Advice needed!

SystemError

Good day everyone!

I have been a lurker on the site for a while now, and only recently decided to come out of the shadows as I could really use some advice regarding careers in the growing game development scene of South Africa.

Allow me to give you a brief bit of information about my situation before I continue...

I was in grade 12 in 2013 and unfortunately due to many personal problems I did not perform adequately enough in a few subjects, which led to me being rejected from all of the tertiary institutions I applied to. The following year (2014) I managed to find myself a job that paid out enough money for me to assist the household as well as keep aside some money for a rainy day. Determined not to give up on getting tertiary education I applied to study overseas, it was all smooth sailing until my school refused to provide me with some documents needed to finalize my seat at the university and thus the ship sank to the bottom of the ocean floor. Feeling lost at sea because I would not be able to study I came across a local college specialising in training students in game development or something in the field of 3D design/animation.

I contacted the college and explained to a lecturer the predicament I was in - naturally fearing to be rejected again. I was told to apply and give it a shot as there was no harm in doing so. A good few interviews and application forms later I somehow managed to get accepted and have a seat reserved for myself.

As of February I will be studying for perhaps 2 years (I would have preferred to do at least 3 years but due to financial constraints I can only manage 2). My first year (full time) is going to be regarding game development and my second year (part time) will perhaps be something more geared towards 3D visualisation.

I would like to ask for some advice as a newcomer in the world of game development, also for any tips as an upcoming proudly South African dev! I'm also worried with regards to employment after my course is completed. I recall another post by someone in a similar situation and that also helped me out a lot!

Thank you in advance for any feedback, and at least taking the time to view this little rant/post!!

francoisvn

Hey there, welcome to the forums!

What college are you referring to? What sort of qualification do you get on completion? Can you give us a better idea of the sort of skills covered? (programming, 2D/3D art, music, game design, animation etc.)

Getting employment in game development is quite difficult. There are some opportunities, but most South African game developers have an entrepreneurial background, which unfortunately takes money. The best way to increase your chance of getting hired is to have a portfolio of your work, and this community is the ideal place to get help with building your portfolio, so it's good that you're here :)

So my advice is to just start right now: download Game Maker, find a good tutorial and get started on something small. Make tetris, asteroids, or something similarly "small" for a beginning.

EDIT: Oh, and a new Game Maker tutorial series by Tom Francis, the maker of Gunpoint, just started:

SystemError

I will be attending Learn3D.

With regards to qualifications let me quote from my acceptance letter:

"The training will follow the guidelines recommended by Autodesk and Unity in respect to game content creation and authoring. Having been accredited in the year 2000 as the 29th authorized Autodesk Media & Entertainment Training Center in the world (the first in Africa), we will be using the official Autodesk courseware on our courses, and successful students will receive internationally recognized certificates directly from Autodesk."

Regarding the skills:

"The course will mainly focus on the programming language C# and Unity 3D, with game production pipeline aspects of Autodesk 3ds Max and/or Autodesk Maya, as well as Autodesk Mudbox, also being discussed. Topics such as low-poly modeling, texture unwrapping, normal mapping techniques, animation retargeting, scripting and programming, game design and authoring are among the ones addressed during the course.
To equip students with the skills required for future employment, actual project work will constitute part of the syllabus so that by the end of the year two working games will have been developed. Where available, comprehensive printed material will be supplied, however, due to the adaptive nature of the course, not all subjects covered may be available in printed form."

I have been tinkering around with Unity and some tutorials from Brackey's, which are quite helpful.

Thanks for the links and advice! Much appreciated! The more I can get my hands on, the merrier!

Elyaradine

Hey there and welcome!

I would like to ask for some advice as a newcomer in the world of game development

My first year (full time) is going to be regarding game development

second year (part time) will perhaps be something more geared towards 3D visualisation

I'm a bit confused as to what you actually want to learn. Do you want to be a game programmer (i.e. writes code), a game designer (i.e. builds systems and mechanics) or a game artist (i.e. works with pixels/verts)?

SystemError

I was told to take programming as a full time course (as my main qualification) with the artistic side as a secondary option as it would give me a better chance to expand my possibilities.

dislekcia

I'm not particularly impressed with Learn3D. In fact, I'm not impressed with any of these for-profit colleges that say they'll teach you game development.

By all means, go do a course if you can't motivate yourself to produce prototypes and learn on your own, but at least give that path a try first. You don't need anyone's permission to be a game developer, you just have to realise that it's going to take a lot of effort to turn yourself into one.

And you also need to be aware that any college that offers a specific course in game development or game design (and stay away from anywhere that says "game design" when they mean "3D game art", ick) is primarily about making money from getting people to sign up.

