hi
i am only 14 and when i leave school i would like to be a games designer. i would to know any courses i could do in college(i might be going winstanley college) also in university[liverpool university]. any tips on how to get the job i would like to work for rockstar one day[big dream]. thanks please keep this bumped i am really interested. also if i cant get this i would like to be something related to gaming even a game journalist.

Depends what you mean by game design.

Do you mean Scripting, Modeling, Textures, Idea's...what?

i dont know probably moddelling

Do you have ANY experience at all in your chosen field?

Quote from Jakg :

Do you have ANY experience at all in your chosen field?

Why would he have any experience at 14? It's hardly an issue, and probably a good time to start.

I would say you can't really go wrong with a maths/physics/computer science type course at uni, for A levels you'll need to do maths etc.

Being a game designer and a code monkey however are two very different things.

He doesn't know whether he wants to do 3D Design or Programming - I think he needs to get the basics down first.

Yer but pretty much every kid whos plays games wants to be a game designer when they're that age. Or a games tester, because they get to play games all day.

Pretty much none of them realise what's involved, and tbh I think it's pretty pointless saying 'I want to be X' in a computer based job when you're that age. Keep it general and many possibilities will be open to you. Maybe.

Quote from pb32000 :

Yer but pretty much every kid whos plays games wants to be a game designer when they're that age. Or a games tester, because they get to play games all day.

Pretty much none of them realise what's involved, and tbh I think it's pretty pointless saying 'I want to be X' in a computer based job when you're that age. Keep it general and many possibilities will be open to you. Maybe.

haha, I actually had that exact same goal going into high school as well. Just from personal experience, get into a good University and take some design classes first to see if it's for you. You might turn out to hate being a CAD-monkey.

isn't there schools for such thing? I dunno which one is best but at these I found these online.

http://www.gameinstitute.com/

http://www.collinscollege.edu/programs/game-design.asp

I think at your age you can try learning maya on your own, would take quite a while but if you get use to it, when you get older other aspects of computer will seem familiar to you.

Went to an end of year show at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN).

The game's design course from what I saw of their work entailed artistic illustrations followed by implementing them in 3D, whether it was level or a character. Some had done both, and even super-imposed them on PSPs.

They had 2 rooms though, every other department had 1, so it just goes to show it is a popular thing to do at the moment...so you'll need to have the willpower to be one of the best.

Find a game that's not too hard to make new content for, and make some. Make some more. Change games and make some for that too. Post it on the web and you've got yourself a portfolio. Combine that with relevant school and uni courses and that will put you in the best position possible, at least.

Quote :

i am only 14 and when i leave school i would like to be a games designer. i would to know any courses i could do in college(i might be going winstanley college)

From what I researched a few years ago there's only read one university in the world offering game design courses where the output of the students is of a quality I would deem them to be ready for commercial employment. I researched this heavily 3 or 4 years ago, and looked at what the students who graduated where producing of all the colleges in the world offering games design. The one you want is Phoenix Arizona, but I cant for the life of me remember what it was called. That's not to say a college education wont help you develop skills you can use in the games industry, but you will need to invest extra time to get up to the standard necessary.

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any tips on how to get the job i would like to work for rockstar one day[big dream].

A friend of mine left Rockstar recently. He has no formal education, what he had was examples of his work that he could show. Unless you're working deap down in the engine or linking modules together most of the games staff at Rockstar are 3d modellers who design the levels and make things work using a >>very<< simple scripting language.

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i would like to be something related to gaming even a game journalist.

The best thing you can do is start making games and/or web sites now. Learn the basics of scripting and programming and modelling. If you want to get into the world of 3D you're going to need several years of experience under your belt before you are professional level, assuming you have the aptitude to do it in the first place.

Good luck.

If you want to get into game design Flash could be the right thing to start with.

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/ (30 day trial)

If you don't have fun making games in flash, you won't have much fun making games at all, because it's really one of the easiest to use tools to start with and has lots of tutorials on the net.

If you're more into 3D and the graphic side of gaming, the modding community (e.g. rFactor, UT series etc. )could be a good place to start with.

As a new entree into the games industry, you're going to need a degree to have the best chance of getting a job like that, since you won't have the years on experience as an alternative. With it being a popular choice to apply for with young geeky guys, competition is tough.

As mentioned, the two most common roles are programmers and artists, which are two very different roles and I'd suspect you'd only be naturally good at one (if either). So find out if you have an eye for art or for logical thinking and problem solving. There is also QA work ('beta testing'), producers, designers and other odd minor roles, but the latter two there are probably something you're going to need experience in the field to get first.

No doubt college will be the best opportunity to try all this out - I took both computing (invovled programming) and graphic design at college, I found out pretty quick which was the one for me.

