You probably dodged a bullet there, thinking you can “just make a game” with a polish that makes it playable. It is a skill you have to learn, several actually. You can learn that if you work in the gamedev industry so I don’t understand why you recommend against it.
Taking x time off to make a game with low knowledge could be a fun endeavour but not more than hiking IMO.
I forgot to add that I had a Masters in Game Development and Computer Graphics, which definitely helped, but I still learned most of my gamedev skills by regularly attending gamejams and working on my own projects. I’ve also started working in gamedev for the past year, and I wouldn’t say that it teaches you much, since you are missing out on 80% of actuall development and only crunch JIRA tickets and bugfixes, as a junior that is, without being exposed to the more important parts or other skills. Assuming you join a larger studio with game in progress, in an indie studio with team of 10 people, you’ll probably have a lot more responsibilities and impact on other stages of the game’s development.
It was only two years, and it was basically half nornal computer science classes, and half working with engines, making a game with classmates and mentors from the industry throughout the year, and learning about rendering, AI behaviors (the videogame kind, not LLMs). The graphics part was about shaders, lighting, post-processing, global illumination, renderers and math, not modeling. It was mostly technical, but we had some game desing classes.
You probably dodged a bullet there, thinking you can “just make a game” with a polish that makes it playable. It is a skill you have to learn, several actually. You can learn that if you work in the gamedev industry so I don’t understand why you recommend against it.
Taking x time off to make a game with low knowledge could be a fun endeavour but not more than hiking IMO.
Source: ancient gamedev
I forgot to add that I had a Masters in Game Development and Computer Graphics, which definitely helped, but I still learned most of my gamedev skills by regularly attending gamejams and working on my own projects. I’ve also started working in gamedev for the past year, and I wouldn’t say that it teaches you much, since you are missing out on 80% of actuall development and only crunch JIRA tickets and bugfixes, as a junior that is, without being exposed to the more important parts or other skills. Assuming you join a larger studio with game in progress, in an indie studio with team of 10 people, you’ll probably have a lot more responsibilities and impact on other stages of the game’s development.
Yes, a small dev team is the ticket, and even then you might be excluded from marketing and all that jazz like funding, getting edited etc.
You seems to be on track to be a game dev of sorts, and who knows, maybe you’ll make your own games one day, good luck!
Forgive a question from an oldtimer, what exactly is a master in game dev and computer graphics?
Do you learn how to code and like draw, model, rig & animate? Code 3D engine stuff? Game mechanics I guess? For 5 years?
I’m curious :-)
It was only two years, and it was basically half nornal computer science classes, and half working with engines, making a game with classmates and mentors from the industry throughout the year, and learning about rendering, AI behaviors (the videogame kind, not LLMs). The graphics part was about shaders, lighting, post-processing, global illumination, renderers and math, not modeling. It was mostly technical, but we had some game desing classes.