Advice on Academic Courses in Videogames

[Scrustle]

I'll just sit over here in the corner and cry a bit ok?

So does that mean you work as Lionhead then? Well, sorry, I guess. I'm looking forward to Fable Anniversary, if that helps.

[NokkonWud]

Ubisoft Reflections sounds good. Driver: SF was great. I hear they helped out a little on The Crew too.

That's the nature of Ubisoft. They all help out on their games as big, group projects. Good for getting a lot of games on your CV!

[Roy42]

If a course isn't a good idea for doing purely design, what exactly would be the best course of action?

Start making things.

Download a program to make a game with (Unity, Game Maker, etc.), a set of tools to make a mod for a game you like, or open up the level editor of a game you like and get to work. Get a notepad or two and/or a full size exercise book. Write down ideas you have for levels or games whenever you have them. Be observant of the world around you in your life; think of how Shigeru Miyamoto would talk about how he'd get ideas for games.

If you're going to try and make your own wholly original stuff, you'll need to learn a bit of scripting with tutorials; if you're just making levels, you just have to keep making content, send it to people, post it around and try to get feedback. Trial by fire. Look at some games which are commonly regarded as really good or really bad from a design standpoint. Read reviews and critique and play them yourself to understand what about them was good and what about them wasn't. Read some postmortems on games by developers. Join forums for game developers (like the Extra Credits forum) and talk to them; learn what are good design practices and what aren't. Go to conventions or expos and talk to indie developers. Make connections with them while you're at it.

Once you feel like you've learned enough to put it into practice on a bigger scale, find a programmer willing to work on a small project with you, and possibly an artist as well.

The most important thing (and it's ironic that I'm saying this, since I haven't been doing it at all this year) is to keep making stuff. Don't keep thinking about how you want to do it and just do it; one of those courses of action will take you somewhere, one of them won't.

[Flabyo]

So does that mean you work as Lionhead then? Well, sorry, I guess. I'm looking forward to Fable Anniversary, if that helps.

I used to, left about a year ago. Which means I almost certainly worked on things you don't like.

There's nothing wrong with that of course, life would be very dull if we all liked the same things. So I was only really pulling your leg.

[Scrustle]

snip

Sounds like I'll be needing a new computer then.

[Roy42]

What do you have right now?

[Scrustle]

Just a mid-tier laptop made by an small local company. I've thought about getting a decent PC before for playing games, but after thinking about it for a while I realised that it was just too impractical. No space for it. But if I want to get in to making games, then I suppose I'll just have to make some space.

[Roy42]

you should see what you can get away with on your current hardware, at least while you research what you need. Luckily, a decent computer is actually very cheap; only about $500-800, whatever amount of fancy British money that translates to. You just have to buy all the components separately and put them together yourself.

[Ergo Me Smart]

A new PC may not be needed. I have a fairly low-range PC which I bought for around £300 last year, and I never have any issues with using Unity. It may actually be worth downloading Unity to see if it works on your laptop. It's free, so there's no harm if it turns out it doesn't.

[Scrustle]

I don't know if anyone has any interest in this, but I thought I should give a little bit of an update on this topic. I can't believe it's been over a year since I started this thread. Feels like a much shorter time, but I digress.

In the time since I did try having a look at some game engines. Unity and Game Maker, but it pretty much went nowhere. I found Unity completely incomprehensible, and Game Maker glitched the first time I tried to do anything, and I haven't touched it since.

But this isn't about making excuses, because the reason I'm posting here is actually the opposite. I wanted to post to say that I've actually started a game design BTEC at Guildford College this week. After getting nowhere trying to find a job I decided that I was tired of it and that I should try aiming at something I actually want to do, and I think having the structure of an actual course is a much better idea than trying to teach myself something that I don't understand anything about.

[arry_g]

Congratulations! I hope it goes well for you.

[Flabyo]

Cool! Didn't realise you were actually in the Guildford area, shouldn't be too hard to find places to do placements around here if that comes up.

[JaySevenZero]

I'm echoing arry's sentiment - good on you for taking the plunge Scrustle.

[registradus]

There's a MOOC happening on Coursera right now (if anybody's interested)... https://class.coursera.org/uvg-001

[Electric Crocosaurus]

I've only just noticed this thread Scrustle, but I have to say that I was totally with you on that first post. I'm a lot happier in my current job, but I started playing around with game engines in the early part of last year with a view to learning to make indie games. I'm planning to go back to it again in the future, but in the meantime if you ever want any music done for one of your course projects feel free to get in touch!