TY in School Wishing to Become a Game Designer. What do I do?

PalProductions

Hello there. I don't know if I'm doing this right as this is my first post on Boards.ie, but I need help. I am a 15 year old currently in transition year in Coláiste Iognáid, Galway, and after doing immense research in the medium of gaming, I have decided that I want to pursue a career in game design. Don't worry, I'm not one of the people who thinks that game design simply involves "making up ideas for games", from my understanding, it seems to be that it is the job of a game designer to help various teams of various skillsets to craft a world that a player sees and interacts with. I understand many philosophies of game design, from difficulty curves to enemy placement, and have been inspired by such groups as "Extra Credits" that this is a field that I want to make a career of myself in. And this is where the problems start.

As hard as I try, it seems to be very hard to get information as to what exactly do I need to do to become a game designer. I'm not sure what subjects I should take for the Leaving Cert (Well, I'm certain higher level English and Maths are a given, but that's it), as well as what should I do while I am still in school (I am currently learning C#, but I know very little on other coding languages). If I should go into college or not, and if I do go, where to? It seems very hard to get a suitable course anywhere in the UK, while practically impossible in Ireland, and while going to the US is a possibility, I'm not sure exactly how feasible it is in my current situation. Lastly, where do I go to get a job, and how exactly do I make my way up the ladder, as well as how do I keep fresh on new ideas and methods in game design if I do get a job in Ireland.

Honestly, this website seems to be my best bet in finding answers. It is the most active Irish forum site, and I was amazed that they had a board for game design at all! From the time I've been reading stories on this website before joining today, it seems that the community is very helpful and friendly. I cannot think of anywhere else to go to get answers, and posting a single point would mean more to me than you would think. I hope I can get answers on this career at last, and see if it is worth pursuing.

Thank you for reading.
Eoin

Bepolite

Maths, Physics, English - French if you've an aptitude for it EA and Ubisoft have massive operations in Canada and France.

Get googling - email the feck out of places, ask for advice. The UK and Ireland have loads of people you can ask, loads of studios.

Try and arrange work experience. Do well at school. Get into a good university, Oxford or Cambridge would be ideal, make contacts while at Uni don't worry if you're not doing 'Game Design' BA - do something IT related.

If you are going Game Design BSc or what ever make sure it's an established course. One of the Aberdeen universities springs to mind.

Leverage anything you can here. Griffith College have a Game-Jam thing they do. No idea what it is but you should be finding out contacts, contacts, contacts! Expect to do a huge amount of work for free! Get modding PC games, get involved with gaming communities.

Torakx

Facebook is also very active with game devs. Join at least a couple if not loads of game dev groups or anything related and ask questions, make friends, share ideas.
Motivation and keeping your dream in mind each day helps me accomplish all the things I have set out for.
The routes to my goals are many, it is my enthusiasm and willingness to help others that gets me opportunities down the road and keeps me moving forward.
There are lots of places you could end up.
For me personally I am tired of working for a big company that doesn't have the ame goals and personal fullfillment. So I have steered more towards small groups and indie development.
It is in some ways the harder road in the long run. But it's my dreamm and thats where I'm going.
I guess keep asking these questions, research the jobs and find your role models to learn from their past.
This might help you get a clearer vision of your dream.
And if you have a detailed dream already, I would love to hear it!

Steviemoyne

Technical Graphics wouldn't hurt but it's not exactly necessary. Reason I mention it is because I done it, we were using Solid Works. Then for 'software design (game development)' course in athlone we were using Unity (a game engine) and Blender (3d computer graphics software) for making assets (game objects).

I found having used Solid Works before that Blender was somewhat easier to pick up and use but that's just me. Don't go picking it just because of what I said, in all fairness college is going to cover nothing that was in secondary school as far as courses go (the sole exception being some of the maths and physics).

You mention that finding a course in ireland is practically impossible. There's a 4 year BSc Honors one in Athlone that I'm in my third year of at the moment, Google "AL032 Athlone" or view Athlone IT's prospectus. I find it a great course, they cover C++, Java and Python as far as languages go in the first 2 years. But having C# really would not hurt at all.

You can find more of my own personal opinions on the course in athlone here. The thread is very old so I don't advise posting there, but it might give you an idea. That being said they are my own opinions at the end of the day only you can decide what you want to do, don't act on what anyone else says.

