Want To Be A Game Designer?
realityisdead
Employed by Raven Software after making ns_nothing Join Date: 2002-01-26 Member: 94Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Employed by Raven Software after making ns_nothing Join Date: 2002-01-26 Member: 94Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
Comments
This commercial shows up like after every 3 on G4.
I can imagine it now.
Sirus, you finish playtesting yet?
"Almost, you need to make the game better, kthx"
Sirus, what do you think about that particular level?
"It needs to be more purty, bai"
Mmmm...
It's actually for design
Not explained too well
The course very well could be worthwhile, I don't know. But the commercial certainly isn't helping their image.
It's pretty insulting if you ask me. :P
I want to say more about this advert...well, specifically I want to take it apart with barbed tweezers and then the actors too, and then whoever came up with the advert idea/script, and hell I guess the networking company that airs it too. Oh hey I did say something more.
Seriously though....what?!? I.... *speechless* is this advert really old or something? What are they playing, N64s?
Gah, sleep. <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
P.S. Don't forget, <i>tight</i>.
*edit*
<b>tight, really, really, tight</b> Thanks.
There were life sized cardboard cutouts of game characters all about the room, and nice PC's (Dell though, not my style, but nice none the less, for Dells)
They had Mac labs with brand new Dual G5's for some of the art programs, generally good equipment.
The school makes sure you have a job while attending, and works really hard to make sure you get a job after you get your degree, somthing like 95% placement within 6 months, they have a whole department for jobs.
It's a good school, and I might even go there eventually after getting some Gen Ed out of the way at CU Denver. I don't really know though.
I was impressed with the school though, don't knock it based on thes horrible commercial.
No thanks, I need to be consistent you know. Plus, it's not just a bad commercial, its a <i>really</i> bad commercial.
Now, game testing (what they were doing in the commercial), you don't even need a GED for that.
Just for the record, I <i>did</i> investigate game design courses, and quickly decided not to specialise myself that far. It seems to be a better idea to invest one's time and money into something with fallback options and build contacts to insiders along the way (*batseyelashesatKen*) <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I want to say more about this advert...well, specifically I want to take it apart with barbed tweezers and then the actors too, and then whoever came up with the advert idea/script, and hell I guess the networking company that airs it too. Oh hey I did say something more.
Seriously though....what?!? I.... *speechless* is this advert really old or something? What are they playing, N64s?
Gah, sleep. ::marine::<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's the thing... it's a modern commercial. :(
Supposedly, it's playing on G4 every ad break.
And yeah, barbed tweezers sound good.
The whole thing rubs me the wrong way, for obvious reasons. One, for not helping the stereotypical image that the media portrays of gamers and game developers, and two, for the misleading image it might give potential students who want to get into the industry. And for those of us who know better, as I assume most everyone here does, it's downright insulting.
But despite that, it's still hilarious. ;)
All that goes through my mind when she says "Great!" with that dazed stare on her face is the kids <i>tightening</i> up the graphics with the analog joysticks... by twisting them. Clockwise.
Doesn't excuse it, but makes the whole thing a smidgen less unreal.
Just for the record, I <i>did</i> investigate game design courses, and quickly decided not to specialise myself that far. It seems to be a better idea to invest one's time and money into something with fallback options and build contacts to insiders along the way (*batseyelashesatKen*) ;) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed.
For what it's worth for those considering attending a school like this: I'm of the opinion that developing a strong skillbase amongst a group of highly talented individuals online, and branching out from there, will do you more good than you might imagine.
Contributing to a high quality mod like NS <i>(especially early in its development, when the community was bursting with constructive feedback from talented people)</i>, for example, will help you develop the skills that a developer today will be looking for.
With an organized and commited team of people, you will be familiar with the organization, planning, and teamwork involved. You will have experiene with modern game engines and the workflow involved in getting content into these games.
If I were given the position to hire a team of people for a game, I would look online first, seed out the talent, and see who really knows their stuff. A mod team or group of people doing their own thing, coordinating onlne, who can show me that they can get their stuff together and consistently produce good content, would impress me more than a degree. It would show me that you're familiar with the system, and how we work. This is more valuable to me than a person who has a lot of technical knowhow, but hasn't actually been involved with a development team before.
Sites like <a href='http://www.cgtalk.com' target='_blank'>CGTalk</a> are also a huge wealth of information. With the thousands of people active in a community like that, it's literally like an infinite library of knowledge if you are trying to take up a skillset.
Anyway, this is just my advice and opinion, take it as you like. :)
I could be full of it, but I'm only speaking from personal experience.
