Career as a Game Designer,

Manager and Programmer.

Production Management: It covers all the expertise used in

organizing and monitoring any videogame project:

* O b j e c t i v e s

* S c h e d u l e

* B u d g e t

* R e s o u r c e s

* T e a m s u p e r v i s i o n

3 Years Foundation Course:

The two year Foundation Course enables students to acquire the basic knowledge they need to take a professional approach to video game production:

· General education (the arts, psychology, theory of images, etc.)

· Learning about the industry and the specific trades within it

· Developing a knowledge of videogames and an ability to analyse them

· Design, communication and teamwork techniques

· Basic organization and management techniques

Advanced Course - 2 years:

During the advanced course, students gain a deeper knowledge of the techniques and skills required for game design and videogame production management:

· Mastery of the mechanisms of Game Design

· Practical use of production techniques

· Supplementary teaching: law, film analysis, ergonomics, marketing, etc.

· Individual or group projects

· The final year is mostly dedicated to the achievement of a team project (pre-production and prototyping of a game)

Make a Career:

That's right, we're talking about a career here. Nobody just dabbles in game design. (Nobody just designs one game idea, sells it, gets rich, and retires at age 21). If you're interested in designing games, you should make a career of it!

*Go to college and get a Bachelor's degree.

*Get a degree in a subject that you're passionate about at a college that you choose based on your own personal criteria.

*But even with a degree in hand, you will not get hired as a "Game

Designer" right out of school without industry experience!

*You have to have other useful skills to get a job at a game company. Once you've gotten your foot in the door, you can gravitate into a design position.

So why get a college degree?

*One thing that a university degree does for you is that it shows a potential employer that you have stick-to-it-ive-ness (the ability, strength, stamina, and intelligence to apply yourself for the long haul).

*Another thing that going to college does for you is it teaches you to learn.

*High school is about school learning—basic stuff everybody needs to know. College gives you skills you can use in real life.

*Making goals, overcoming problems, devising solutions, and surviving.

*Yet another reason to go to college before getting that game biz job is that they say a college degree adds a lot of money to your lifetime income.

*"Game Design" does not mean "programming," and it does not mean "graphic design."

Fields whose whereabouts are important for Game Designers:

Here's a list of things you must study (as classes, not necessarily as majors):

*Physics

*Math

*Psychology

*History

*Drawing / Painting / Sculpture (learn how to make your own art)

*Music Appreciation

*Writing

*Literature

*Mythology

*Foreign language (any language that interests you; especially one from a country where there are game developers)

*Computers (even if you want to design board games)

*Acting

*Playwriting / Screenwriting

*Film Appreciation

*Public Speaking / Debate

*Marketing / Salesmanship

*Management / Leadership (especially, how to inspire and manage people)

The above subjects are necessary if you are going to design games—you need to understand what makes the world work and what makes games fun. What should you major in? That's up to you. Probably one of the above, but your passions should be your guide.

Game designers are, above all, effective communicators and storytellers. Don't sleep through your writing, acting, and speaking classes.

Additional Subjects:

It would also be good if you study some of these things too:

*Music (learn how to play an instrument)

*Geology

*Astronomy

*Palaeontology / Archaeology

*Ethnic Studies

*Biology

*Art History

*Radio / TV

*Drama / Film

*Business

*Fencing or karate (some kind of one-on-one martial art)

*Archery

*Sports (try lots of different sports; find one that you enjoy and get good at it)

*Crafts (learn how to make stuff with your hands and simple tools)

The point is that game designers, as creators of worlds for players to inhabit, need to have a solid understanding of what worlds are made of. They are not just made of stone, metal, dirt, and water—they are also made of people with an extensive body of knowledge.

One day you're going to be having lunch with some guys from a game company. If they start talking about the parts of a... flower, say, then you don't want to be sitting there with a blank look on your face when they're punning about a "pistil-packin' mama" or something.

It's unlikely any game designers are actually going to get raucous over flower parts, but you get the point. Get a good education.

Game Design:

Game Design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of game play, environment, and storyline, characters during production stage. Game Design requires artistic and technical competence as well as writing skills. A game designer usually has enthusiasm for new ideas. Designing games is one of those jobs where the big part of it is convincing others that your ideas are spot on.

It is a key factor in quality of Video Game covering all the creative techniques used to make up the game:

*Game mechanisms

*Rules

*Emotions sought

*Interactivity

*Gameplay

A subset of game development and is the process that involves:

*Designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage

*Designing of game play, environment and storyline during production stage.

*The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as well as documentation that describes such a design.

*Game design requires artistic and technical competence as well as writing skills.

