colleges in the world offering degrees in game design, one of them is Digipen. That degree just started last year. It's TOTALLY UNKNOWN if employers will even care about this though, since it's so new and there's no track record for game design degrees. Nearly 100% of all game designers are either promoted from within the company from high-level programming positions or management staff, or they are hired from other industries, such as game designers for board games and pen-and-paper game industries. There are a few people who are given game designer positions because they know the right people or they show unnatural talent, but this is not the norm. The sad news is that there's almost a 0% chance that you will be hired into the game industry as a game designer. You have to prove yourself in something else first.
And since it's not based on a specific skill set or degree, there are no formal requirements. A college degree helps, but in what, it usually doesn't matter. Of course, if you know about art or programming, or (GASP) both through your degree, that's a definite plus. Again, you aren't going to start out as a game designer, so get some skills that allow you to enter the industry another way.
----
I'm finishing up my master degree in video game programming (computer science) at Digipen, that video game school in Washington.
... 'cause, as we all know, the best games come from one or two guys in a garage. ... don't know what they're DOING in the garage, but best believe the games that come out of it are awesome.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Have a look at this book. I have a copy that was given to me over the last holiday. It's kind of fun, and might give you a taste of making games:
The Game Maker's Apprentice
I made it through the first several chapters before I was distracted, and forgot about it.
They call us sheeple, I wonder why?
Learn how to raise financial backing.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
In another life I used to worked for some of the largest publishers in the industry as a programmer. Don't kid yourself the the games business is all business and very little games.
This is how the game design stuff it used to work ten years ago. Be warned even for a first rate studio game development is a meat grinder especially for programmers. Long hours, inflexible deadlines and lots of stress from continuous changes (and no movement of deadline). The bigger studios paid alright, but the little studios didn't even have that.
1) You started out as a assistant producer or 'ass prod' as developers called them. This meant you were basically a gopher with no real power. You cleaned up documents, you got peoples food orders you could give your input etc... but could easily be ignored. Often these guys would come from QA and wash out before their first project or two.
2) If you were any good you got promoted after a few years to associate producer. You did a lot of the designing and had to be both liked and respected by the higher ups and the developers. You wrote design documents and made the day to day decisons of the game design. You delegated to the work to the ass prods. Developers worked with you on a daily basis.
3) If you did that well after few more years you came to be a full producer. You made the big choices and gave the development director instructions on what you wanted.
4) Finally you became a executive producer, giving go ahead on 2 year multimillion projects etc. You don't deal with the day to day business of a given project and you don't do much more than high level concept producing. Very few people made it to executive producer, you needed to be the producer on a number of winning projects and most projects are losers.
Anyway good luck. If you ever get to design a successful game be prepared to spend many many years doing the same thing over and over. The industry used to make its money by developing franchises.
You just need to design a lot of games and then your resume becomes the best 3 of them. The language is not very important because once you get the job, you are probably going to have to use some horrible internally-developed scripting language, if we are talking about PC or console games. If it's Web game design you're interested in then just use Flash.
There are many folks on here saying a variation of "Don't Do It".
- If you really want to be a game developer, you'll ignore their advice.
- If you listen to their advice, then you didn't really want to be a game developer.
Walking away from a creative passion because someone tells you that you should is a fairly good sign that it wasn't really a passion.
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. --Hofstadter's Law
I once worked with a guy, we worked for a software consulting company, and he obviously became a programmer because that's where some stupid brochure somewhere said the "good jobs" are. This guy completely lacked a programmer's instincts and was very hard to work with because he was always going through his mental checklist of how a subroutine/function should be constructed instead of just "knowing it" so we could get on with the big picture. We had a global error handler subroutine in our VB project, which was called when an error was trapped in some other routine, which would popup a msgbox to show the error. He argued with me for 10 minutes that the error occurred in "GlobalErrorHandler()" at the msgbox call because he "wasn't stupid. I know what that line does". He was a strong lad. I had to calm him down and get him to tell me the name of the routine he was currently in, which he did, and then get him to tell me why it was called that. And it still took him some time to figure it out because he "knew" he was right.
I'm sure most of the programmers reading slashdot know that at some point they go on autopilot with their "instinctual abilities" and just "know" what to do and that allows them to see beyond the mundane-ness (mundanity?) of the 100th-this-week "for" loop.
I think it's insulting to people who have toiled for countless hours learning these "crafts" to think that you can pick it up just by "wanting it" and sitting in a few classes. But I have a pickle up my butt, so there you go
And, really, tossing out ASP as a possible language option for gaming? People who really want to be something already know the answers to many of these questions.