TheLingKing

I thought I wanted to be a game developer when I was just about to leave secondary school but I didn't want to commit to 4 years in a university only to find out I wouldn't like it. I went to Ballyfermot College of Further Education, they have a course there that was called LUDO which is called something else now. Anyway, it was cool because it was an introduction to game design, they had some cool modules like Web design & graphic design, 3D Modelling and Coding and others but I feel that they were the most important ones for a game designer.

It was a one year course which is cool because I didn't wanna spend loads of time doing it and I found out really quickly that I hated game design and that I actually like graphic design! If you're not 100% sure I recommend doing something like this. Turned out in the end that I didn't want to go to university to do graphic design either and I ended up going to DCU to get my Arts degree in business so its not a dead end doing a course in a Further Education ( Like i originally thought) there are always options!

Hope this helps!

Kilgore__Trout

Hi Eoin & welcome to the GD forum.

I think you are doing very well to have started programming and to understand that game development doesn't involve coming up with an idea, and getting some geek to program it for you : )

Game development requires a mix of technical and creative ability, not to mention business acumen. I'm really only learning the ropes myself, but I would rate the skills (business & design itself aside for now) roughly in this order:

1) Programming
2) Art asset creation (3D modelling or 2D artwork)
3) Music & SFX production
4) Storytelling

This isn't to say that story telling or music are unimportant. They are important, but i think it would be rare for more effort to be expended in developing a story than programming the game itself.

I suspect you might require different skill sets for working solo or in a small team, or for an AAA studio.

If working in a small team, or especially solo, you may benefit from having skill in more than one of the above areas. I think it would be a mistake to try to do everything yourself, but if you can program and write reasonably well, or make some nice music, you're in a good position as a solo developer and likely to be of interest to a small team.

I haven't worked for a big studio, but I'm guessing your best chance here is to be highly specialised and very good in a particular area.

Anyway, hope this is of some help, and good luck!

Torakx

As mentioned above it may depend heavily on where you want to end up.
Although there are some skills that will always pay off for you.
Like doing a couple of years in a course for programming or on any of the dominant skills in game development that can be used in other industries.

Programing is a good example there. You could start out aiming for games and realise software development will pay your bills easier while you game dev as a hobby..
Lots of ways to go

oisincar

My best advice is get started now...

I was almost exactly in your position a few years ago. I broke my arm in second or third year and spent 2 weeks learning to code all day every day. I learned java first, then started Iphone development in cocos2d fairly soon after. (cocos2d actually has some really great documentation. There's a universal version that works on android and Iphone in c++, a lot of companies in dublin use it too... Read: Work experience.)
For ty I ended up working in two companies. One using php and the other cocos2d. Even though I wasn't able to help out much on the coding side in the first place, it was still a great experience.

Also, you won't appreciate how important it is to be able to code really well (and I mean classes, inherentence, data types ect.) until you want to make something and you don't know how.

I'm still in 5th year, so I can't give you advice on the collage side just yet.

Anyway... helpful links:
thenewboston.org (programming, simple game dev. Game dev content is a bit out of date now i think)
raywenderlich.com (unity3d, cocos2d(x) lots of great stuff here)

I bought a few books too, but the language in them is so hard to understand it makes them a bit hard to digest. I guess it's not a bad idea tho.

Hope this helps! Let us know how you're getting on!
Oisin.

RedXIV

I would also recommend the one year course, its very useful insight into every aspect of game development. there is a 4 year course on game design somewhere too, i remember seeing it but can't remember where.

Its definitely worth getting stuck in, you learn the overall idea from books but the useful practical stuff is only built from experience. and keep everything you do, you'll never know when it comes in useful.

There are a few groups around, even one or two on here, get stuck in!

DublinArnie

Hey Eoin,

I am in the same position as you are. I am a TY student, and I have a keen interest in the games industry. I grew up around games so it probably grew on me, and creating a game is something I always wanted to do, let it be; programming, designing, script or even testing it. I just wanted to get involved.

Many of the posts above this are helpful, and I suggest taking the advice. Over the summer of 2013, I interviewed one of the guys over at DigitGaming. I don't want to type 1000 words (I typed loads but boards.ie crashed so I'm retyping this) but I'll tell you the general jist I got from him.

