3 Years Later: Year Three

This post is drawing to a close my little series on how I went from not knowing the first thing about game development to being a programmer that eats rendering code for breakfast (as all good graphics programmers should). Here are links to my posts about Year 1 and Year 2.

Olympus

After finishing out my second year of college, I spent my Summer working on what would become the longest running project I've ever been a part of. Olympus is a project from the MSU Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab developed to study the effectiveness of exercise in motion games in the context of a game intended primarily for entertainment.

The design was that of an action adventure game set in Greek mythology. It not only required us to support toggling everything from dialog options to whether the game was played with a 360 Controller or a Wii-mote/Dance pad combination for various research groups, but it also demanded that we deal with the problems of maintaining a codebase over the course of a long-term project.

The lessons here were invaluable. There were only ever two main programmers on Olympus at a time, with Shawn Henry Adams and myself moving into those roles as the original two graduated. It very quickly became apparent to us that the code base was riddled with quick fixes, lack of proper tools, and poor software engineering. In other words- it was made by students, and not bad students at that. The fact that students are rarely have to revisit class projects in the future is something that I think should be fully realized when doing a student based project.

I'm not sure when students are supposed to learn the life lessons of the dangers of ignoring an attempt at good software design, but I certainly learned it from Olympus. It was also the most fun I ever had making a game for the GEL lab, working with my coworkers to get through the challenges of developing hours of gameplay and adapting existing, and often messy, systems to new designs. So as a student if you have the chance to work on or take a class that involves a project that lasts at least a semester, don't let it pass you by.

Becoming Nocturnal

When school actually started up, I was enrolled in two classes that changed me forever. One was the portfolio class for the game development track at MSU, and I threw myself into that class like there was no tomorrow. There was not an all-nighter that I wouldn't pull for the sake of my games, and looking back now I'm pretty sure I know why I had that mentality. The number one thing that I've ever heard about getting a job in game development is that a stellar portfolio is essential. Worthwhile? Yes. Although, as I lamented in my last post, a passing grade is not enough incentive to have people create amazing games. For me, feeling like I'm the only one working on a project is a lot more troubling than a difficult technical challenge. I'll always help and vouch for the kids that throw themselves at their work, because with a little direction, they'll always do great things. But in a portfolio class, it was always frustrating to deal with kids that had already let their enthusiasm slide to the point of no longer pursuing game development seriously.

I also took Yiying Tong's graduate level graphics programming class that Fall, and it was perhaps both the greatest and hardest class I've ever taken. There's a different lesson to be learned here than working hard to make a good game: it's worth it to go way over your head in a subject you enjoy. While a lot of it was beyond my comprehending at the time, I've come to learn that not being afraid of material you don't fully understand can help you out in the long run. Maybe the first time or the second time it doesn't make sense, but eventually, it all comes around.

On My Way Out

The Spring of junior year brought along my first serious attempt hunting for a job in the industry beyond Michigan State University's game development research projects. It also brought about the beginning of my writing for AltDev, the beginnings of a stint writing tutorials for Shaders in Unity, and my first semester as a TA for the introductory Game Design course. This was a bit of a tipping point for me and draws my story to a close.

I never had a good gauge for whether or not I was on track to make games professionally after college. When I seriously started teaching others how to make games, and people actually seemed to be improving as a consequence of my effort, I began to realize I was probably doing alright. My hunt for a game development internship landed me at the mighty Iron Galaxy Studios, and maybe someday after what I was working on gets announced I'll talk a little about my experiences as an intern there (spoiler: it was great!), but it certainly reaffirmed my suspicions that I had gone from someone wanting to learn game dev to someone that could competently contribute to a substantial game.

A final word on my efforts to contribute to helping others learn about game development: it's very rewarding. If you find yourself in a position to help others out, seriously consider it, whether it's teaching a class or writing a blog post or even giving a presentation at a local club or IGDA chapter meeting. I know that the reason I enjoy spending so much of my time trying to give back to the game development program at MSU and the development community as a whole is because a younger version of myself would have loved to be on the receiving end of any of the information I've shared. Many people helped me along the way to understanding what I've learned and experienced, it's all I can do to continue that effort now that I'm in their shoes as one of the more experienced individuals at MSU.