What paintbrush should I use?
I also like reading books and want to write one. What kinda typewriter do the pros use?
As a backup plan I'm pretty sure I could make a career as a great Chef since I sure like eating!
Can anyone recommend a frying pan?
I wrote a very long to response to this question: check out the new book, Creating Games: Mechanics, Content and Technology http://graphics.cs.williams.edu/creatinggames.
The short answer is that a game programmer typically has years of experience in C++ and a working knowledge of computer graphics, AI, and physical simulation. There are many kinds of game programmers. Tools programmers create level editors, internal compilers, and other art and music tools that are used to make the game itself. Engine programmers work on the libraries that are shared between games. Gameplay programmers write the actual game, using the tools and engine. There are of course many jobs within a game company besides programmer. The least understood outside the industry are the designers, who are typically not programmers, are the ones who create the mechanics and storyline for a game. That is, if you are a programmer you will have some input into what the game is about and how it works, but your influence over that will be very small compared to a full-time designer. So perhaps you want to be a designer and not a programmer!
The best way to get a job in the games industry is to walk into an interview with experience on a game project. This could be a from another company, a mod, or a class project. You should also have a good understanding of the games that are currently out and arguments about why they are good or bad. A typical interview question might be, "how would you implement the ocean waves seen in World of Warcraft", or "how would you make a board game that captures the essence of what makes Red Faction entertaining?"
-m
The best way to become a game designer is to design games. The games don't have to be computer based, but I think that is your preference.
Don't go the college route as they will teach you programming. A new graduate is always high risk for a games programming company as they don't really know what you are like and capable of.
Therefore, you need to differentiate yourself.
This means putting together a portfolio of games that you have designed and successfully implemented. This will speak volumes more than a college degree to someone in a games company. They will be able to see and use the fruits of your labor. They will know you can do it for real. They will appreciate that you persevered, got the thing working, put it up on the web and (maybe) made a little money out of it. This will be significant to them.
I would recommend learning Objective-C++ and targeting the iPhone, or targeting Nokia Smartphones and putting up your games on the Ovi Store. You need to target a niche market which you will have a greater chance of success in. The iPhone app store has 40,000+ apps. It's difficult to get visibility on that site, but Nokia's Ovi Store (https://store.ovi.com/) has a lot less apps and so you can get something up quickly and it will have more visibility (with a larger userbase too).
Good luck.
Are scalpels the way to go? Sutures? ASP?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Disclaimer: I was a games designer. It is a highly saturated field. Many people start as a programmer or artist and then after a few years are able to progress into games design. You will take a pay cut. The hours are long and it will suck. I've stopped now after last year when petty squabbles angered me. Now I'm playing poker for a living. I plan to just make lots of money and have my life revolve around me. Really you need to just work. Work your arse off everyday and be obsessive. Prepare to throw away your life. Can't say much about university- went 3 times and quit after a few weeks (CS, multimedia gfx, animation) but I think it probably helps get you in. Also you need to write a lot. As in English creative writing. Seriously don't do it- there's like 1million people already trying. You can only have money or do a job you enjoy in life- not both, so go for the former.
Devour the history of gaming, ALL of it. That means acquiring and playing all of the games in your chosen genre for the last two decades. In the case of so-called 3X/4X games, that would even include an old fashioned cardboard board game or three that preceded the computer games. And I do mean playing, including scaling the games up to their maximum extent and seeing what breaks, what no longer works. It could very well take the better part of two decades to manage all that, so if you're not at least thirty already you might be too inexperienced yet for this profession. ;-)
Why is that history important? A lot of mistakes have been made, a lot of lessons have been learned AND FORGOTTEN, a lot of innovations have been made AND FORGOTTEN over those two decades. There's a cliche about history - you know the one - and it definitely applies here.
I see the consequences of this failure to achieve depth/breath of knowledge in 3X/4X games (given that they are my enduring favorite) in particular. The same mistakes are made, earlier innovations aren't replicated, game after game, year after year; one development team fails to learn from those that have preceded it. Is this because everyone is too young and haven't "been around the block" as I described above? Is it because they're careless or arrogant? Is it perhaps even something more pre-meditated and conspiratorial, like deliberately repeating various combinations of the same flawed designs so as to keep people buying "next year's sequel", because if they ever produced the perfect game there'd be no market for next year?
Whatever the cause, don't do that. Learn from gaming history, so you don't repeat your predecessors' mistakes and overlook their innovations.
It seems that the probability of any given thread on Slashdot eventually being hit by the RDF is approaching 1.