SystemError

Those are some very good points, which did echo what my parents have said as well. They have spoken to the lecturer in charge of everything and gave me the go ahead for at least one year.

I myself have spoken to a student (who's now working at Cape Town) and he said that it was a great experience - if you can dedicate yourself to the task.

Elyaradine

I may be mistaken, but to my knowledge, there's only one Learn3D graduate who's working in the game industry (here at Luma Arcade). He did the Maya course there. (And I can recommend Cobus, the lecturer. He works hard, is a sponge who absorbs everything he can to pass onto his students, and he's a good guy.) There's another grad who's working at some simulations company, might be 5DT. I'm not sure, but I think he may have done the game course.

I believe that the guy who's working in Cape Town isn't actually making games for his work. I believe his job has more to do with gathering content for a website (not his own games).

I think it'd be extremely difficult for you to find employment as a game programmer after taking a one year course. I can think of almost nobody who's been able to, particularly because of how there are people with BSC degrees in computer science, who have a much stronger maths, physics and comsci background, who apply for the same job. But at the same time, knowing that that path isn't available to you, I do know of one exception. A friend of mine pitched up at Luma with no degree, no diploma, but a giant portfolio of prototypes (i.e. not only the two prototypes that the Learn3D blurb says you'll do, but many-many). He got hired. (But he's a super, super hard-working exception. I feel that you should aim to be another exception.)

Do the course, or don't do the course. But for your own sake, get through those damn prototypes, as many as you can, bad ones, lots of bad ones, until they're not so bad any more. You can start right now. The internet is filled with Unity tutorials. Start simple.

SystemError

Thank you SO much, I honestly wish I had come to the forum before making any decisions without some advice from all of you here! I am working with whatever I can get my hands on and while it is no walk in the park I am determined to make something out of this, which brings me to my next noob question. How do I go about creating a portfolio?

Again a HUGE thank you to everyone for the input! I truly do appreciate everything.

dislekcia

SystemError said:

How do I go about creating a portfolio?

Make as much stuff as possible, gather as much feedback as possible about what you make, then keep making more stuff. When you need a portfolio for something, pick the best things from the vast array of stuff you've made (based on whatever you need the portfolio for) and use it as necessary.

I wouldn't say that there's a format to "having a killer portfolio", at least, not yet. Once you know what it is you'd like to do and who you need to impress to be able to do it, then you can tailor something specific and see if there are any gaping holes in your skillset. But at first? At first you just keep making stuff.

And make smaller scoped stuff when the first few things you make don't get finished ;) (Don't worry, happens to everyone)

P.S. It sounds like you've got a pretty awesome attitude. I reckon there's more than a few studios on the forum that wouldn't have to be convinced too hard to take you on as an intern for a bit once you've got some progress to show off.

P.P.S. Are you in JHB or CT? If you're in either, coming to the monthly MGSA meetups is always a good idea :)

francoisvn

In this case a portfolio can just consist of a bunch of prototypes/games. You can pretty much just start making games, listing them, and call that your portfolio. Don't worry too much about the specifics until you have at least a handful of prototypes, and by that time you'll probably know what you want to do with your portfolio. The idea of a portfolio is that you have a collection of work that shows off your experience - being able to make lots of games fairly quickly (and hopefully improving as you go along) is a valuable skill to try demonstrate to a prospective employer. I'd much rather hire someone that made 20 bad to average prototypes in their spare time (assuming they put some effort into it) than someone that made 2, even if the 2 are a bit better. You're pretty much guaranteed to learn so much from making all those games that you'll never regret it, and that's ignoring all the fun you'll have once you start getting into it.

So if your course will help you make games that you wouldn't be able to otherwise, or ensures you have something to fall back on if game dev doesn't work out, then I think that's great, but if a bragging point of a course that focusses full-time on making games is a total of 2 games in a year, I might be a little concerned.

SystemError

Okay there's SO much great feedback here!!

I do have lots of idea's written down on paper and numerous "sketches" (if you may call them that) all I need to do now is level up the programming skills and integrate it into the software.

I will have a lot of time on my hands so I can grind out as many prototypes as possible. And if there's two qualities I have it's determination and that I'm a hard worker!

I'm actually from the South Coast, but will be moving to JHB in the last week of Jan. I would be honored to attend the meetups as it seems like a splendid opportunity that can't be missed.

Again (this is getting cliche) but thank you all for the advice, really glad I decided to speak up!

Elyaradine

Sweet! :) While you're in Joburg, along with coming to the meetups, you're welcome to come visit us at Luma and lurk for a day. We're like 90% artists here, but I imagine you'd enjoy it anyway. :)

SystemError

I will most definitely take up that offer! I'm certain it would be an enjoyable as well as educational experience! :D

You all are AWESOME! :D