"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit a

[jack_norton]

If you're lucky to live in a country with such a ridiculous cost of living (italy average salary is over 1500eur/month) then you really should try indie route. Is not that hard to make $300 a month after some time and several games out.

[Ren]

I'd refer to this post. It seems to me it's the most pragmatic way to try things.

[jack_norton]

Haha you linked to the image

[Topagae]

@Alt
Practice, practice, practice, and hard work. Keep on the programming. Renpy is great practice :3. As for being an indie, getting games sold in US markets can net a tidy profit, I suggest trying to get good enough to release a really nice 5$ game.

[DaFool]

Renpy is great practice.

^This. Sure, it won't make you a wiz that can hardcode your own engine from scratch using C++, but even working on visual novels -- whether or not people call them games -- will provide the needed experience to work on more mainstream games:

* experience collaborating with other people, as a writer, artist, musician, or coder.
* experience looking for efficient ways to manage assets... get off-the-shelf assets or limit your budget (money or time)
* experience play-testing something to make it fit for wider release. As well as patching a release if anything goes wrong.
* experience managing a project from start to finish, or learning from failed projects.
* experience receiving critical feedback or critical acclaim

All these experiences are the same if you took any off-the-shelf game engine or whether you pay people for their work or just motivate them with the awesomeness that is your idea. And that is why even if you're just making a simple story, if you go through these rites of passage, you can already call yourself a game developer.

[Sin]

I've only worked for small to mid-sized companies of around 15-20 people. In those types of companies you can always contribute to the game, whether it is direction or game design.
If you have good ideas, there's a high probability your team will agree. The more you contribute, the more responsibility you will earn.

To some degree I wield a lot of power as a developer because in the end, I'm usually the one who has to implement it and I will object more often than not if I spot something that doesn't make sense in a game design perspective.

[Sin]

I disagree about Renpy being good practice for game development.

* Python is SO not C++. They're different in practically every way.
* Hence there's virtually nothing you can take from Python development and apply to Windows/Mac/Console development, besides basic OOP.
* Game development can be categorized as "real time programming", i.e. it's all about maintaining a game event loop and running it as efficiently as possible.
Renpy seems to be structured like "do this, this, then this" (as is Novelty).
* As of just recently, Renpy hasn't had any concepts of 3D or hardware acceleration. 3D game development requires a decent amount of vector math. You're going to need to know how to calculate with vectors and matrices. No game today uses traditional 2D blit rendering. Not even the 2D games.
* Working in a team goes beyond knowing how to merge code. You need to know how to structure your code in a way that doesn't encumber your co-workers, as well as how to work with existing structures. This requires a lot of experience with the language itself.

[Jake]

I disagree about Renpy being good practice for game development.

I disagree about Ren'Py being good practice for the technical/programming part of game development (unless you dig into the engine itself or start messing around with some of the deeper parts of programming it), but I'd say making a game in Ren'Py (or Novelty, for that matter) is potentially pretty good practice - or at least a good learning experience - for anyone thinking of working in a team environment on a project with a technical side.

Project management, critical path analysis, timelines/deadlines, practical knowledge of iterative/waterfall development methodologies, distributing workload, dealing with inter-team tensions, using a VCS and so on are all completely transferrable skills to any other field, and are all things it's reasonably likely you'll learn at least some of if you develop a few VNs with some friends.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if employers of most stripes counted "successfully organised an interdisciplinary team of three people creating an hour-long visual novel over the course of a month" (read: took part in NaNoRenO) as a positive point on a CV.

[Sin]

Any point is positive, I suppose, and the more reasons the better if you're looking to get hired.
But once you've gotten the job, then what? You still need to be able to perform and produce actual code that both you and your team is happy with. This requires experience I don't think Renpy gives you.

Even if you claim that Renpy is a good starting point for want-to-be programmers, Python does a poor job to prepare you for the arcane arts that is C++.

[Altsyph]

Any point is positive, I suppose, and the more reasons the better if you're looking to get hired.
But once you've gotten the job, then what? You still need to be able to perform and produce actual code that both you and your team is happy with. This requires experience I don't think Renpy gives you.

Even if you claim that Renpy is a good starting point for want-to-be programmers, Python does a poor job to prepare you for the arcane arts that is C++.

Any good engine or should I start with no engines at all? (for programming)

[Topagae]

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[neowired]

How about Unreal Engine? That's what many pros use. Not sure if that's what the question was about though. That's a graphic engine, right? I suppose other than that c++ or whatever language you prefer

[Topagae]

Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

[DaFool]

It doesn't matter whether you code from scratch or use any engine, as long as you finish a project. It's the same as determining whether you want off-the-shelf art or custom art, music, etc.

There are some devs out there who keep changing their engines and toolsets and never get anything done, since they can't settle on something and stick with it. That's how Duke Nukem Forever took... forever.

UDK is Unreal Engine and its free to practice with (non-commercial projects).

AFAIK Unreal Engine forces your character armatures to be rigged a certain way (i.e. Gears of War characters). Unity is more flexible in that sense. Of course, if you want to work on AAA then yeah you might want to put expertise in UE in your resume.

[neowired]

AFAIK Unreal Engine forces your character armatures to be rigged a certain way (i.e. Gears of War characters). Unity is more flexible in that sense. Of course, if you want to work on AAA then yeah you might want to put expertise in UE in your resume.

Not to mention, if you build your own graphic engine it certainly won't hurt your resume either ; p