A lot of developers I've known had made their first game during Pyweek contests. Pyweek is a free and open game creation contest, using python. It has a very friendly and open community, so even if it is a contest there is a lot of people around wanting to help newbies and provide advice.
But the best thing of participating in the contest is that the rules help you to FINISH a game. Starting work on a game is easy, but it's too tempting to fall into scope creep and start adding characters, places, game mechanisms, enemy behaviour ad infinitum, and you are always starting new stuff but never getting to have something finished.
Try it. Most of the people I known to go into the contest have had a lot of fun.
I have a friend that works for Rockstar Games as a coder, he works insane hours and is put under immense pressure. Not saying all companies are like this but I think it's pretty common. Also I'm not sure that a games designer is the same thing as a games coder, do you want to be a designer or a coder?
Get bak to wok!
Start writing games.
Seriously. That's the first thing you need to do. If you know C++, write 'em in C++. If you know Flash, write 'em in Flash. If you don't know any programming language, pick up GameMaker and write 'em in GameMaker. Can't draw? Grab The Gimp, read some sprite tutorials, and draw anyway.
Then start making games. Don't make epics, don't make blockbusters, spend a week on a game and churn them out, because you'll learn a thousand times more from making ten games than you will from making a tenth of a game.
I've recently started a project where I make a game every month, spending at most a week on it. I strongly recommend it. You'll learn fast, and quite possibly end up with real games to show off.
If you want to design games, you gotta practice your ass off.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
(1) Work for the big company working all nighters to rush out the latest RPG/FPS/MMO...
(2) Work for yourself and write mini games for cell phones (money from app store), web (money from ads)...
Depending on which route you choose will determine what languages you need to learn. Hardcore game companies might shy away from someone older that they can't boss around and make work the long hours. Mini games are simple enough to allow you to keep a different job as you get into it.
Note: As a hobby, I've written a couple games for the web that make about $500/year, and that is with well over a million ad views. Making money off of games isn't as easy as the news makes it seem when the do a story on iPhone apps.
30 years ago, I had an apple II. I wrote all kinds of simple games in low-res graphics--snake games, pong games, save-your-sister. I submitted them as free games to the BBS downloaders of the time. Then I tried to move to hi-res graphics. I immediately realized that it was a whole new ballgame dealing with the graphics. So I bought a library to deal with that. I lost interest very fast because I determined it was not for me and I had a good paying COBOL job. 10 years later I got back into it with Borland objective C. I redid my favorite snake game (I have actually coded a snake game in just about every language that I have ever coded in). Then I tried my hand at some 3D graphics and again realized that again it was more then I wanted to get into. Finally, a few years ago, I played with some Linux/OpenGL game programming. I had a lot of fun building a bunch of examples that were provided, but yet again realized that getting into serious game development was something that I was not truly passionate about.
So now I am a security engineer.
My advice, start building simple games and have fun. If you do get the bug (you will know--when you are up until 3am before you realize that you forgot to have dinner, the fridge is out of beer and the ash tray needs emptying) you may just have what it takes...
Game designers have one of the worst burn-out rates of any career you're likely to encounter.
A Game Designer, as job description, is not the same thing as Game Programmer or Engineer. So focus on what it is exactly that you want to do. If you want to be a programmer, listen to these people talking about languages and it's hard and stuff. If you want to be a Game Designer, it's still hard and stuff, but has little to do with programming. Instead it's about game theory, storytelling, resource management, play mechanics, architecture, lighting, and puzzle and quest building. Game design is like being a movie writer/director, and sometimes cinematographer as well. You are the one who designs the game, the story, the mechanics, the levels and level design. All those really smart programmers write the stuff you need to make your game. There are usually proprietary tools with each studio, 3d tools and scripting tools, so being flexible and skilled at quickly learning new applications is vital (good exercise is to pick up 3DMax or Maya or Photoshop, and learn how to use it cold, no documentation. Most in-house tools are sorely lacking in instructions, so get used to that.) A Game Designer is a swiss army knife of skills, but seldom is one of them programming. And there's really no school for that.
I have a friend who is a game designer at the story level (as opposed to asset level), I don't entirely know the path he took to get there, I know at one point it was a partner in a UNIX IT consultancy, but part of his background was he was a roleplayer and wrote roleplaying games for games conventions and ran these games and others.
The designing part of being a game designer is more than a desire to program something more interesting that a banking system (which is interesting in it's own way, if you get off on security protocols etc...), it's understanding game theory and player interactions. Much of that comes from a far more abstract place and is closer to psychology/philosophy than it is to computer science.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
If you have some level of programming experience, you're already on your way. All you need is a multimedia-friendly language/IDE you're comfortable with (like Flash or a gaming IDE, such as Torque or Unity) and begin experimenting like crazy. Play around with simple stuff first... such as a Pong variant, then move on to more complicated ideas in a gaming style that interests you. If you like puzzle games, try your hand at something like Tetris or Bejeweled. If you like games where you deal with an enemy AI, try something like Pac-Man or Robotron.
