What course should I take if I want to become a Game Developer?

[panicdev]

Hello this is my first time posting in this site (excluding status post) and I wanted to know what course should I take in senior high if I want to become a game developer. Please disregard that "dev" on my username I really haven't develop any (good) projects yet. I've been using RPG Maker MV for about a month now and all I can do are simple mapping and some common events. I can't create sprites (since I can't draw well) nor create my own battle system (I can't code very well). In a few weeks I'll be joining the moving up ceremony and have to choose my course for senior high. I asked my computer teacher about this and he said that I should take AD-2D AVFX (Arts and Design-2D Animation and Visual Effects Track) since most RPG games are focused on animation and illustrations. He also said that some of the students he handled was able to create a game by learning in online courses and Youtube tutorials and maybe I can do that to learn coding. I was also thinking to take STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and take Computer Science since I wanted to code a battle system for one of my projects later on. So right now I wanted to know what course to take if I want to create as a job.

(btw I don't know if this was the right forum to post this on so correct me if I'm wrong pls)

 

[bgillisp]

If you want to code a battle system, you will need coding courses. However, know that many schools the CS program is a few years behind the popular languages (usually because it takes time to find and hire someone who knows the new languages, or for the current staff to learn it well enough to teach it), but the basics will still carry over. For example, I majored in computer science and they taught us how to code in C. And this was 3 years after C++ had come out.

For game design by itself, no idea. I've looked at game design courses on coursera but they seemed to be more focused on being the idea man and not on HOW to do things, so I gave up on that idea. But I will admit I didn't look too far either.

Personally I'd recommend maybe start out with C, just to learn how variables (including arrays), conditional branches, and loops and such work. The idea for those will carry over to all other languages. Once you get comfortable with that, then move up to C# or JavaScript or Java.

 

[panicdev]

If you want to code a battle system, you will need coding courses. However, know that many schools the CS program is a few years behind the popular languages (usually because it takes time to find and hire someone who knows the new languages, or for the current staff to learn it well enough to teach it), but the basics will still carry over. For example, I majored in computer science and they taught us how to code in C. And this was 3 years after C++ had come out.

For game design by itself, no idea. I've looked at game design courses on coursera but they seemed to be more focused on being the idea man and not on HOW to do things, so I gave up on that idea. But I will admit I didn't look too far either.

Personally I'd recommend maybe start out with C, just to learn how variables (including arrays), conditional branches, and loops and such work. The idea for those will carry over to all other languages. Once you get comfortable with that, then move up to C# or JavaScript or Java.

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind but is starting out with C# instead of C also ideal or helpful?

 

[Shaz]

There really is no one course that you can do to learn to build a game all by yourself. Some people do it - the art, the coding, the music, the story - but my guess is they are self-taught in most of those areas and they may have learned one or at most two of them at college.

Move past the "this is what I need for MY game" thought process. You don't have to be able to do everything yourself - you can find others to do the stuff you're not good at - sometimes you will actually pay them. If you are putting in so much time to learn, then learn something that will result in others paying you to do it for them.

If you learn to code, you are limited to making a game in that language. If someone wants you to help them (ie pay you) to make a game with a different language, that's more learning you have to put in before you can start. Granted, if you understand the principles behind coding, it's easier to pick up the second and the third language than it was the first, but there's still a new learning curve there each time.

If you're looking for something that will keep you employed, my recommendation would be to learn digital art. Good artists are in short supply and the style of art you do really doesn't limit you to particular engines or even engines at all. You could make sprites for someone for RPG Maker or for someone who's built their own game engine, or someone who's writing something in Unity.


If you can do two, I'd go with your computer teacher's suggestion and do STEM as well.

 

[panicdev]

There really is no one course that you can do to learn to build a game all by yourself. Some people do it - the art, the coding, the music, the story - but my guess is they are self-taught in most of those areas and they may have learned one or at most two of them at college.

Move past the "this is what I need for MY game" thought process. You don't have to be able to do everything yourself - you can find others to do the stuff you're not good at - sometimes you will actually pay them. If you are putting in so much time to learn, then learn something that will result in others paying you to do it for them.

If you learn to code, you are limited to making a game in that language. If someone wants you to help them (ie pay you) to make a game with a different language, that's more learning you have to put in before you can start. Granted, if you understand the principles behind coding, it's easier to pick up the second and the third language than it was the first, but there's still a new learning curve there each time.

If you're looking for something that will keep you employed, my recommendation would be to learn digital art. Good artists are in short supply and the style of art you do really doesn't limit you to particular engines or even engines at all. You could make sprites for someone for RPG Maker or for someone who's built their own game engine, or someone who's writing something in Unity.


If you can do two, I'd go with your computer teacher's suggestion and do STEM as well.