He is the Lead Game Designer over at Digit, and yet he doesn't have a college degree. The only thing he has is experience and imagination among many other great aspects of this guy. The point is, he didn't go the college to study. He started by working in retail and writing reviews and articles of the latest games during the 80s. He slowly went up the ladder as companies realised he had potential and a good imagination or what not. To conclude, after being in many companies, he has ended up in an important role in a good sized company. But of course this may not apply to today as programming skills are more important than ever.

Now, about me. I've managed to score a weeks worth of work experience over at a games company for March. I just sent CVs to companies and then got an email from them. I would suggest having something IT related in your CV (I had photoshop designing skills and some coding experience among a few other pieces). Just keep trying.

Good luck and welcome to Boards.ie! We have a TY forum if you ever need help.

DeVore

Heya, well... I run a (very small) games design company so its someone like me you would have to impress to get the job.

Firstly, its basically the top job and everyone is looking to be a Games Designer. Its like going into the legal business and saying "How can I get a job as a Judge?!". The answer is, you cant ... at least not at the start. First you get to be an intern and you make a lot of coffee

The problem is, games are VERY EXPENSIVE to make. They are like films, no one comes out of film school and is handed a big Hollywood blockbuster script. You have to very slowly prove (time and again) that you are the person for the job. That you can be trusted not to make a balls of the whole thing, because this is the really real world and the budget will have been spent. Thats someone's money down the tubes, so someones ass is going to get fried. Typically not the games designers, tho they will catch some flak too!

So, how do you wiggle your way into that job then or what other jobs are there in Games making.

Well, *some* big companies are hiring people with games design qualifications, but rarely imho for the actual role of "games designer". Typically its for one as support to one of these main roles and then you get promoted by showing an aptitude for "game design".


There are three major roles.
Tech, Art and Business.

Tech is things like programming, scripting etc.
Art is everything from Theme and Concept Art to Modeling and textures.
Business is project management, marketing, team/resource management, sales, financing.

Each of these is a skill in itself and you can and should consider one as your primary focus. No one does all three. Ok, maybe Notch does but almost no one else does


I've heard a line from Scroobius Pip in one of his songs that fits very well. He said "I see lightning. I see kids who love being writers.... more than they love writing".

I see a lot of people who love the idea of being a games designer more than they love designing games. If you truly love designing games, it will consume your thoughts and you will have like a dozen unfinished games designs in your wardrobe that you love to polish and enhance even though you know probably no one will ever play them.

The one thing the OP said which made my eyebrows raise was about difficulty curves. Thats a good sign, that means you are reading the right stuff (and Extra Credits are freakin' geniuses at GD). Right now, today, I'm flaking off work writing this when I should be working on the balancing of our next multiplayer game (in fact, I wrote a post about it here, today ... go have a look if you want a real world example to chew on )

Last week I was talking to art directors about their experience for the role of Art Director. Next week we're looking at AI for the bots. In the mean time I have a budget report to balance for the producers. We have story boards to build and behaviour to model. Its a great job dont get me wrong but you really need to have a lot of experience in a number of the sub-disciplines to be able to do it.

Pick one of them that you love and go learn about that.
Read voraciously. Practise designing games. Talk to everyone you can.

Thats my 2c.

DublinArnie

DeVore wrote: »

Heya, well... I run a (very small) games design company so its someone like me you would have to impress to get the job.

Firstly, its basically the top job and everyone is looking to be a Games Designer. Its like going into the legal business and saying "How can I get a job as a Judge?!". The answer is, you cant ... at least not at the start. First you get to be an intern and you make a lot of coffee

The problem is, games are VERY EXPENSIVE to make. They are like films, no one comes out of film school and is handed a big Hollywood blockbuster script. You have to very slowly prove (time and again) that you are the person for the job. That you can be trusted not to make a balls of the whole thing, because this is the really real world and the budget will have been spent. Thats someone's money down the tubes, so someones ass is going to get fried. Typically not the games designers, tho they will catch some flak too!

So, how do you wiggle your way into that job then or what other jobs are there in Games making.

Well, *some* big companies are hiring people with games design qualifications, but rarely imho for the actual role of "games designer". Typically its for one as support to one of these main roles and then you get promoted by showing an aptitude for "game design".


There are three major roles.
Tech, Art and Business.

Tech is things like programming, scripting etc.
Art is everything from Theme and Concept Art to Modeling and textures.
Business is project management, marketing, team/resource management, sales, financing.

