Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
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or LucasArts.) Every now and then, you
ll find someone who played a game you
worked on and enjoyed it. It
'
s great when fans get a buzz going about a game that
'
s
still in the design phase, or they start talking about the next version before you
re
back from vacation. They set up websites devoted to your game and argue endlessly
about stuff that even the development team finds minor.
Another category of people you come into contact with is the hopeful would-be game
programmer. I enjoy these folks, and I do everything I can for anyone who has talent
and is willing to increase his or her skills
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—
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t be reading this
book! With today
'
s independent development scene and increasingly savvy hobbyists,
there is also an increase in amateur developers. These developers are taking things a
step beyond the more casual hobbyist level to create things that are intensely interest-
ing. Some even graduate to cult status, or better yet, to the professional ranks. With
iTunes, the Android Marketplace, Xbox Live Arcade, Steam, and Facebook, anyone
can make his own game, actually sell it, and potentially make a living. The best
revenge is being able to tell your parents that playing all those games actually did
you some good.
if I didn
t, you wouldn
A Demo Is Better Than a Resume
One of the best programmers I ever worked with started out as a dedicated
amateur. This guy was so dedicated that he rewrote a large portion of Ultima
VII on his own time and actually made a fantastic graphics engine that had
Z-sprites before I even knew what they were. He showed us a demo that
simply blew the minds of the Ultima programming team. We hired him.
The best people are those closest to you
the development team. By the end of a project,
they
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re like your family. Certainly you
'
ve seen themmore than your family, and I
'
ve even
seen teammates become family. Programmers, artists, animators, designers, audio
engineers, composers, testers, and project managers make an odd mix of people.
You wouldn
—
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t think that these people could all hang out and get along. But they do,
mostly anyway.
Most of your interactions in game programming are with other programmers. One
big difference between the game industry and other more traditional programming
jobs is that there
s a significant portion of programmers who are self-taught in
games. I believe that game programmers as a whole look more to a person
'
'
s skill
than a university diploma. That
s not to say that self-taught coders are slackers by
any shake of the stick. Instead, they tend to be absolutely brilliant. One difference
'
