Check out the Course: https://bit.ly/3jd0tfM
I see people ask the question all the time, should I learn to code or learn game design?
Today I’ll answer that question the best I can, and explain why I went into code & how I became a unity game programmer even though I’d always wanted to be an unreal game designer.
I’ll talk about the differences between the two positions, how to get jobs in code or design, and what it’s like day to day working as a game programmer or a game designer.
If you’ve been wondering what you should learn, which job is right for you? Design or Code? This video will lead you down the right path 🙂 (don’t worry, it’s not ALWAYS code 🙂
More Info: https://unity3d.college
Join the Group: http://unity3d.group
Patreon: https://patreon.com/unity3dcollege
Not seeing the “game design zen podcast “ link mentioned ~12min ? Oo?
Googled it tho :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuOguU9sE7YbSM16y26SGXg
hi,,what would you say the most important language for game programming ?
I don't know anything about coding, I'm learning slowly, but I need guidance and I have questions. 1st Q: What are the best languages to learn with the highest results for a novice and in regard for the video's content?
Game Programmer is to Sound Engineer as Game Designer is to Performing Artist.
I'm in a slightly different boat. I'm a graduate student in a computer science program along with some fairly talented folks. I took a video game design class on a lark. Now I'm on a team to develop a game and all five of us are career software engineers, but only dabblers in gaming. Should be interesting! Thanks for the vid
Learn to write fkn good books and scenarios, and make artwork spirit to game
i had been graduated from computer engineering department of a good university in turkey ten years ago, but i had decided to go on with philosophy after three years of academics experience in engineering. Right now i am studying my phd in philosophy. But suddenly i've wanted to turn back to my original profession. After seven years separation, i hope to get used it without facing with too much difficulty. thank u for the video, i was thinking about game programming. And to be sure, i am open to any advice and encouragement or making been facing with the facts of this world 🙂
Nice video! With the popularity of mobile and live service I'd say it's much more valuable for a game designer to come in with a background in Economics and data analysis. Being very systems-oriented becomes very important when you're constructing the foundations of a progression system, let alone balancing an entire player economy. Poor decision making in the early going is going to have severe ramifications for your live ops and in turn the long-term health of your product.
There's really no such thing as an "ideas person" game designer: every decision needs to be backed up by some kind of data and not solely driven by your whims and desires, or those of your colleagues or even superiors. Being a great communicator is key as well, both in terms of selling your design decisions to your team and crystalizing the core tenants of your game so every other discipline is on the exact same page as you are. Sadly there's no room for wallflowers in game design and that's coming from someone who is at their core quite reserved and found working as a game designer to be quite stressful indeed. A big part of that stress also came from the constant uncertainty of not knowing if the choices I was making were the right ones and needing to wait many months sometimes until those ideas could be proven out. And because of this game design can and will haunt you constantly even when you're not at work. For some this could be heaven but for others it can become a living nitghtmare.
What about combination of programming and design in one job? Say the design more focused on the game mechanics from the technical standpoint.
I like that your poster crossed out the word "HARD." It reads that people are already working hard as is. Which is generally the case. It gives the wall more white space as well.
Game tester 😁
27yr old and have messed around with design for a couple years as a hobby, now deciding to learn coding full time and design on my free time! Wish me luck!
How can I learn how to develop a game? what are the tools, the tutorials, the correct language, and so on? I learn how to program before but webpages and quick web apps but nothing like a game. How can I start?
Over Power content 🔥
I am 🤔 about it also 😇
As for the topic you shoot out from the title, what if i take both of them?
"Gameplay programmer" and "game designer" should be the same role. A game designer should code their own gameplay systems. It's okay to be a "pure" programmer who only does the interface, the shaders, and the back-end stuff – that's all fine.
However, if you're designing the actual core of the game, you should be the one moving things around in the World Space, doing the character skill trees, programming the AI, and making sure the controls work properly.
Armchair game designers are a fucking cancer, especially if they don't have a programming background. They should be ousted from the industry.
You mentioned "Graphics coding" and "Gameplay coding", can you please tell me where I can get more information on these?
so alright im a high schooler in the 11th grade at the momment trying to learn as much as I can about this espcially sense I what I want to do which is probably a VERY VERY crazy idea but, I wanna be a all-rounder meaning I wanna code, design, make my characters etc do everything in a way I know thats alot from your point of view but I really wanna do this. but I need advice on how to go about it how would I do this? like would I have to go to multiple schools or most likely do my own research?