Thanks for the advice!
The school does not permit taking 2 courses at a time (but can change course after the 1st semester tho). But the idea of being a digital artist really intrigued me so I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Another Ned]

You got some good advice already, but I have something more general that'll benefit your game making in the long run (that might be obvious, but it rarely hurts to state it):
Pay attention in class and try to learn as many things as possible (on the side, too, if time permits). History, biology, physics, literature, other things I forgot -- all of those things have something useful in them that, when expanded upon, help make your games' worlds and systems possibly more interesting (e.g. basing enemies off of the way the immune system works, or creating a city that's based on 15th century Venice, but in the mountains, etc.). (Also, in my case, it improved my grades massively, as someone who on several occasion almost had had to repeat a year prior to my starting game dev, so it's a win-win)

And I really recommend looking for tutorials/video tutorials on things. I studied game design in university but most of the things I learned I actually got from youtube videos. There's some great ones both on art fundamentals (I so regret not having learned about them when I was younger) and concept art, which was my main area of interest. On other things too, I guess, but those are the ones I know about.

 

[panicdev]

Thanks I'll try to listen to my history class later since I've focused more on Math and Computer this year because this 'choosing course thing' really bothered me.

 

[lianderson]

Good luck on your future game making.

 

[panicdev]

Good luck on your future game making.

Thanks I'll need it.

 

[Andar]

check around your country, in some coutries schools have adapted to offer game development courses.

Here in Germany for example there are two business level education schools that offer 3-year fulltime study courses to learn game development, containing both art sections and programming sections but adding courses in level design and similiar things.
They are all university-level schools and you have to have finished regular school before you can even apply to them - but they do give advice on how to prepare for them.
If something like that exists in your country (or at least a country whose language you speak), then you could try to ask them for advice as well.

 

[panicdev]

check around your country, in some coutries schools have adapted to offer game development courses.

Here in Germany for example there are two business level education schools that offer 3-year fulltime study courses to learn game development, containing both art sections and programming sections but adding courses in level design and similiar things.
They are all university-level schools and you have to have finished regular school before you can even apply to them - but they do give advice on how to prepare for them.
If something like that exists in your country (or at least a country whose language you speak), then you could try to ask them for advice as well.

There are some schools in my country that offers 2-4 years game development course but all of them are either too far or too much for me to pay. Maybe in the near future if I can earn enough money to travel and enroll.

 

[Andar]

There are some schools in my country that offers 2-4 years game development course but all of them are either too far or too much for me to pay. Maybe in the near future if I can earn enough money to travel and enroll.

even if they are too far away or too expensive for you, you can still ask them for advice on how to prepare to get there, what other trainings and schoolings would help if you were to enroll there later. You don't have to tell them that the chances of you doing this are low - they probably get hundreds of such questions from schoolkids who want to go there and probably already have a presaved answer to such questions.
And those answers will help you select what you can do.

 

[panicdev]

even if they are too far away or too expensive for you, you can still ask them for advice on how to prepare to get there, what other trainings and schoolings would help if you were to enroll there later. You don't have to tell them that the chances of you doing this are low - they probably get hundreds of such questions from schoolkids who want to go there and probably already have a presaved answer to such questions.
And those answers will help you select what you can do.

I'll try...

 

[dulsi]

If you are interested in being a game developer, I would recommend either going into programming or digital art. I know some people have gone the game design route and have a much harder time finding employment. Personally I've settled on not doing game development for my day job. The game development industry has some quality of life issues and general instability. I'm not saying you shouldn't go into game development and I may still jump into it at some point full time.

 

[LaFlibuste]

Honestly I feel you might be going about this all wrong. I mean, don't study in digital arts if you're not into that just because it might allow you to be a game dev on the side. And then, what, you'll sink hours into getting good at something you're not really into, and then you'll spend like 75% of your time doing art you're not really into for other people just so you might maybe spend a 10-15% of your time on stuff you actually like? Don't you think you'll feel miserable before long?

Seriously being a one-man game studio is an insane amount of work, will require a crazy variety of skills and will likely not allow you to live off of it. I mean, hell, any of the stuff that needs doing in a game studio is a career into itself and requires years of intensive training: music, art, coding, design, marketing, you name it. It might be fine as a hobby, on a personal level, but I personally don't believe in it on a professional one.

So, the way I see it, you really have two options:
1) If you really want to be part of the gaming industry, pick the part that you like best and concentrate on that. Being a "game dev" is super large, what part actually interests you? What part are you actually good at? And then maybe after hours you can develop your own personal projects. Or you might manage to be part of a studio that allows you to develop your own projects, or a small enough team that it allows you to actually have a word in the design process. But from my experience getting a masters in music, those that studied music because they wanted to achieve something that was not the music itself (i.e. become a star, or become rich, or whatever) didn't last long. So if you go into digital arts because you want to design games, well I'm willing to bet you won't last because you'll get fed up with the actual art quickly enough.

