Where can I start with learning game design?

	Where can I start with learning game design? I was thinking of getting into computer science in college so I can get a job in game design. Problem is I'm not sure it's something I wanna do. Is there I cheap (or free) way to dip my toes in the process? Something simple, like with internet games, but something that will be similar to an experience in game design. At least to an extent. Asked By: James S - 12/1/2009

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Game design doesn't really exist as a career choice. There are virtually no jobs in the design aspect of gaming that don't also involve some technical aspect. In other words, you won't find a company that will pay you to dream up new games. There's a simple reason for this. Any gaming company also has programmers, 3D modelers, and animators who also happen to be game designers. Why would they pay for somebody who doesn't also have one of these skills? If you have good ideas for games, there's only two ways to turn the idea into a game: Write a game, or write a check. If you can afford to hire a programmer (and maybe a modeler or artist) then congratulations, you're a game designer. Most of us have to do it the hard way: write some games. Take a look at Game Programming: the L Line: http://www.aharrisbooks.net/pythonGame (Full disclosure here: I wrote this book, so I do have a vested interest) I wrote it because I talk to so many people who want to get started in gaming but get bad advice. (I also wrote Flash Game Programming for Dummies, but I think Python is a better place to start) Learn to program. That's a whole skill-set on its own. The language isn't that critical, but learn how programming works. If you can do it in a language that is easily adopted to gaming (like Python) then all the better. If it's free (Python is) that's even better! Then learn how game programming differs from more traditional types of software development. If you want to get into 3D, take a look at Blender. It's a marvelous free 3D modeling program that also has a very powerful gaming and physics engine. Sadly the documentation and books for this program aren't as complete as they could be yet. Best of luck to you! Please stop by my site and drop me a line if you have more specific questions... Answered By: two pi - 12/1/2009

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If you wanna learn some internet games, your talking Microsoft Silverlight or Adobe Flash. If you wanna do PC gaming, your looking at C++, C# and maybe even some Visual Basic. If you wanna do mobile games, for phones and such, Java is the way to go. What aspect of the games do you want to design? The graphics, programming, art, story, etc? There are so many aspects to game design. For creating the 3D stuff, your talking Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D. For some free content, just google some of the stuff listed above, and see if you would like to try and learn some it. When it comes to programming, VB is very easy to start learning, and can help teach you the fundamentals of game programming. For internet games, look at some Flash (actionscript) code to see if you wanna get into that. Either way, games are not easy to develop, if you want to make a real game. Simple games can be easy, like number games, tic-tac-toe and such. Answered By: donutdan4114 - 12/1/2009

There are about 40 graduates in game design for every one job. Developing games is extremely tedious work. Playing games is the finished product but that is nothing compared to developing a game. Too many young people think it is a fun career. They get done with college. They look for a job in that field. They find out they have to spend money to fly around the country interviewing. They are usually too broke to do it so they end up taking any job hoping that someday they can break into game design. You have to already have someone inside the game design company that has enough political power to hire you out of college. It is a rich kids career. Even those realize what a boring job it is after a few months. About as boring a job as software testing. Answered By: Lucy Girl - 12/1/2009

If you're referring to Desktop based Windows games (as opposed to iPhone, online games, mac, PS3, etc.) this is usually done using Visual C++. You can legally download Microsoft Visual C++ express edition for free here: http://www.microsoft.com/exPress/download/ Most windows games use a technology called directX. It allows you to deal with graphics in terms of textures, lighting, shadows, etc. DirectX will pass this information along to the video card, which is much faster than letting the CPU handle it, if the user has a decent video card. You'll want to learn some simple C++ programming first, then you can learn about directX here: http://www.directxtutorial.com/ However, the other answers relating to the number of jobs in this field are correct. Most of the jobs these days are in network administration, tech support, web design, web programming, etc. Answered By: Nathan W - 12/1/2009

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