Overview: Creating computer games involves many different aspects. The game play must be defined, the story must

be written, the characters must be designed, levels must be created, and interaction and behaviour of computer controlled entities must be programmed. Usability tests are required to make sure the game satisfies the player’s demands, and a marketing and promotion plan is required to actually sell the game. The Game Design Bachelor Program teaches all these skills needed to be successful in the game development industry. The students develop project and design skills through hands-on exercises in leadership, team management and game design. During the course of the program, students will be responsible for completing a game design document,

an academic project, and a presentation. The Project is designed to help students develop the project and team management skills needed to succeed in the game development Industry.

Objective: The goal is to provide students with the focused knowledge and understanding of game development necessary to be successful in qualifying for entry-level design and production positions. Completion of the Game Design degree program will greatly enhance the student’s ability to work in the fast-paced environment of a game studio in an

entry level production role. The curriculum in this program develops the student’s executive leadership skills, project and team management abilities, and teaches the production methodologies, as well as the marketing and media relations concepts used by major game studios.

Fine Arts: Creating concept artwork, storyboarding, environments, characters play a very important role in the game development process. It is very important for the game designers to have a foundation in traditional art. The course teaches students to develop basic skills using

traditional mediums such as graphite, colour pencil, and clay to create designs that work in the three-dimensional world. Students are asked to do exercises in illustration, colour theory, character development, life drawing, and sculpting will help them to easily understand the importance of producing believable characters and compositionally sound environments.

Art Creation for games: The students are given the basic knowledge of the way real time 3D content is modelled and textured for games. Students build basic 3d environments, vehicles, or characters, which will help them in designing

concepts for a game. The students are also introduced to the basics of rigging and animation. The whole idea of introducing the rigging and animation to the Game Design students is to give an exposure on how the rigging and animation works in a game pipeline.

History of Games: The Game History Course examines the history of game development, the changes in game systems, the evolution of genres and interactivity elements. The course explores why people play games and which games revolutionized the various game

genres. Important milestones in the industry’s history have resulted in changes to the way people create and play games, and designers need to understand these. Students will learn about influential and innovative titles and what impact they had or continue to have on the games of today.

Game Mechanics: The Game Mechanics Course explores the theories and styles which differ from one game to the other. Students will learn the theme and game play involved in the board games and then will move on to understanding more complex games. Through this course, students will have a better idea about

how to better sync gameplay decisions to a specified target audience.

Story Telling: The Storytelling Course introduces students to the history of storytelling from ancient mythologies and cave paintings. Students will learn the techniques of storytelling from the Game Design perspective. Students are also introduced to the importance of points of view, interactive characters, character conversations and writing good characters for storytelling games. Students will examine storytelling as a practical tool for communicating information and ideas.

Prototyping: The Prototyping provides students with the theory and practices used to design and execute a testing process to both validate and improve a game during the pre-production phase of development. The prototypes helps in the refinement of a game as well as reducing both costs and risks associated with the actual development cycle.

Level Design: The level design course teaches students to transform the concepts into extensive documentation,

environment modelling, and the placing of game specific entities (actors), usually with the aid of a level editor. Students learn to analyse game levels and break them down into their basic components. The course also teaches students to create a level based on game interactions and features. Designing a level by interaction allows the game designer to map out the perfect game scenarios to give to the player.

Team Leadership: Game Development is an intensely collaborative process – with designers, artists, animators, programmers, and audio specialists working together to

produce a high-quality game. It is important as a game producer, being able to understand these different roles and help them work together efficiently is the key to developing a creative and successful production environment. The Game Design Bachelor program puts the students in a leadership role, as they learn to coordinate a large, diverse team and help them operate as an integrated unit.

Game Design Document: The game design document is a tool to help guide the development of a game. The purpose of a game design document is to describe the game's

selling points, target audience, gameplay, art, level design, story, characters, UI, game controls, assets and sound & music. The GDD course introduces students to incorporate game design document from the initial game pitch. Design document will also be accompanied by functional prototypes of some sections of the game. Design document remains a living document throughout the game development.

Game Development: It is the software development process by which a video game is developed. The passion for games is the perfect starting point to build one’s future and whatever it is that inspires them to create their own game titles.

Overview: The program is designed to take the students through the entire game

development process and prepare them for a challenging and rewarding career making games. From the first day in the Game Development bachelor program, the student begins to develop the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the industry. They’ll learn the foundations of computer programming, create their own game engines and artificial intelligence, and collaborate with a team of like-minded artists and designers to develop a complete game. It’s all part of a complete game development education that will get them ready to face the demands of the professional game world. In addition to learning the game development process, the students

have courses focusing on computer science, communication skills, and how to prepare themselves for that first step into the gaming industry.

