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[Advice Needed] I want to know the guidelines for a career in game programming

Started by June 07, 2017 03:17 PM
1 comment, last by GibbonThatCodes 7 years, 5 months ago

Hey guys, I'm a 23 year old guy with very little experience in programming. I'm very passionate about making my way into a game programming career. I've tried reading about how I can get started but I haven't really found a good answer to it.

I know the very first thing is learning a programming language, which I have(obviously i'm not a master in it yet). I know C++, as in just the language and it's features. But every where I try to read about where I should go from there, the answers aren't usually very clear. I wanna learn APIs like DirectX and OpenGL and maybe from there I would try to learn the popular game engines. So every time I pickup a book to learn directx or opengl, it seems like it assumes a part of my knowledge that I'm not even sure what it is.

I've search the internet extensively but I can't seem to find the necessary steps I need to take to start my career. I'm aware that getting into it requires a college degree but I would like you guys to advice me on strictly the things I can do by myself to give myself a start. I would really be grateful if you guys could suggest me some helpful resources and a general talk on how to get started, even your own stories.

All help is appreciated :)

Looking forward to your answers!

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So, a bit of a delay on the reply though based on your other threads created soon after this it would appear you are just starting out writing your very first programs.
In terms of a career I think that it's a little far off to jump into "how do I get a job" as you will likely need to be coding a few years first on hobby projects / in education before you hit a point of being at a stage where you would be suitable for entry level jobs.

With where you are now, getting comfortable with the language and working on books aimed at how to structure programs more than books aimed at the in depth "game programming" kind of stuff is something I would advise. Yes these books may structure the program for you, but learning how to plan a project as opposed to just follow a book is something pretty key for if you want to work on your own projects to improve your skills.

Not essential though something I feel can be helpful is if you look into some Systems Design kind of books, that essentially help you work out how to break down and group the things a project will need, and once you have that sorted there are tons of books and online resources for learning DirectX, OpenGL and a ton more "game" focused things (https://learnopengl.com/) (http://www.directxtutorial.com/LessonList.aspx?listid=112)

Again though, would stress more of a "Learn the core language well, learn to design programs and then push into "game" focused programming. Though as said, if you are a confident / sadistic kinda person you can just learn the language while making games.. will likely have a lot more errors though along the way.

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