All that matters is that you find something that appeals to you directly and makes you want to learn how it works, then get to work reverse engineering it piece by piece until you understand what makes it tick... then, improve upon it in some creative new way!
In any case, you probably won't learn squat unless you're willing to get your hands dirty along the way.
Also, don't let these newer 3D titles overwhelm you. Once you get past the 3D specific crap, you quickly realize that they work exactly the same as any 2D game, only with one more axis of freedom per object.
8==8 Bones 8==8
C#.NET and XNA. Start making games. Learn some Linear Algebra (your engine will need a lot of it). Be strong and patient. That's what I do :)
I seriously doubt you're going to find any answers here that haven't been more completely thought out, and more accurately answered than at www.sloperama.com Tom Sloper has been a professional game designer for more years than some of the readers here have been alive...and he has graciously (mostly) put together a tremendously large FAQ to address just the kind of question you ask...including why your question is a poorly worded one. The things you ask are about being a developer, not a designer. Which one are you interested in?
I guess most gamers have toyed with the idea of becoming developers and I guess that's why so many game companies have decided it is a good idea to include editors/builders etc. in their releases. I toy around with them once in a while (Wesnoth is fun) but then I get bored. So obviously getting in to serious game developing is a bad idea for me.
Perhaps a good thing to do is like PIPBoy300 above, try and make some module/addon for something and see if it is really as much fun as it seems to begin with. Besides, a complicated modding tool will give you valuable insight, I think, into virtually all (technical) aspects of game development - you won't learn how to program the 3d engine but you'll understand how things are structured. Or if you are more flexible than just 3d games, try making a game on Facebook. Anything you do will give you relevant skills I think.
Hi, I want to become a garbage truck driver. I have been making garbage my whole life and I think I could really drive a truck and take trash to the city dump! But first I need to know, what kind of welding equipment should I use to make my garbage truck? I have heard of arc welding. Can I make a garbage truck using a soldering iron?
As a graduate of a related degree, and as somebody who's spent over a year in a development position at a major development house I can tell you that you should avoid games related degrees at all cost. Don't even think 'it may be good'. Just avoid them, please. Game Technology, Game Design, Game Programming, any of them. If you want a degree, get a real one.
You need to become skilled, lucky and canny. Identify the parts of the game development process that you would like to be involved in, and discover how you can become the best at that. While you're doing that, research how your skills relate to the other parts of the process.
If you think you're going to be collaborating with developers, then you should perhaps get some experience with C++. Knowledge of a pertinent language will at least help you understand why you might be told that a certain thing may not be a good idea (given the hardware and software available at the present time). If you think you're going to be dealing with a dizzying Matryoshka doll of management (and you are), then you should cover every single base you can, and have answers to everything.
The most important thing is to simply DO what you want and don't ask for permission. Or better still, I'll give you permission right now. Go right ahead and design a game. Look up how to do that first, though, otherwise you might end up with some half baked nonsense document that doesn't really answer anything.
I've never met a "code monkey."
Any programmer that merely follows instructions from some "analyst" will soon not have a job.
In ALL jobs I've been involved in, programmers often had to:
- analyze requirements
- design solutions
- be aware of the impact on the business
- coordinate with other staff
- develop the solution
- often provide documentation or informal information on the feature to doc writers/testers/management/etc..
- test
- sometimes help out giving advice to tech support
The whole "monkey" talk is ridiculous.
In Game Development, there's also a strong element of algorithm design or at least algorithm selection. The design work is NEVER trivial, and may often require a lot of math.
So I really don't see why the myth of the "code monkey" is perpetuated.
Show some respect for the software development profession!
is to start making games.
Forget about choices of languages. If you're at all serious about programming of any sort, you're going to wind up learning at least a half dozen. Knowing just one language is nigh useless.
Now how to start making games? Got a favorite board game? Code up an adaptation. Battleship is a classic, as is reversi, or any number of card games. Try cribbage for a decent breadth of coding challenges.
For graphics development, try whipping up a graphics overlay for Rogue, or Nethack.
For level development, use the map editors or modding tools of any game that offers them, and go to work.
And when you want to start working on game engines, there are any number of open source games of various genres, sharing their code like women (or men) of easy virtue.