*merkaba recharging now* zzzZZ
[yet another edit]
If that post sounds iffy at all then feel free to picture me on a soap box with sandles and a shaggy beard while saying it...I feel practically there already.
Hell, I just did that to you on you-know-what, and so far, you've got some great ideas out of it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Just for the record, I <i>did</i> investigate game design courses, and quickly decided not to specialise myself that far. It seems to be a better idea to invest one's time and money into something with fallback options and build contacts to insiders along the way (*batseyelashesatKen*) <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed.
For what it's worth for those considering attending a school like this: I'm of the opinion that developing a strong skillbase amongst a group of highly talented individuals online, and branching out from there, will do you more good than you might imagine.
Contributing to a high quality mod like NS <i>(especially early in its development, when the community was bursting with constructive feedback from talented people)</i>, for example, will help you develop the skills that a developer today will be looking for.
With an organized and commited team of people, you will be familiar with the organization, planning, and teamwork involved. You will have experiene with modern game engines and the workflow involved in getting content into these games.
If I were given the position to hire a team of people for a game, I would look online first, seed out the talent, and see who really knows their stuff. A mod team or group of people doing their own thing, coordinating onlne, who can show me that they can get their stuff together and consistently produce good content, would impress me more than a degree. It would show me that you're familiar with the system, and how we work. This is more valuable to me than a person who has a lot of technical knowhow, but hasn't actually been involved with a development team before.
Sites like <a href='http://www.cgtalk.com' target='_blank'>CGTalk</a> are also a huge wealth of information. With the thousands of people active in a community like that, it's literally like an infinite library of knowledge if you are trying to take up a skillset.
Anyway, this is just my advice and opinion, take it as you like. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I could be full of it, but I'm only speaking from personal experience. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was basically my reasoning behind starting mapping (all those years ago), and more recently, leading a MOD team. Now that I'm out of highschool I'm doing a Bachelor of Interactive Entertainment (Games Programming major) to hopefully get my other skills up to par.
\__rest_of_post__/
Anyway, this is just my advice and opinion, take it as you like.
I could be full of it, but I'm only speaking from personal experience. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
IAWTP!
I think you're spot-on, but then again, we're both in pretty much the same... boat. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
You can learn a lot from a game dev course, but just saying "I want to make games" and signing up for one probably won't get you very far. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> I think the best use for them, though, is augmenting your current skill set for greater flexibility in the development process. I know one guy who went to Full Sail after making some pretty cool level stuff, then entered their programming department. When he came out, he got a programming offer from Insomniac and is now a designer/scripter at Infinity Ward.
At the same time, though, without any classes whatsoever I've not only massively grown as a designer but also been able to branch into some modeling and the scripting language (which is a c++ style structure) quite easily. When someone has the right ideas and right direction, it's amazing what just a little nudge in the right direction can do. I've seen it happen with people in the mod community, some that I've worked with, and I've seen it happen on the professional level as well. It may have taken months of classes to get to doing some of the stuff I'm doing now, but because I had a solid talent base to learn from and production deadlines to meet things accelerated like crazy and got me to the required quality quicker and cheaper than a class could have ever done.
Regardless, I have very little faith in a place that can advertise itself like this so aggressively (constant g4 exposure) and not say, "whoa, whoa... wait a tic... we're showing <i>what</i>?" Places I'm aware of that have better programs include: Full Sail (know quite a few guys who have gone here), the Guild Hall (though I haven't had a great impression of the results thus far, heh), and SCAD (but all the people I know of who have gone there, including a guy from Nightwatch and a guy I think we're hiring at Raven semi-soon, had killer work before entering their program and probably would have been fine without it).
yikes, more inside jokes than I planned. My bad!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Entry level game *design* jobs don't exist. A lot of people I went to DigiPen with wanted to be game designers but ended up having to take programming jobs until something opened up.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not necessarily true. It all depends on how a company defines its design department. Many studios have a distributed model where design is spilt into gameplay designers and level artists - getting a job as the former would give you a fair bit of control doing things like layout, gameplay prototypes, etc. Ken and I are fortunate enough to have positions that combine the two - we're given a large amount of trust and flexibility when coming up with ideas for scenarios and we built/prototype them out as well. That's not to say there aren't core elements in place first to work from, but then as each person gives their own take on it things get more refined and sometimes can change entirely. In that sense, I think it does fit the description of 'entry level game design.'
The level design path seems to generally be the best suited to entering this realm (and is more generally referred to as simply 'design' anyway), but really it all comes down to having good ideas and presenting them in an intelligent and feasible fashion. If you can pose and answer the questions of: "Is it fun?", "How can we accomplish this?", "How will this benefit the game?", and "What drawbacks are there?", you're probably on the right track. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->