Objective: The goal is to provide students with the focused knowledge and understanding of game development useful in qualifying for entry-level, industry positions as:

*Game Programmer

*Artificial Intelligence Programmer

*Game Play Programmer

*Graphics Programmer

*Game Engine Programmer

*Physics Engine Programmer

*Sound Programmer

*UI Programmer

*Input Programmer

*Network Programmer

*Game Tools Programmer

*Porting Programmer

Completion of this degree program will greatly enhance one’s ability to create program code for:

*3D graphic display

*Multiplayer gaming

*Artificially intelligent opponents

*Real time virtual environments

*Technical proficiency

*Creative development

*Critical thinking

*Problem solving and analytical skills that contribute to life learning, providing them with tools to help sustain a long and productive professional career in the entertainment industry.

Computer Science: The Computer Science course introduces fundamental concepts of computer science and computational thinking. It Includes logical reasoning, problem solving, data representation, abstraction, the creation of "digital artefacts" such as Web pages and programs, managing complexity, operation of computers and networks, effective Web searching, and ethical,

legal, and social aspects of information technology.

Programming Languages: This course teaches the C++ and Java programming language as a foundation for creating games. Students will learn basic C++ and Java coding syntax as well as fundamental skills such as designing and building programs. The course also focuses on the object-oriented structure as a tool for creating games. Students are also shown more advanced concepts such as data structures and key algorithms.

Programming for Games: WINDOWS:

The Windows Programming course is a comprehensive survey of Windows Programming through the use of the C-style Win32 API. The Win32 API is examined in order to gain a full understanding of its nature and scope, with particular attention paid to message-driven architecture and how programming with the Win32 API is different from console techniques. Students also explore dialog boxes, Windows common controls, the Win32 GDI, dynamic link libraries, and multitasking.

GRAPHICS (DIRECTX & OPENGL):

Graphics Programming examines many different techniques and effects that are used to create cutting-edge graphics in today’s video games and how to implement them. The course teaches the details of computer graphics, exploring both the theory and application of each algorithm and effect and how they are structured and executed to generate the rendered result. Students learn with an introduction to basic 2D and 3D game graphics tools and components including common game mathematics, colours and pixels, and computer memory, as well as ray tracing and rasterization techniques and programmable shaders. Once they

have reviewed the foundations of game graphics, they will go more in-depth with shading and surfaces, direct and global illumination, special effects, and rendering nature. Students will also be introduced to Programming GPGPUs (General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units) using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) / Direct Compute. This is going to be very important in the coming years. Graphics Programming presents all the information needed to efficiently and effectively create eye-catching graphical scenes for video games.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

In the Artificial Intelligence course, students learn how to give intelligence to computer characters, including techniques for searching, game-playing, decision making, and learning. Various techniques for modelling realistic behaviours are also studied. The AI architectures, rule based systems, scripting language issues, to expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms are also covered in the course.

GAME ENGINE DEVELOPMENT:

This course will provide basic and advanced techniques for designing and developing a game engine suitable for use on a wide variety of next-generation gaming hardware. First,

the students will learn the principles and techniques associated with software development of a game engine. They’ll also learn to use and understand the tools needed to make games and build the game engine libraries and executable using MS Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment.

GAME ENGINES:

A game engine is a software system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers.

The core functionality:

That typically provided by a game engine includes :

*Rendering engine ("renderer") for 2D or 3D graphics

*Physics engine or collision detection and collision response

*Sound

*Scripting

*Animation

*Artificial intelligence

*Networking

*Streaming

*Memory management

*Threading

*Localization support

*Scene graph.

XNA (PROGRAMMING: C#):

It is core software that allows the game to run on a platform. Components include a

*Graphic renderer

*Physics engine

*Scripting

*Animation

*AI.

SOUND FORGE 9:

Sound Forge digital audio editing software includes a

*Powerful set of audio processes

*Tools and effects for manipulating audio.

Sound Forge software allows you to

*Edit, record, encode, and master nearly any form of digital audio including WAV, AIFF, and MP3.

SONY PLAYSTATION 3:

The PlayStation 3 is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series.

Major features of the console include

*Unified online gaming service

*The PlayStation Network

*Its robust multimedia capabilities

*Connectivity with the PlayStation Portable

*Use of the Blu-ray Disc as its primary storage medium.

OTHER TOOLS AND SOFTWARE:

*Nintendo Wii console

*Wii Board

*Wii Wheel

*Console Microsoft Xbox 360 premium

*Wireless joysticks Microsoft for XBox360

*Logitech G25 Racing Wheel

Game Networking: The Game Networking Course will cover the techniques and technologies required to create network-enabled games. Students will learn basic networking principles, network protocols, game-specific networking

techniques, and various APIs and encapsulation techniques. In addition to connection-oriented and connectionless communications methods, students will also learn various network architectures (including the client/server model and peer-to-peer model) and the standard Windows/Unix Sockets API in C/C++.

