Ultimate Game Design : Building game worlds

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to me had flashing animations indicating where darts had hit the dartboard, and
he had colored darts. Damn. I knew it was time to wander back to the philosophy
department, having just experienced the end of my programming career. Why Descartes
seems to make sense but plunking colored darts on a screen doesn’t I cannot even
imagine.
Actually, you can “make” yourself a programmer and force yourself into programming;
I’ve known a few who have tried. Unfortunately, you probably won’t
have the passion required to push yourself further every day. As a game developer in
any capacity, it’s important to understand programming (if only conceptually). Even
if you never become a professional game programmer, it’s well worth your time to
take some programming classes. You need to understand at a very basic level what
it’s like to face a programming challenge, even if your challenge is writing a program
to calculate your weight on Mars. Or, heaven help you, building a dart game.
In my own experience, game programmers need two core elements. They need a
deep understanding of how to tackle 3-D programming challenges (in code, math,
and physics), and how to inject life via code into the disparate elements that come
together into a game. They also need to have played a ton of games to know what
they’re after content-wise. I’ve seen engineers with little gaming exposure try to build
games. It’s not a pretty sight. They sometimes have fantastic engineering instincts,
but no sense for how to bend code into game fun.
Gathering knowledge of many games is the easy part. It’s the fun part in building
up your game understanding. The tough part seems to be gaining enough understanding
of the pure foundational mathematics and physics to get the intended effect
out at the other end of your code.
Many people have argued with me over the following point: I claim that these days
you simply have to finish a B.S. in computer science or mathematics (or get the equivalent
level of understanding on your own) to handle game programming. It simply
has become too complex. Having worked with many teams under huge amounts of
development pressure, I’ve seen the difference first hand. I’ve seen developers with a
solid background get a complete 3-D engine off the ground from scratch in two
months. I’ve seen developers without a solid background struggle for months to try
to move something across the screen.
Game Programming as a Career Choice
Game programming is probably the best career choice in the game industry. Many
game studio founders are ex-programmers, and some of them even still like to code.
Some have left programming behind and have chosen to focus on the business side of
running a game development studio. The game programmer as an individual has traditionally
been the focus of the industry. In the past, they often delivered the entire
game experience. Let’s face it, without great programming, you won’t have a solid game
despite the best art, design, or audio.
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Game Development Career Choices