It’s not as simple as it appears. To finally be able to create a video game takes years of hard work. You’ll need to spend countless hours coding and even developing game concepts. So, if you want to go down this road, you must think carefully. If you’ve decided that you want to be a video game developer, or if you’re just curious about how other people become game developers, keep reading!
What are the steps to become a video game developer?
Step 1: Become a Student
The first step toward mastery is always to become a skilled student of that subject.
And, if you want to create the next great video game, you should first play the legends that came before you. You must play carefully, attempting to comprehend the various decisions made by the developers.
Play the game and pay attention to the game’s narrative structure and how it’s put together. It is the first step in learning how to be a video game developer.
Step 2: Engage in the Community
One of the most significant benefits of living in the twenty-first century is that we are all interconnected. You can communicate with people who share your interest in video games but live on the other side of the world.
You will better understand what gamers, your future target audience, like and dislike by becoming an active member of the video game community. What they like and dislike.
Being active in the community will give you a better understanding of becoming a game developer and help you find your first job in the gaming industry.
Step 3: Create a Strategy
Game development is a very complex subject. Approaching it without a plan is a sure way to fail. First, determine your ultimate goal. Do you aspire to create the next Assassin’s Creed? Do you want to be the one to release the next Pokémon GO? In both cases, the skills required to achieve your goal are vastly different.
Your strategy should cover a wide range of topics, including:
The Engine You Wish to Begin With
There are numerous game engines to choose from. A game engine is a framework upon which the game is built if you haven’t heard the term before. It handles the game’s physics, inputs, AI, scripting of in-game events, and many other things, so you don’t have to code everything from scratch.
Without engines, learning how to become a game developer would be much more difficult because you would have to write your scripts for each new game. There are several game engines from which to choose and experiment to create something playable, including:
- Unity
- The Unreal Engine
- Cry Engine
What Programming Language Should You Learn?
The programming language you should learn will be heavily influenced by the game engine you select. C++ is required for the Unreal Engine and Cry Engine. Unity requires you to be familiar with C#.
The disadvantage of C++ is that it is more challenging to learn than C#. To get a handle on the fundamentals, it might be a good idea to start with C# and play around in Unity. In a less stressful environment, you can learn how game development works.
However, once you understand how to become a full-fledged video game developer, you will need to learn C++. After all, it is the industry-standard programming language for game development.
Make Small Goals
Setting achievable but ambitious short-term goals that lead to your overall goal of creating a game is essential for staying motivated.
Do not begin by promising yourself to create a game in two years; you will fail. Instead, give yourself a month to learn a small part of your chosen gaming engine and a specific part of the coding language you’re learning. You will stay motivated as long as you believe you are steadily moving in the right direction.
Make it a game
Is there a better way to learn how to be a video game developer than to make the process into a game? There isn’t one!
There are rules, goals, and rewards for achieving them in games. Your dopamine receptors are stimulated with a reward if you follow the rules and complete the set goals.
Step 4: Begin Learning Right Now
When people wait for the perfect conditions, they almost always fail to act. How does one go about becoming a video game developer? Begin learning right away. Play and analyze great games, get involved in the gaming community, and meet people learning to be game developers just like you.
Step 5: Master It
While learning how to make a game, you may come across concepts that appear to be completely useless. Please don’t give up, and don’t ignore them. Each function in Unity and other game engines serves a specific purpose.
Although it may not be obvious, some game developers spent many hours, if not days, coding it into the engine so that you could use it.
Don’t expect to become a game programmer overnight. It will take years of hard work on your part.
Step 6: Form a Team
Game development is a collaborative endeavor. Learning how to become a game developer and use game engines would not be nearly enough if you wanted to make your own game. You’d have to become an illustrator, animator, composer, VFX master, writer, marketer, a true 21st-century tech renaissance man.
You should get together with mobile app developers, come up with a game idea, plan out how you’re going to make it and get to work.
Step 7: Spend Money
The beginning of your career as a game developer will be difficult. Everything you do will be new to you, which means you’ll have to figure it out first. You will work a lot, create a free game in your spare time, and publish it, and it will most likely fail.
There are thousands of games available; it is unlikely that many people will select yours. However, don’t let it demotivate you. Begin the next project and improve it by learning from your previous mistakes.
Step 8: Choose Your Career Path
Assume you are now a video game developer with a few completed projects under your belt. At this point, you must decide how you want to pursue a career in the gaming industry.
You have a choice between being an employee or an employer.
Step 9: Check Your Ego at The Door
You may have the desire to believe that you are the greatest thing ever to grace the gaming industry.
It doesn’t matter if you’re the most talented game developer in the world or have the most brilliant ideas anyone has ever had. Accept, love, and live by the principle that ideas aren’t worth anything; it’s all about how you put them into action. Those who put in the most effort are usually the only ones who succeed.
Step 10: Never, Ever Give Up
Even if you are highly talented and the only thing that outperforms your talent is your work ethic, it will take you years to make it.
You will face numerous rejections along the way, but you must not let them discourage you. After all, you can’t win this game if you don’t give it your all.
Conclusion
The fact of the matter is that the first game you make will objectively fail; the first job you apply for; you won’t get selected unless you had prepared for it well beforehand.
Comments are closed for this post.