Want to develop for consoles? Gamestop is selling the classic Xbox for $50, and the XDK is *ahem* "readily available," but for more modern platforms, there's iPhone SDK, and MS' XNA for the 360. Also look into the Wii and PSP homebrew scenes.
It's like any other craft, you learn more by doing than anything else.
And I'm replying here because it's always good to read something from one of my favorite game developers.
bkd
Game programming and designing are two very different things and rarely overlap. Different thing is if you want to go indie and do everything by yourself. It's hard to do both.
Because you mentioned programming languages I assume you are looking to become a programmer. What I know is you should learn to program shaders (like HLSL) and other DirectX stuff. Know your C++ and way around hardware with assembly. To make it in game programming really requires lots of skill, sweat and tears. Be sure that it is what you really want to do.
Get to know lots of people in the scene, go to regular IGDA meetings etc. Prototyping is a nice way to do game development in a short time period. See more at Gamasutra.
Disclaimer: I'm a game design student and an IGDA coordinator.
Only people whose skills were dubious to start with are hurting, skilled, up to date people are fine.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What you need to succeed is hard work.
There may be people that are naturally talented, but what they are achieving is not black magic and can be learned.
You don't need to love what you do to succeed, you need to do it to a high standard, and except professions where your genes may be against you (piano player for example) there is no reason why any normal person could not make a career in any profession if determined to do so.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So I don't know exactly what your point is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Game Designer != Programmer
Learn UML
Study Design Docs
Understand Use Case
Learn to work WITH marketing, rather then against
Understand Literary Composition
NETWORK WITH PEOPLE
Sadly 99% of game industry (AAA) is a who you know network of people much like hollywood is now. Ouside of indie games, it now about who on the inside you know.
In a large programming shop designers rarely code but rather structure and 'shape' development. Most developers I've worked with have never touched a line of actual code but rather have spend most of their time working on Design Documentation (Architecural Reviews, Design and Implementation Docs, Use Case Scenarios, etc.)
To be a game designer (or any software designer for that matter) sit down and document what game you want to make. To be a game programmer sit down and try and program a game.
If you want to be both, grab a copy of DIKU or ROM and run a text based MUD.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
If you aren't already making little flash games for fun, developing simple concepts and finishing little projects, then no it isn't for you.
No game designer started with creating something huge, and any budding game designer shouldn't even try and tackle things like software technology they don't grasp fully.
If you aren't doing the little things and enjoying those, then the real thing isn't for you.
What an amateur. If you had any real talent whatsoever, you'd already be designing games. People who are serious
about games and do things beyond play with them - simply making mods would be a start - know already how to get there
and it ain't easy
Seriously dude: try out one of many dedicated SDKs for game-creation. And then MAKE a game for yourself. You don't need to switch jobs just to give it a shot!
The PopCap framework could be a good place to start (the company PopCap no longer accepts 3rd party submissions and has closed down its own developer-forum but the PopCap framework itself is released as Open Source on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/popcapframework/).
Another option is PTK which you can find on http://www.phelios.com/ptk
Both use C++ so you would probably want to get a few books on C++ programming as well.
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
"Don't Give Up Your Day Job" -- The classic response from the entertainment industry applies here.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
2. He played MUD's and built quite a bit of adventure stuff.
3. He played a decent chunk of DND.
4. he still managed to play some of the decent 3d stuff out there.
So at the minimum learn c and c++, game theory (minimax and game-state stuff).. Play enough of the MUD's to grasp some of the ways simple objects are used to make complex systems. Try and pervert the rules...... a subset of the players will always look for a way to hack the system in a way that rocks (for them anyway). If you dont think it out it will ruin a game. A few security courses might add some background to grasping the hack methods available.
oh, make some friends with people who really bend the rules in games, to that point where it is now quite fun. Learn to be a harsh game master who can set down the hard and fast rules.
While My friend had a poor GPA, he went into the interview, nearly bombed, until the interviewer asked about his free time.. and he mentioned that he played in muds far too much. luckily the interviewer was a fan of the adventures my friend had built. He's been a game designer for 14-ish years now.
Storm
Are you wanting to design the games, or program the games? There is a big difference. Most games have some sort of engine they use. The engine is what the designers use to make the game. The programmers make the engine. You need to pick one. Oh, and good luck getting a job in the industry.
While all good authors may be voracious readers, it does not follow that all voracious readers are good authors.
Thus my point is that while all good game programmers might be voracious gamers, it does not follow that all voracious gamers, as the OP claims to be, are (or can be) good game programmers.
Put bluntly, just because one is enjoys and is good at playing "Pac Man" does not mean you have the intellect, or even the general interest, to program a computer.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.