My Preferred Game Dev Career

Everett Wallace's Idealistic Career Path

Introduction:

I have always been drawn to games, not just video games but ludology as a whole. Fun experiences with intuitive modes for play is my schema for life; its not just a game to me (that phrase is silly).

 

Play is an amazing way to scaffold skills and is a humongous motivator for many. 

Games are essential to living a fulfilling life and the iterations of them have evolved as we, as a species have. Video games are the next stage for games and can be the ultimate expressions of creativity and mechanical prowess, to create an engaging player experience. Yet I still appreciate other forms of games like sports. That rush I feel when playing football (world football, not American) cannot be simulated, but requires a player's athletic skills. I also enjoy the intelligence and adherence to rules needed to play board games.

Which I have been making since I was 8. Making systems of logic from my own mind and inspirations from works I particularly enjoy is my passion (I'm more subtle than just ripping off candy land now though).

I am developing two unique prototypes of an online/physical - custom collectible role-playing Card Game (Figure A) and a Board Game about narratively building Legos (Figure B).

Figure A

 Figure B

      Right above shows the little dinosaur game I am currently making that I plan to release eventually on itch.io (a publishing website). Once I fix the bugs and add more content.

Game design and creative ideas come naturally to me. I am open to learn other ideologies and methods from peers, but generally I like working by myself and having as much creative control as I can. But braving independent game development has been arduous alone. I am 20 now and have only had the merit of making works that have been my been my sole conception, sharing and playing those games with family and friends. Seeing people enjoy something I made, is my favorite feeling. I want to get my ideas out there and actually finalize one of my many personal projects, both for adding to my portfolio and for my dignity as a creator. 

I've learned a lot and improved all facets of skills required to make video games, but capitalizing on it and actually making it a career is something I'm struggling with admittedly.

First Most Career Choice: 

Independent Game Developer - 

* If it wasn't apparent from the intro, I primarily want to create my own games, the way I want to make them.

What is it? - Independent Developers have the most creative freedom in the game development industry... given how you have to do everything: Programming, design, art, producing all in a tight-knit weave of skills that come with the territory. Compared to other job titles and even business models like a triple A company, indie game developers have a large branch of meanings and it can get a little confusing on what the job actually entails.

Yet an important distinction with Independent Game Developer as a career over maybe more specific career options, for example Interface Designer who is responsible for a video game's user-interface while maybe working with artists to work on the GUI (Graphical User Interface), AI Programmers that create systems for game logic for NPC's or any object that has multi-layered task execution to give the sense of 'life' or organic feel to game-play and many more job titles. But this job title is 'Game Developer', which could entail all processes for construction of the project. It's not uncommon for a developer from even a triple A company to have multiple workloads and expertise, but scale is what really denotes how many jobs are available. 

An Independent Game Developing business is defined as a body that 'does not' receive finance from a publisher, but there are other definitions that say instead that independents can still be independent even with a publisher, and that the small and less corporate size of the business/studio is the main factor. All the terms honestly feel loose, generally though large game development companies with high budget make video games with top of the line technology with at least 30 hours of game-play (the amount of content and longevity of the average playing time), yet from popular opinion from players and people has a whole; can feel more impersonal and corporate. While in Indie teams either focus on filling a small-scale niche or are more ramshackle given lack of resources or experience. Some indie games are incredibly popular, others fall into obscurity; the potential is very circumstantial. But the general consensus is indie game developer works are more personal and focus more on gimmicks and game-play rather than sheer content, to create a fun experience while not breaking the bank on assets (or overly ambitious projects outside of your skills to create...).

The gaming industry is booming and it will continue this trend given how cemented video games are in our culture. It's a tough market to stand out as an indie game dev (especially if you are an 'indie' indie developer), the amount of impressive creations from creators of all sides of life continue to inspire me. And I aspire to add to that list.

Duties/tasks - It depends; if you're working with a team you might be more focused on certain tasks. Indies are usually a small team, on the low end e.g. Team Cherry's "Hollow Knight" which is a Side-scrolling Metroid-vania (sub-genre of video games with Metroid and Castlevania mechanics like open level layout, obtained abilities that are needed to progress and has cut-throat threats) video game with 50+ hours of game-play and is astoundingly made by a three man team! Indie teams can exceed over fifty persons, like for "Playdead," developers of classic surreal narrative games "Limbo" & "Inside."

The kind of indie game developer job I want is for me to lead a small passionate team. Which would effectively make me the founder of the business and would require me to decide on managerial decisions. Producer roles such as communicating project details with peers, conception and maintaining development of the projected video game (since I'm only working with one team, we would make just one game at a time), handling budget and publishing.

I am a designer at heart so I would create design documents, experiment with game engine capabilities; like trying new systems and innovative technology, and work on game design in all its facets. Test game-play while checking for bugs. Come up with unique mechanics that stand apart from other games, I have personal goal to create fun and playable 'animal controllers', I'm sick of the lack of them in the gaming industry. Instead of having a humanoid that inexplicably has wall climbing abilities, make them a gecko, have interesting movement for four-legged creatures besides just: Turn direction, move forward. Have momentum, play to the attributes of the many extraordinary characters that are 'real'. Have ragdoll physics for an octopus but control each arm and regenerate them when they are torn off by spamming that arms button. Have a Soulslike, where you're a dinosaur that has to bite onto weak spots of other dinosaurs, or lacerate tendons, break bones. All while having an engaging unique way for players to appreciate the capabilities of nature (and yes, you can still exaggerate abilities; game-play over believability is the way). 

Programming in C# and collaborating with other programmers through Git. Updating and making sure collaborating programmers have compatible software, and versions of shared applications with Git or another version control systems. 

On top of the other developer duties such as art direction, graphical design, sound design, character design, planning the narrative. And I would have themes of social commentary with my own experiences that tell a message that means a lot to me.

Skills Required - Creativity, patience, problem-solving, high school level mathematics and greater, adaptability to stay up to date with expectations of the business, programming skills (C# is a staple for indie game devs), designing abilities, capability with game engines (Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, for example), critical thinking, team management, communication, computer science, promoting through online avenues, streamlining and execution of projects.

My Preparation - I will continue taking College of DuPage (COD) Game Development classes while networking with other developers. I'm improving my mathematics to help with programming on top of self teaching myself C#. I will keep studying, I book mark many helpful web pages I have discovered so I have easy access to them. I dutifully take notes when I learn new concepts and I write down possible solutions when I am stumped by a task and will write the solution if I managed to figure out what the problem was. A testament of this is my bulletin board that helps my visual learning brain. 

I will work towards participating in more game jams, but for now I will continue to work on my projects (at least finish one!) to create my video game dev portfolio.

The game I'm working on has been downsized tremendously, and don't even get me started on the 150 page game document I made while working on my first video game (still vastly uncompleted). What I'm striving for now is completing a game prototype with a finished core game-play loop * I came across a post on Quora that perfectly summed up bad and good practice for creating your first game https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-game-development-process-for-indie-developers. 

* George Moromisato, Founder of Kronosaur Productions: What is the game development process for indie developers [Quora post]. 

Income -  $108,471 per year, or $52.15 per hour was a projected average for a credible Independent Game Developer with a publisher. It is a volatile market and for the type of Independent Developer I want to start as will probably make almost nothing in but hopefully with the experience I will accrue so will the monies.