Path in the right(or left) direction

[HeavenSmile]

I'm a 22 year old male and I've finally hit my break point of the "career" life. For the past 5 years, I've been stuck working in kitchens and never quite had the time for a social life. So it's understandable why I'm a huge video game player.

After long contemplation, I've decided that I want to be a part of the video game industry. To make a long story short, I want to get into game design. And before everyone reads this and thinks upon themselves, "God, what an idiot. He probably thinks game design is about making the scenery and making cutscenes." Yes, I understand, this assumption is not true. I actually enjoy the idea of learning the process of codes and numbers that formulate the running basics of a game.

So after my brief digression, I ask; does anyone know of places or programs to start with for the goal of becoming a game designer?

 

[saintchristopher]

Look into whether any polytechnic schools near you offer game design as full undergraduate programs. I know of two in the northeast U.S. that do: RPI in Renneselear, NY and WPI in Worcester, MA.

 

[Angie7F]

I agree. Although it may cost you to pay tuition at first the knowledge and connection is priceless if you study properly and play it right.

In the end, its about getting to know the right people and building the right reputation, as well as having a strong foundation of whatever genre you wish to be working in that really make a difference going forward.

 

[Esotera]

http://cplusplus.com has a brilliant tutorial on the C++ programming language, which is pretty much what everyone uses for games. But if you don't have much experience programming, I recommend you learn Python, and look up a library called pygame (there's some pretty cool games out there made with it).

This sort of thread comes up every month so I'll put up the usual disclaimer...programming games sort of looks like it sucks. The pay is much lower than for normal programming, and most of the time you're doing boring programming on the actual game engine, searching for obscure bugs your monkey of a colleague has caused. Consider learning general programming like a computer science/programming degree, then specialising. There is a LOT of work in learning games; I originally started because I wanted to make games, and 2 years on still haven't made one (but my motivation for making games has gone down).

If you are going to stick to this, you'll need a lot of self-study. Get a schedule going. The linux user group on here might have people to help you, but if you're stuck you can always message me (or anyone else on any programming forum, ever).

 

[Zantos]

Game design courses are usually very specialized and have an appalling low number of courses that are actually accredited. I'd recommend you look into general computer science courses at places that offer extra modules in game design, that way you get a broader programming education with a variety of career paths, plus some education in game design.

 

[HeavenSmile]

Thank you all for the input and insightful information. I'm definitely going to look into all of this and start working on a hard study schedule.

In some ways, this can seem to be overwhelming but I want to make this work.