Each of these is a skill in itself and you can and should consider one as your primary focus. No one does all three. Ok, maybe Notch does but almost no one else does


I've heard a line from Scroobius Pip in one of his songs that fits very well. He said "I see lightning. I see kids who love being writers.... more than they love writing".

I see a lot of people who love the idea of being a games designer more than they love designing games. If you truly love designing games, it will consume your thoughts and you will have like a dozen unfinished games designs in your wardrobe that you love to polish and enhance even though you know probably no one will ever play them.

The one thing the OP said which made my eyebrows raise was about difficulty curves. Thats a good sign, that means you are reading the right stuff (and Extra Credits are freakin' geniuses at GD). Right now, today, I'm flaking off work writing this when I should be working on the balancing of our next multiplayer game (in fact, I wrote a post about it here, today ... go have a look if you want a real world example to chew on )

Last week I was talking to art directors about their experience for the role of Art Director. Next week we're looking at AI for the bots. In the mean time I have a budget report to balance for the producers. We have story boards to build and behaviour to model. Its a great job dont get me wrong but you really need to have a lot of experience in a number of the sub-disciplines to be able to do it.

Pick one of them that you love and go learn about that.
Read voraciously. Practise designing games. Talk to everyone you can.

Thats my 2c.

Very interesting perspective.

DeVore

The other side of it is... go make a game. Code something like Pong, or Space Invaders. Then make it better. Then better again.

Then you will want to scrap it because you've learned so much and your first game will embarrass you. Thats EXCELLENT. It should embarrass you.

So you sit down with a pad and a pencil (do not design at a computer. repeat: DO NOT DESIGN AT A COMPUTER) and design a more fun game with the experience you have.


There is a reason that the very first program any serious programmer in any serious language writes is "Hello World". Almost EVERYTHING ever written is just a more complicated version of Hello World.
Almost every game is a more complicated version of Space Invaders.

Bepolite

An aside but we're seeing an opening that will close very quickly atm OP.

When I were a lad ( many moons ago ) people coded games in the garage and made a fortune. CodeMasters were two brothers making games that were, by today's standards basic, but they were oh so good! Dizzy games were uber.

Because we're seeing smart phones and casual gaming again the 'bedroom coder' has an 'in' again. Angry birds isn't much more complicated than Worms but there are better tools etc. out there now and that thing has made a fortune for it's developers.

Just an aside as I say. I'm sure you want to work on the next HALO or COD :P

RedXIV

May be of interest:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/can-you-really-learn-game-design/

DeVore

Bepolite wrote: »

An aside but we're seeing an opening that will close very quickly atm OP.

When I were a lad ( many moons ago ) people coded games in the garage and made a fortune. CodeMasters were two brothers making games that were, by today's standards basic, but they were oh so good! Dizzy games were uber.

Because we're seeing smart phones and casual gaming again the 'bedroom coder' has an 'in' again. Angry birds isn't much more complicated than Worms but there are better tools etc. out there now and that thing has made a fortune for it's developers.

Just an aside as I say. I'm sure you want to work on the next HALO or COD :P

This is true but I can tell you, unless your game is very very good and also catches some kind of social up-wind... the real cost of a mobile game is sky rocketing as the devices become more and more capable of high end 3d graphics.

Bepolite

DeVore wrote: »

This is true but I can tell you, unless your game is very very good and also catches some kind of social up-wind... the real cost of a mobile game is sky rocketing as the devices become more and more capable of high end 3d graphics.

Aye we seem to be coming to the end of it alright. I'm still hacked off no one rereleased any of the Dizzy games or came up with an Elite II for Android

Also DeVore if you move in the same circles as David Braben, will you tell him to get his thumb out of his...

DeVore

The problem is that people never seem to just do a second version of the game, they inevitably try to crowbar a ton more stuff into it without realising that "more stuff" doesnt necessaraily mean "better game".

I think the mobile platform offers such huge rewards for developers that there will always be an option for really good indie developers to carve a niche because even a modest hit makes decent money back. The problem is that, like the movies, the AAA budgets are reserved for the sure-shots.

That said, the current market leaders seem incapable of understanding WHY they had a mega hit like, say, Angry Birds and equally incapable of reproducing that level of success. Thats terrifying the investors at the moment... they dont want to invest in companies because the companies dont seem to know how to spin straw into gold, even if they manage to do it once...


Getting back on topic, the reason I say "go make a game" is because even if no one ever sees it, or downloads it, the effort put into making it and the decisions you will have to make along the way will educate and inform!