Looking for places to study gamedev in Gauteng ()

Reon

Hey everyone, right now, I'm a grade 11 student at Curro Serengeti and I have been interested in game development for a while now (since grade 7 to be exact). And when I started learning, I used engines like Unity and UE4 but then found it much more interesting to build games from scratch, meaning building an entire render engine and everything from scratch in OpenGL using the LWJGL library. And so far I have been able to program very effiecient render engines that can render complex water shaders and metallic shaders very fast and I can also program realtime shadow systems and auto terrain generation with perlin noise and everything. I can also build RPG engines that supports multiplayer with some nice networking systems. I am also pretty good in vector and matrix math (witch you use alot when building an engine from scratch). So I use every bit of spare time that I can possibly get to make games and work om my current engine and its pretty fun.
Now the only thing is, to do this and make a living out of it one day, I'm obviously going to need a degree and I have considered to study game development at OpenWindow and I'm not sure what other universities offer the course so I anyone can maybe point me in the right direction, it would help me alot. Also if there are any teams I can join in the future or job opportunities for gamedev, I'd be pleased to hear about it. And I know that gamedev may be a little low paid and that it doesn't really get you anywhere near rich, but I don't really care because it is so much fun to do and I only need enough money to buy food and basic needs to keep me alive. So yea, If anyone has some University recommendations or teams or jobs for me for the future, I'd really like to hear about it. I'd also be interrested to start a small team one day to make indie games to sell for a living if it's possible but yea I don't know anything about making money or a living from it so that's why I'm asking you guys so any tips on this would really be helpful.
P.S I live in Kempton Park in Gauteng (Incase you would recommend a university in Cape Town ).

Kobusvdwalt9

Hey ! Welcome to MGSA :)

You seem to be very good at coding, which is awesome considering you are in grade 11. Do you have a portfolio of games you have made ? If you don't have one you should start working on that right away.

As for the degree : Having one isn't a requirement to make games. You can make games right now. Then you can show that games to other people and if you are really good they will pay you money to make games. That being said if you can go to University then you definitely should. You will learn a lot of stuff and having access to the resources a Uni provides is just awesome. WITS has a gamedev course that you can check out.

Yeah, those are my thoughts but I am sure the others will add some valuable advice. This is a frequent question so be sure to search the forums and read the responses in similar threads.

dislekcia

Reon said:

Now the only thing is, to do this and make a living out of it one day, I'm obviously going to need a degree

Why is this an obvious thing? What would a degree help you get that you don't already have, from the sounds of what you've been doing? Legitimacy? ... Heh, you don't need that - just start making playable things.

Would you be able to post any of the things you've been working on here? They sound pretty cool :) (If you're worried about giving out source, posting videos of shader effects is always a good idea)

Elyaradine

Maybe still ask the school if you're interested, but If you're into building engines over making games in Unity, I wouldn't recommend the Open Window course. Theirs is very art-focused, with (as of the last couple of years?) some game design. Afaik very little maths or formal programming.

It's possible to get hired into game programming with just a portfolio of games and no formal education. It doesn't happen often, but I imagine it's because not many people even consider it to be an option, and not because companies choose not to consider them.