Meeting 27

Amaris vs Miguel

MC: Jonathan

Schedule for this week

Game design careers

Overview: game design career

Game Design Jobs: Average Salary & Career Path Glossary

International Student: Careers in Game Design

Typical careers:

• Programmer/technician
• Artist/animator
• Composer
• Writer
• Business operations
• Marketing

Traditionally, this has been split into design and development categories, but as games get more advanced, the roles involved will get more sophisticated.

Developing experience:

1. Higher education: getting a degree in an aspect of game design
2. Self-made: developing homemade indie games
3. Industry entry-level: unpaid internship at a game design company

Best practice: don't pidgeon-hole yourself! Become knowledgeable of creative processes AND programming.

General advice:

1. Get a formal education, or be prepared to learn and study independently
2. Develop passion projects, and build a portfolio
3. Join communities
4. Attend events, like game conferences
5. Cultivate other passions and areas of interest—this can open new avenues for you in your approach to game design, and distinguishes you from nearly every other game designer

"Getting a job in QA [quality assurance] allowed me to get my foot in the door of the games industry. From there I was able to learn a whole range of skills such as understanding the process of making a game, how to communicate with developers and give feedback, and discovered all the crazy unexpected ways you can break a game (and believe me, there's a lot of ways!).

Having the QA role led to even more opportunities, so when I saw the vacancy to become a game developer 6 months later, I jumped at the chance. Between the programming experience I had picked up at university and the lessons I had learned within QA, I was given the chance to move into a role I had dreamed of since I was 6 years old.

Fast forward 8 years and I am now a lead developer with the responsibility of finding the next generation of game developers, using all the experience I have gained along the way to mentor them to success."

— Kevin Grantham-Murray, Jagex

Design Team meetings

Group 2 meeting
10:00–10:45 a.m.

Shreyas, Cristian, Zach, Jonathan

 

Thursday game jam ideas?

 

Game concept jam

Create an unlikely mixture of two game genres.

The protagonist must be an inanimate object.

 

Here's a Jamboard

 

Provide the following:

1. Game title
2. Storyline
3. Explanation of gameplay
4. Sketch of main character
5. Sketch of game environment