Thank you so much for explaining everything to us.
I get the impression that good game designers are very concerned with details and are obsessed about creating a fun game and immersive worlds. Having a vision and being on the ground to make sure every aspect of a game is done right sounds like management and overseeing. Also sounds exhausting.
I created a game and would like to start my own gameshow with it. Any advice?
Game design is way easier than coding the amount of math that is required for coding is a lot
I want to practice programming programming just to learn not for job
Do I practice with raylip c++?
Or python pygame?
i think learning the fundamentals, databases, programming, networking is the best thing you can do before going into any IT related job, often times the software you are using is not even complete/fully optimized etc so knowing what you are trying to achieve on a lower level can really help a lot. For me art and software are like completely different worlds but I could also see a developer having a decent knowledge and skill in art would be very beneficial and vica versa. You don't even rlly need to do a course to learn IT fundamentals, its really piss easy if you just watch some videos and read some articles, and documentation once u have a good grasp.
If only there was a job that did both 😭
I started with Game Design and I’m doing Programming now.
No youre not Jason u must be NEGAN
How does one learn game programming without having to touch on game design? Most online courses out there are design oriented.
WOW!!! I have been fighting myself on whether I want to go to school for game design or programming and you cleared that right up for me! Game programming it is! Thank you so much for all of this info!!
"Learning to code" as a requirement for game designers is stifling the industry. I get it. Coding games is more involved than ever before. But a lot of the revolutionaries like Hideo Kojima didn't really know how to code. So as the industry gets more complex, it will continue to devolve and games will become generic call of duty clones designed by committee with no innovation. You have to spend a lifetime studying the art and devoting yourself like shigeru miyamoto, hideo kojima, hironobu sakaguchi, john romero, Glenn Schoefield…etc to really make legendary innovative games. But being able to do that is probably impossible in this day and age.
One analogy I recently came up with when explaining this to someone else was this:
A game designer draws the blueprints.
A game programmer builds things based on those blueprints.
Programming. If you lose your job in game programming at least you know how to code and can work for an IT non game dev related job.
Thanks for making this video
It just made all the thing so clear in my mind
Hi Jason! Thank you for your videos! I am an artist and I am trying to learn how to code! I know Unity doesn't support Mono develop anyomore, but do you know if I still can use it?
Can't someone do both?
I want to ask, whose job is the development team that reduces the number of character polygons to make it work faster and better in the game?
Solo game devs: I have no such weakness
Me, doing game design, coding, and art at once
If you're proficient at either, they're the same thing. At least in today's world.
Unreal Engine is trying to cut the coding out of the process and make a 100% designer friendly interface. Only time will tell if this is a good idea. Unity doesn't seem to be moving in this direction at all.
woooo! Care to send me a short message on your game idea/ideas??
Programming will be like using typewriters. Once upon a time using a typewriter was a career called "executive secretary" but later documents became digital and schedules were replaced by outlook and suddenly typewriters were just a skill. This is what I anticipate that will happen to computer science.
learn how to code design
18:35 I want to add a little thing here. You can easy switch (find a job out side the Game Dev industry) when you are a Game Designer. The major skill of the Director of my department (at the University), actually, is film-making … And he built up whole Department from nothing (a few years ago). GD can make a lot of things that related to thinking, planing structures and operating people (even build his own company)!
OMG. O love you for the words: "GD sounds like an easy job… but most people really underestimate the amount of energy and skill and effort, that really goes into beign a good game designer…" (11:27). It's 100% true! I am a student at Game Design and even my parents (who supports me whole life) really don't understand my choice. This makes me upset
I also thought Game Designer is what I wanna do. Then I realized I want to program, not talk about. I'm 33 and very late to the party but I'm doing some Java and C# courses and get into that job. Kinda my dream.
"if you're a programmer, you can a build a game yourself"… provided you have a team working with you and budget north of 100k, unless you're ok with your game taking 14 years to finish.
Both, so you don't have to listen to a crazy designer
whats the easiest coding lang to learn to start out?
What about UI/UX for games? I'm a UI/UX Designer and I've recently found that they need this but the specific skills needed seem to be more obscure. Any ideas?