Want To Make Video Games? 307
Invader Zim writes "Looks like Levelord, of Ritual fame, and some folks at id, and Ensemble Studios have teamed together with Southern Methodist University to create a new school for people that want to work in the video games industry. It's called the Guildhall. Also a story about it at GameTutorials."
g to the oatse (Score:-1, Informative)
fo shizzle my nizzle y'all. eat at Subway!!!
Re:Nintendo? (Score:2, Informative)
Already another program in the area (Score:5, Informative)
It's called the "LARC", for "Laboratory for Recreational Computing", and was started in 1993. Check it out here [unt.edu].
The lab is run by a professor (Ian Parberry) who has published a few books on game programming.
Re:I would steer clear (Score:3, Informative)
Do yourself a favor and major in Mathematics. It will help you tremendously.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Cogswell (Score:5, Informative)
The school also has a Game Development Club where many students get together and develop games each semester in the same process that most game companies do. Check out their website: http://www.fuzzywoto.org/
(it'll soon be changing to www.gameclubworldwide.com)
Game tester personal account (Score:3, Informative)
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The first such school of its kind (Score:3, Informative)
The English programming language (Score:2, Informative)
english? Hmm. Never programmed that language...sounds like some kind of hokey scripting language...is it like Perl?
The English programming language [wikipedia.org], used with the Pick operating system, is more like SQL.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Informative)
You should see 'test sheets' at some places, detailing the scene and goal of the scene, and listing all the different posibilities, and a checklist that the tester has done all of them. It feels like this:
Game testing has about zero appeal. Most people think "that would be fun" because they are ignorant. They see the final product and think it's easy. That just means the creators did good work.
Game programming is similar. The hours are crazy, the pay is low, expectations are high, deadlines are tight, specs keep changing, and the stress is insane. Sure there are a few (as in not very many, as in you won't ever get one) game jobs that don't have the problems, but it isn't the common case.
I would LOVE to see everyone who wants to program games actually be forced into the game market for one year. After the year, there would be enough decrease in demand that salaries might go up to a reasonable level with a corresponding drop in stresses.
Re:I would steer clear (Score:3, Informative)
I think the assumption that many have made here, that this is a degree program, is false. It's a certification and a set of courses for learning and professional development. The tracks all require that you submit prior art and samples before being admitted. I would say that this is more for people with time and money to burn that also want a good structured program for game development/design. These students will also need some sort of background in their respective fields (if not a little game programming as well) in order to get in and succeed. Definitely not for your average high school/college dropout that plays Everquest 23 hours a day and thinks that he could make a better game by taking some classes from John Romero and Tom Hall.
Re:Southern Methodist??? (Score:3, Informative)