Also by the way game design is an actual thing, in some schools anyway, but (wanna-be) designers are plenty and the actual jobs are very few. Now I'm not saying you have no chance of succeeding, but I'm saying it's hard and the chances of you not making it are kinda high. It's like how they say on here: everybody has the-best-idea-ever, what is often needed is not people to supply ideas, but people to actually create something out of those ideas. The designer is the idea guy, so unless you are exceptionally awesome at it and incredibly well connected, chances are that you will have to build your own studio from scratch to be that guy in a studio. And well, that's a whole other can of worms.

Besides, my personal opinion is that the philosophy that says something along the lines of "make your passion your job and you won't have to work a single day of your life", this idea that we all grew up with, is bull****. A job is a job, whether it is your passion or not. There will always be hard or boring parts to it, you will always have to do stuff that are technically within the general field of your passion but you are not actually passionate about just for the paycheck. And then when you actually have some free time to indulge your passion, you might very well feel like you've done that all day and you'd feel like doing something else instead. That was my experience anyway, I barely play music at all anymore. So this leads me to what is in my opinion your second option:

2) Just do whatever you won't hate yourself over to live off of something and indulge your actual passion on your free time. Indulge your passion how you want it, on your own terms, and have the means to really indulge it, rather then use it to try and scrounge a meal ticket out of it. I'm not saying to drop college or anything and just get the first job that'll have you, of course. The point is not being miserable. But pick something you're good at and that you kinda like, vary your activities. If it's digital arts, cool. But it might as well be, I don't know, accounting or something.

So really, if I were you, I'd assess my life goals and evaluate what is the best way to achieve them. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What level of comfort are you aiming for? Do you eventually want to raise a family of your own? etc.

But yeah, I'm aware that if I'd told 19 years old me what I just told you, I probably wouldn't have listened to it. I could've become an engineer, a coder or any kind of scientist or doctor, I had the means to, but I just had to do music. Anything else wouldn't have fulfilled me. And even if I gave up on it eventually, I don't have any regrets. I'm glad I went all the way and reached my limit. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot. Otherwise I'd have lingered on it my whole life, asking myself "what if". Now I know "what if" and I'm much happier and more at peace. So go ahead, live your passion! Or don't. But assume your choices and be aware of the consequences.

Also your age is the age if there ever is one to try stuff out and change your mind, so don't worry too much about switching curriculums. You don't have to get it right on your first pick. Barely anyone gets it right right away like that.

 

[woootbm]

Like every other college degree, it's best if you decide which thing you actually want to do and focus on that. If you're looking to work for an actual game company, they always want someone who is good at one thing. If you stick to indie game design, well, you pretty much always need to work 2 or more jobs on the project. But even then, most expect you to be in charge of one thing and help with others.

To add a cynical note (from someone working in the industry), degrees don't really matter in most game dev jobs. All they care about is experience and that you can show your know-how with an awesome portfolio. And, more than even that, it depends on *who you know*. I tell ya, so many folks in this industry are total frauds, but they've convinced everyone they're top of the line. So work on those networking skills!

The fields that most require a degree would be anything involving programming. There's also a lot you can learn from the more complicated programs like Maya and working in the Unreal engine... iunno. I've never really heard anything good about game schools unless it's some kind of engineer or programmer saying it. When I meet someone who specifically studied game design... they're usually a QA person ^_^;;

 

[bgillisp]

In response to the ? asked above: No. If you learn a language to learn basics like if, while, for and such, you will not be using any of the C# benefits. And you have to learn how to do the basics like assign variables, use ifs and such before you can tackle the Object orientated programming in C# well. You have to learn to crawl before you can walk.

Maybe this is though why my college used older languages like Pascal and C, as we couldn't do anything fancy with them so we had to focus on the basics.

 

[panicdev]

Honestly I feel you might be going about this all wrong. I mean, don't study in digital arts if you're not into that just because it might allow you to be a game dev on the side. And then, what, you'll sink hours into getting good at something you're not really into, and then you'll spend like 75% of your time doing art you're not really into for other people just so you might maybe spend a 10-15% of your time on stuff you actually like? Don't you think you'll feel miserable before long?

Seriously being a one-man game studio is an insane amount of work, will require a crazy variety of skills and will likely not allow you to live off of it. I mean, hell, any of the stuff that needs doing in a game studio is a career into itself and requires years of intensive training: music, art, coding, design, marketing, you name it. It might be fine as a hobby, on a personal level, but I personally don't believe in it on a professional one.