Game Planning & Architecture: In the Game Planning & Architecture, project teams meet to plan the art and technology for their game. They work together to create a project plan and assess the risks in their

project as well as meet with artists to develop early prototypes of the more challenging pieces of technology in their project. This course is designed to help the students develop strong communication skills as they work in a team with designers, programmers and artists.

Game Art: Art as a subcategory of video games, play a key role in the game development process. Looking at the video games of today, it’s obvious that each successive generation of hardware has opened the doors for more realistic gaming experiences. And with technology continually

expanding, the gaming industry now demands specialized digital artist to create hi quality artwork. Industry-quality standards continue to rise, and competition for entry-level positions demands that artists possess sophisticated skill sets before they can even begin their careers. Studios seek artists with a broad and integrated foundation of theoretical, practical, and technical skills. Keeping in mind the specific needs of the gaming industry, the program is designed to open the gaming world to the students, helping them develop the skills to become part of a specialized group of artists. These artists help to create the next generation of video games, creating hi

quality visuals, and helping to shape the future of one of the world’s fastest-growing forms of entertainment.

Overview:

The program is designed to develop artists well-versed in 2d & 3d asset creation for game development. With a focus on 2d & 3d content for consoles and computers, the students go through project-based classes that follow a clear progression from the basics of digital art creation up through the latest trends and tools. Along the way classes like Game Production, Production Modelling &

Texturing, Character Animation, Level Design, and Shading and Effects will help the student gain the skills necessary to move and improve content through the production pipeline. Each of these specialized classes is based around the same workflow processes found at professional game companies. Supporting these industry-specific foundations are classes focusing on the communication skills, and how to prepare you for that first step into the gaming industry.

Objective:

The goal is to provide students with the focused knowledge and understanding of traditional fine arts, modelling & texturing environments, props, vehicles, characters to create Next-Gen games. The students can qualify for entry-level positions in the game industry as:

*Game artist

*Concept artist

*Character artist

*3d modeller

*Texture artist

*Animator

*Technical artist.

In addition to the technical proficiency and creative development, your education will help you develop

critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills that contribute to life learning, providing you with tools to help sustain a long and productive professional career in the entertainment industry.

Fine Arts: The foundation in traditional art is the key to be successful as a digital artist. The curriculum is built on the skills, concepts, and techniques that will enable students to understand and appreciate the holistic approach artists must use in the gaming process. Using traditional mediums such as graphite, colour pencil, and clay students will learn how to

manipulate the elements of art to create designs that work in the three-dimensional world. Students will also learn various techniques involved in illustration, colour theory, character development, life drawing, and sculpting.

Art Creation for games: The Art Creation for Games Course provides students with a strong knowledge in developing 3d assets for games. Students develop game models of buildings, vehicles, or characters, which includes modelling of high and low-resolution geometry.

3D Modelling/Texturing:

The modelling foundations will help the students draw a parallel between traditional art and modelling/texturing techniques. Students learn to model/texture the way characters, objects, and environments look in real life. Students are also introduced to Advanced sculpting of Game Characters. It concentrates on the detailed creation of a gaming character from top to bottom. The course helps students to understand the constraints of geometry and textures in a game engine.

Rigging & Animation: The Character Rigging course introduces students to the

foundations of rigging. Through exposure to the core rigging toolset, students develop a strong understanding of how a joint hierarchy works. Students learn the principles of mechanical rigging, focusing on topics such as set driven keys, constrains, and expressions. Students then apply these techniques while exploring rigging of inorganic objects such as cars and machines. The course also emphasizes the core 3d animation concepts that are essential to the industry. The course teaches students computer animation techniques and applies them to the process of animating modelled characters, vehicles etc.

Level Design and Lighting: The Level Design and Lighting course continue to expand students’ understanding of game requirements with a focus on constructing a playable level. As a team, students design, build, texture, light, and add effects for a level. This course will be useful for students in creative 3d environments for games.

BEST GAMING SCHOOLS IN INDIA:

*DSK Supinfocom, Pune www.dskic.com

ð International Masters equivalent degree in Game Design+ Game Programming+ Game Art

*Bharati Vidyapeeth,Pune

=> B.Sc Degree in Animation and Game Making.

www.bvuadit.com

*Backstage Pass School of Gaming,Hyderabad www.backstagepass.in

=> B.Tech in Computer Science and Game Development

=> BFA (Bachelor of fine arts) in Game Art and Design.