I'd agree with what Becky said about making examples though - it wasn't really my degree that got me my job, it was my work on VHPA, my LFS mod and my setup guide that got me the very particular role I do. Throughout college and Uni you will have plenty of spare time on your hands, while of course you should go out, have a good time and live your life, just think whenever you're watching TV or surfing youtube, think of something more productive, interesting and beneficial to your career you could be doing.

Quote from pb32000 :

Why would he have any experience at 14?

Arsehole! No im joking, but thats stereotypical. Im 14 and i have experience in making games, so pah :P

And ot

im not too sure on universities ect but from experience with other people i know you've just got to make a portfolio as someone said, just make alot of game related things and show case it. Another way is to spend your time making a nice likle game that has all the ribbons and post that all over the internet, get advertising with your games and show off your game making skills. Then you can get found by game designers, but im talking seriously good games to show off.

Im sure there are courses in it and ways to get in through that but ive never researched them

If i was you id practise with some game makers and just make some simple little games becuase you've gotta start somewhere.

Heres some links to some of the best imo.
There are alot more but some are too complicated or some arent powerful enough.

Game Maker 6 (2D & 3D) - With this you can make any kind of game at all. It even comes with its own coding language so you could begin to learn that and then you would be able to make games using this amazingly well or if you want you can use a drag and drop system.

Game Maker 7 (2D & 3D) - This is exactly the same as the above but its just newer, but i dont like it as much because i just dont lol. Different owners now. They're pretty much the same.

RPG XP (2D) - This is a pretty simple programme to use, it can make rpg's and you can get down to making full games as long as you have the patience.

RPG VX (2D) - Same as the above but newer. I use both because i can

Fps Creator (3D) - This can make pretty big first person shooters. Its all drag and drop so easy to use.

If your interested in 'designing' then the best option is really to make a mod or level of an existing game that people play.

If you have Counter strike/team fortress all them source games, you'll have Source SDK on the steam tools which is a user-friendly(ish) editor.

Why not design a map/level from ground up?

Infact, if you create a map for CSS or TF2, I would be happy to bug my friends that run Endless Gaming to host the map on our public servers for a while (maybe even all the time if its popular). Its a proposition that will hopefully give you motivation

Courses do exist for people wanting to go through the career path of game designing. In september I start at my local Art&Design college studying Interactive Multimedia - which includes a lot of game design and automatically guarentees a place into Teeside University (some of you may have been on their counter strike servers) who are one of the leading Uni's in animation + game design.

Check out the websites:

http://www.ccad.ac.uk/
http://www.tees.ac.uk/

We have loads of (ex)Teeside Uni students at work, so I'd agree it's a good choice.

hey thanks for your comments any one got an updated trial of the fps maker

sorry for double post but can someone help me i would like to try to make a mod for rfactor nothing fancy just a little simple car i would to know what i need for it all thanks in advance

paul

Updated trial?
You mean fps creator x10

Thats windows vista only and im not sure they released a trial either.

And as for the rfactor thing id probably check out the rfactor site.

Regards to 3D modeling, it really takes some time to learn even basics of it and you need to have some artistic talents to come up with original designs. Most of the time you're facing problems that come up with trying to create certain shape and do it by the rules so there wont be any graphical bugs in the product. It takes a lot of patience and you can find yourself laying in a bed middle of night with your head going on overdrive trying to solve some problems.

Can't say much about coding, I've never enjoyed it because it lacks the interaction you get when shaping up things in modeling program. All coder gets is a lines of error messages and bloodshot eyes.

Quote from Migz :

Arsehole! No im joking, but thats stereotypical. Im 14 and i have experience in making games, so pah :P

No you don't. Sorry but Game Maker and FPS Creator require no programing or graphics skills, at most you can claim to have used a little bit of level design, but far less than is involved in any decent mod or small web game. If you want to learn to start programing or making games try Darkbasic or one of the simpler Basic programs might be easier to pick up, nothing complicated, I last played in Basic in primary school.

Quote from brt900 :

sorry for double post but can someone help me i would like to try to make a mod for rfactor nothing fancy just a little simple car i would to know what i need for it all thanks in advance

paul

Making a mod for rFactor requires a lot of effort and patience. If you don't know what rFactor is I wouldn't suggest trying to make a mod for it straight away. Mods are either made by teams, where you'll be expected to have relevant skills and put a lot of time and commitment into it and produce a high quality product or individual work, which requires a bit of everything and even more time. If you're serious go over and take a look at the RSC forum.

you can make models for FPS creator, Rick & Rich tried getting me and my bro into it. You just get a load with it so most peeps dont bother.

If your going to learn basic with a view to moving on later I'd recommend Blitz3D over DBPro because the syntax and near OO concepts will serve you better later on.

i have rfactor. i play it sometimes and i have patience i only have 6hours of schhol a day and after that i have all the time i need for creating something. and i have a lot of patience