So, the way I see it, you really have two options:
1) If you really want to be part of the gaming industry, pick the part that you like best and concentrate on that. Being a "game dev" is super large, what part actually interests you? What part are you actually good at? And then maybe after hours you can develop your own personal projects. Or you might manage to be part of a studio that allows you to develop your own projects, or a small enough team that it allows you to actually have a word in the design process. But from my experience getting a masters in music, those that studied music because they wanted to achieve something that was not the music itself (i.e. become a star, or become rich, or whatever) didn't last long. So if you go into digital arts because you want to design games, well I'm willing to bet you won't last because you'll get fed up with the actual art quickly enough.

Also by the way game design is an actual thing, in some schools anyway, but (wanna-be) designers are plenty and the actual jobs are very few. Now I'm not saying you have no chance of succeeding, but I'm saying it's hard and the chances of you not making it are kinda high. It's like how they say on here: everybody has the-best-idea-ever, what is often needed is not people to supply ideas, but people to actually create something out of those ideas. The designer is the idea guy, so unless you are exceptionally awesome at it and incredibly well connected, chances are that you will have to build your own studio from scratch to be that guy in a studio. And well, that's a whole other can of worms.

Besides, my personal opinion is that the philosophy that says something along the lines of "make your passion your job and you won't have to work a single day of your life", this idea that we all grew up with, is BS. A job is a job, whether it is your passion or not. There will always be hard or boring parts to it, you will always have to do stuff that are technically within the general field of your passion but you are not actually passionate about just for the paycheck. And then when you actually have some free time to indulge your passion, you might very well feel like you've done that all day and you'd feel like doing something else instead. That was my experience anyway, I barely play music at all anymore. So this leads me to what is in my opinion your second option:

2) Just do whatever you won't hate yourself over to live off of something and indulge your actual passion on your free time. Indulge your passion how you want it, on your own terms, and have the means to really indulge it, rather then use it to try and scrounge a meal ticket out of it. I'm not saying to drop college or anything and just get the first job that'll have you, of course. The point is not being miserable. But pick something you're good at and that you kinda like, vary your activities. If it's digital arts, cool. But it might as well be, I don't know, accounting or something.

So really, if I were you, I'd assess my life goals and evaluate what is the best way to achieve them. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What level of comfort are you aiming for? Do you eventually want to raise a family of your own? etc.

But yeah, I'm aware that if I'd told 19 years old me what I just told you, I probably wouldn't have listened to it. I could've become an engineer, a coder or any kind of scientist or doctor, I had the means to, but I just had to do music. Anything else wouldn't have fulfilled me. And even if I gave up on it eventually, I don't have any regrets. I'm glad I went all the way and reached my limit. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot. Otherwise I'd have lingered on it my whole life, asking myself "what if". Now I know "what if" and I'm much happier and more at peace. So go ahead, live your passion! Or don't. But assume your choices and be aware of the consequences.

Also your age is the age if there ever is one to try stuff out and change your mind, so don't worry too much about switching curriculums. You don't have to get it right on your first pick. Barely anyone gets it right right away like that.

I want to make this reply quick (but I really want to make this a long one) since I still have stuff to do so here we go:

1) I wasn't really thinking about joining a gaming industry. A small studio is what I was going for due to me having an idea how a studio works and the people needed for it. But if I ever needed to join an industry due to reasons, I have already chosen a part that I really like and something that I might be able to do well (with the proper knowledge and training).

2) I really do like making games and I plan to make it as a job and earn money from it. From my very first game that I made from Scratch to what I have currently made in RPG Maker MV was really enjoyable and I've never regret making them (even the bad ones). I had never aimed for a level of comfort in my future career since I've already expected the best and worst case scenario to happen. I was also expecting something similar to your experience in where I would "regret" doing what I planned to do. It is still too early to tell (since I'm only 16 years old) but after years of thinking and doing scenarios in my head (mostly while taking a shower), my decision is firm. I want to become a game developer even if its hard and requires time.

Before I end this reply I really appreciate the long post since I was able to really think my decisions even further and ensure my goal. Now excuse me for I still have an AP assignment to finish.

Thank you very much.

 

[Andar]

I plan to make it as a job and earn money from it

The problem here is that you will not be able to live from this at the beginning, and it will take a lot of work until you can.
You need to find something to live from until you are better known and have a name to sell - there are thousands of RM-developers, but only a handfull of them can live on their games alone.

 

[panicdev]

The problem here is that you will not be able to live from this at the beginning, and it will take a lot of work until you can.
You need to find something to live from until you are better known and have a name to sell - there are thousands of RM-developers, but only a handfull of them can live on their games alone.

I am aware of this fact and if I ever needed more money for expenses I am willing to take a part-time job to catch up (my aunt has a factory that I can work in and actually has a decent pay). I can see your concern and I am prepared for it.