Interesting article, the "thou shalt... etc" is a little annoying, but I think the overall points are fundamentally sound. I'm not sure if I think game design is really something that can be "taught" so much as gained through experience. Are game design programs as useful as something else like programming, or animation courses? I think that game development courses shouldn't be offered to first year students since I think they need to build a foundation in say, programming in general before they hop into game programming as a specialization.
I don't think programs should focus on tools. Students should already have a background foundation on programming tools, modeling and animation software packages, etc. What they should teach is playability, gameplay, game development project management, etc. They should also learn to prototype, starting off with small, fast projects and working their way up to larger ones.
http://www.designersnotebook.com/Lectur ... dments.htm
Opinions? Discuss.
Ten Commandments for Game Developer Education
Re: Ten Commandments for Game Developer Education
i've interviewed a number of graduates from game design school... yet to hire one. there is little replacement for gained experience. it's not that they teach the wrong things, it's just that the graduates are usually young and inexperienced... not sure how to apply their skills.
i've had interviewees try to rattle off the 14 principles of game design (apparently there are 14) but absolutely fail to apply them. and most grads have little experience in interviews so i think one fundamental that these guys are missing are the "how to be cool about actually being a game designer"
then there is the whole thing of working on the industry versus working on the actual game that you want to make. very rarely do they both happen together.... especially with large teams. that and there is always someone else's direction you have to usually follow (ie: your bosses)
reading through the article, i pretty much completely agree... i am hounded for scenarios and reasons why the player is doing something... in my game its obvious. you just do... i try to find gameplay first. scenarios should be taken care of automatically by the story.
#2 strongly resonates with me... it seems my game designs very much based on what other games have recently done feature-wise that has been successful. i hate that approach... though i can't stress enough how important it is to really know the other games that are out there. i can't tell you how many graduates i've interviewed who haven't played recent games, don't have a 360/ps3/play pc/etc. you are going to cut the interview very short if you can't talk credibly or give me something to ask questions about and make determinations from.
i've had interviewees try to rattle off the 14 principles of game design (apparently there are 14) but absolutely fail to apply them. and most grads have little experience in interviews so i think one fundamental that these guys are missing are the "how to be cool about actually being a game designer"
then there is the whole thing of working on the industry versus working on the actual game that you want to make. very rarely do they both happen together.... especially with large teams. that and there is always someone else's direction you have to usually follow (ie: your bosses)
reading through the article, i pretty much completely agree... i am hounded for scenarios and reasons why the player is doing something... in my game its obvious. you just do... i try to find gameplay first. scenarios should be taken care of automatically by the story.
#2 strongly resonates with me... it seems my game designs very much based on what other games have recently done feature-wise that has been successful. i hate that approach... though i can't stress enough how important it is to really know the other games that are out there. i can't tell you how many graduates i've interviewed who haven't played recent games, don't have a 360/ps3/play pc/etc. you are going to cut the interview very short if you can't talk credibly or give me something to ask questions about and make determinations from.
Re: Ten Commandments for Game Developer Education
in consideration of this topic in ways..I've always had a question or wonder.. If we were to start at Q3 for a beginning per to say, a person starts learning everything about the game from how to modify it, make maps, create textures, and did all of this for the last 8 years or so and perfected all of it. In the process of it they make no money whatsoever yet they become well known for all of the work that they have done, and countless people use their textures and thousands of people play their maps and love them because no one else can create such original work and make nothing from it..yet respect.
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Who would a game company find to be a better candidate to hire? This person who came from nowhere, or a college graduate that needed to be taught how to do it? I'm also not saying that the graduate doesn't have amazing work to show for his studies. It's a question I have though...as I've seen alot of people out of the Q3 crowd getting hired for projects.
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Who would a game company find to be a better candidate to hire? This person who came from nowhere, or a college graduate that needed to be taught how to do it? I'm also not saying that the graduate doesn't have amazing work to show for his studies. It's a question I have though...as I've seen alot of people out of the Q3 crowd getting hired for projects.
Re: Ten Commandments for Game Developer Education
I only skimmed the article but the points seemed pretty weak. The point about exactness of function is very true though, there's a strong tendancy for people talking about game design to say things that boil down to 'make it awesome' when you need exacting ideas of values and interactions. If you're to teach gameplay then it needs to be a lot more demanding than the points in the article seemed to imply.
The fundamental quality to being a game designer is... to be a game designer, you either are or you aren't. You'll have been trying to break, modify or improve almost every game you've come across since childhood if you are. It's also important to learn to play at least two game genres to a high level, sports or games such as chess qualify, without that you will never understand any competitive games as (gameplay's internal logic rather than pure code) systems.
The fundamental quality to being a game designer is... to be a game designer, you either are or you aren't. You'll have been trying to break, modify or improve almost every game you've come across since childhood if you are. It's also important to learn to play at least two game genres to a high level, sports or games such as chess qualify, without that you will never understand any competitive games as (gameplay's internal logic rather than pure code) systems.
Re: Ten Commandments for Game Developer Education
Thou shalt not write long boring articles?
Sometimes I feel like I've been blessed.
I'm doing what I want, so I never rest.
I'm doing what I want, so I never rest.