Game Dev?

Cortney, are you a hot babe? Hot babes always get it easier.

true, true, unfortunatly unless my boss is gay, or female, i wont be getting it any easier as i''m not a female.



"Lifes a Game, Play it with Style"

im not going to claim to know the answers to an awful lot of things but hey. You should figure out that intrests you about game development. whether that be progamming, music or art, its not really important as long as it gives you some pleasure. Remember, you will do a much better job the lower the stress level. Once you have done that you are in buisness to start learning. You are somthing like me, senior high school student with an interest. I wouldnt suggest you allow it to consume you to the point of getting kicked out,, that wasnt pretty belive you me. If your in grade 11 going on 12 you can start to experiment with what you like. grade 12 level art, music or progamming classes are pretty decent introductions to what you will be going into but there will always be post secondary. i considered career gaphics 12 to be a sort of play coarse but not all are like that.
you dont need a grounding in somehtings to get post secondary but it is always helpful. as far as i know all you need to even grad, and this is in canada mind you, are math 11, english 12 and capp 12(most useless coarse ever)
depending on what you want to do you may need more or less. I would suggest getting a grounding in all the basics of game develoment. this will give you a very rudimentry understanding of programming, art and several other things.that are available to you.
As I have far too often been told, the best place to start is a good book. I hate tutorial books because you cant ask the book a question. but they do give you a basic grounding.

I have probably missed a lot but i hope that i was at least a little helpful. I guess as long as you have a direction, there is a way to get there. im sure that this site has a lot of links about such things but no place will really teach you game design. the trick is to apply what knowllege you have to games and not the other way around.

"Why does my life have to be so hard in every world?"

Nanami Jinii;El-hazard

Well so far it seems i''m on the right track, im in a programming 2 class and programmings what i desire to go into though i play with art and music i dont belive im good enough in such to make it a carreer and i like programming. The programming class like you said your class was is merely a play class learning pascal for the second year whoo hoo. yeah well needless to say i do spend as you suggested much time spent on manuals. Just wondering if you need to go to a special college or something like that in order to go into the gaming industry my uncle got his bachlors from a tech school in programming but all he does is code stock inventory programs, not something i envision doing.



"Lifes a Game, Play it with Style"

the jobs available with somthing like that are vast. you jsut have to have the right knowllege and appy to the right people. im still trying to pick up the programming but hey, as crappy as i am at it, im an artist so thats my thing. everyone has a thing or two right. in any event. as long as you can demonstrate your knollege base at a moments notcie, you will do fine. that seems to be the way it is.

"Why does my life have to be so hard in every world?"

Nanami Jinii;El-hazard

Basically your big decision is whether or not to continue your education on past high school. While having a degree is not required for most game houses, it definately helps. Chances are your first job isn''t going to be one in the game industry, either, making that degree all the more important.

If I were you, I''d start looking either for a technical school that offers a strong programming degree, or a four year college with a good computer science program. Unless your major is specifically game programming (and not many schools offer this), you''re not going to learn a whole lot about gaming. What you will learn, though, is an incredible knowledge of general computer programming and theory.

In your spare time during college, you probably will want to start learning game programming on your own. There are plenty of resources out there that will help you do this. Start building your own game engine, and get a web page and post its progress. You want to start to build a good gaming portfolio, and having cool software demos is the way to do that.

Once you graduate, send your resume and portfolio to as many gaming companies as you can. Register with the career services center at your college and apply for some non-gaming jobs as well. If you''re not offered a gaming job at first, at least you know you''ll have a high-paying job to fall back on. Worst case scenario is you''ll be coding business apps by day, and working on your own game project at night.

The big thing to keep in mind is you have to really be proactive to get a job in the gaming industry because there aren''t too many available. You''re probably never going to take a course called "Building your own 3d gaming engine", so you have to take the initiative and learn a lot of this stuff by yourself.

That''s been my experience, anyway. Hope that helps.

i thought i would look at a few things and the place i plan to attend . game authoring is an actual coarse.
Center for digital imageing and sound

"Why does my life have to be so hard in every world?"

Nanami Jinii;El-hazard

One other bit of advice..

Check with the Career Services center at whatever college you''re looking into and see where some of the graduates have been hired. Also, check and see what types of companies actively recruit from the school. This is a good way to gauge what a school''s reputation is in the industry.

Getting a job in the gaming industry is really much more what you put into it than where you go to school. It''s this way for pretty much every career path, but even more so in gaming where most of the development companies are pretty laid back. (Of course, graduating with a 4.0 from MIT will always give you an advantage )

I would say most game programmers have majors in computer science, physics, computer engineering, and mathematics and these degrees are offered at most schools. So even if you don''t get in or can''t afford to go to your top-choice school, don''t fret. Just study alot and work hard on that portfolio.

Steve

Thanks guys, this has helped a lot taken a lot of stress off me and fretting over schools and all . thanks again.

"Lifes a Game, Play it with Style"

Just dont do a maths degree as you will have massive problems getting into the industry aswell as the usual problems (I thought maths would help but as far as Ive seen it doesnt). IMO

"People spend too much time thinking about the past, whatever else it is, its gone"-Mel Gibson, Man Without A Face

Well i belive that i''ve decided to attend
DigiPen in Washington State, they offer a Bachlors in Realtime Interactive Simulation. I found them after writing an e-mail to nintendo about information for getting a job in the gaming industry. Less than a day later I got a response informing me of digipen.
Thanks again.

"Lifes a Game, Play it with Style"

ElectroJoker

To be honest, a degree might help, but if you write some stunning demos/programs/engines in your spare time, that will do more for your chances.

You say you dabble in art and music? Cool! Try writing a non-interactive demo using your programming and art skills...(and slam a bit of music in there if you like...)

If you practise in technologies related to the games industry this will also help, a degree will never do any harm but talent and enthusiasm are what will get you writing 3D engines and not spreadsheets!

(Not that I have anything against spreadsheet programmers, great guys...where would we be without spreadsheets)



Hope this helps, good luck either way!


www.stephen-hawes.co.uk