Advice

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone I need some advie im looking to get into the gamming industry . Im currently in my first year of a three year degree in computer science and after that was thinking of going to pulse college for game development would this be a wise direction and if so what should I do to start im doing my game research ive been looking at game engines and languages so if anyone can give some insight this would be great.

[Aphra K]

have you had a look through our education threads? This comes up quite a bit and has been discussed before.

come along to some of our informal events and attend the game jams too…that is the best place to start.

Aphra

[Anonymous]

Hi aphra Thanks for the reply when is your next event ? I looked at the website looks great very informative thats how i found pulse college I was at GIG in the aviva I attended the unity lecture and it was good . Thanks

[Anonymous]

… ive been looking at game engines and languages so if anyone can give some insight…[/quote:b67cb1ae76]

My 2 cents: Unity is the top engine at the present time and it’s going better and better. UDK and CryEngine won’t keep up, so I strongly advice to get your full Student Licence (with commercial option!) and get down to serious C# scripting, and also make your C++ quite good because Unity allows a lot using native extensions. Mastering Unity in full will open you a lot of doors in the industry. Get also the Adobe Creative Cloud Student Licence and you are good to go ;)

Best,
Pino

[Anonymous]

Thanks DTFGames So then I shouldnt bother with XNA Ive been messing around with Unity, XNA and c# Brushing up on my Gimp which is photoshop but unity offers free online classes so im enrolled with them . Do you happen to know what school offers Game development using Unity I know Pulse uses XNA

[Anonymous]

XNA has been dismissed and will be phased out in less than a year, so any effort in that direction would be a waste of time. BTW, phasing out XNA implies that the Xbox Indie Channel is doomed as well.

In my knowledge there aren’t any decent Unity based third level courses, but I can point you to the very best and free set of Unity classes out there ;) Go to http://www.3dbuzz.com and register (it’s free). There are a lot of excellent training videos on a lot of tools, included Unity. Have a look and… enjoy :)

-Pino

[Anonymous]

So, my 2c.
If you want to get in to the industry you should start making games right now.

Try a few of the easy engines, Unity, Construct 2, XNA, what ever takes your eye and just make a few simple clones. This will get your portfolio kickstarted and allow you to make more informed decisions in a few months time.

The next thing you should look at is gameJams. Get your ass to as many as possible by the summer. If you follow these 2 steps you will know a huge amount about the art and science of making games in just a few months.

PS: I too once favoured 3dBuzz but its all about CookingWithUnity these days ;)

[Anonymous]

C# seems like a great choice, XNA might be gone but Monogame replaces it and makes it 1000x better

Tho engines at this point are irrelevant, the important thing is, as Owen said to start making games :)

[Anonymous]

Ok so my question now is is it better to get a degree with a school that teaches XNA or get certified with a school that teaches unity I already will have my bachelors in computer science?

[Anonymous]

Ok so my question now is is it better to get a degree with a school that teaches XNA or get certified with a school that teaches unity I already will have my bachelors in computer science?[/quote:33a5dbee90]

From a curricular standpoint what matters is that you are well trained in maths and serious programming, so C++ is the best one. From a game coding standpoint what matters is that you have full knowledge of at least one of the current game engines (engines, not raw code!). Basically you do whatever it takes to create your games and learn Unity by heart, while in college make sure to take all the maths and C++.

[Anonymous]

Where can be find the educational thread? Also I need to know the websites giving educational suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Ok so my question now is is it better to get a degree with a school that teaches XNA or get certified with a school that teaches unity I already will have my bachelors in computer science?[/quote:4ddf803924]

So you are only in the first of a 3 year degree? You shouldn’t need to think about doing another course after college to get into making games. Just start making games. I am in my third year of Computer Games Development in UL, but all of the games I have made have been in my spare time outside of college. College can only get you so far, no college is going to make you a great game developer unless you spend your free time making small games.

Download unity and start following some online tutorials, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get something moving on screen.

[Jamie Mc]

Just start making games[/quote:46e33589d9]

I completely agree with dualtagh on this one, prospective employers when you get to the other end of your course will be more interested in seeing your portfolio than your paper qualifications. If you’re doing a games course, but show that you haven’t bothered to follow it up in your spare time, the jobs will go to people who have, not you.

Get involved with mods, a dev team working on a part-time project, college projects with the lies of Imagine Cup, GamesFleadh etc, and do things in your own time.

If you just do the basics through college, at the other end you’ll be struggling to find work. However, if you have a couple of projects that you are working on, you may find that you can have a job lined up before you have even finished the course in two years time.

[Author]

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