Hello, first off, I would like to introduce myself. I am Chase, nice to meet you.
I'm interested in being game developer(my career ultimately) I don't mind doing other stuff for awhile.
About me:
I appear to be at least some what adept with programming, well ahead of my peers at school. This is my final year of high school (Australian), I plan on studying Computer Science in university, if I get the good enough grades.
My question I pose to you is (Feel free to disagree with anyone, more opinions the better): I want to develop a wide range of skills needed to be a game programmer or designer (( I release that they are worlds apart, but you have to start somewhere)) but the problem is I don't have much time to spend on focussing on any particular skill. So if you were me, what would you do? As it is, I visit this site regularly and read the articles on the front page (all of them as it is.). Think max growth with least time, effort is not a factor. Also, I do know there's no quick way to do it, but that doesn't mean I can't be working towards improving.
I leave you with a Bruce Lee Quote.
If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
-Chase
Limited time, max growth.
I do not know how to answer this with out typing out a very long post/ So I will make it short and to the point.
You want to develop a lot of skills, in a short amount of time ? Spend ALL of your free time creating simple games, in a language such as Java (( you will "burn out" if you try doing this in a language such as C++, and you will never learn real development skills using scripting languages [*1] )) . After you create a game, figure out ways to make it better, and than rewrite the game to include the improvements.
This means having absolutely no social life, no "play time", no nothing. Just you and an IDE such as Eclipse.
With in 6 months of doing this, you will have a good understanding of how game development and programing works, and you should have a small game portfolio you can show to future employers. By the time you graduate college, you should have at least 1, if not 2 very well developed games under your belt.
Note [*1] - This is a matter of personal opinion - I only recommend scripting languages to learn very basic computer programming.
Beware of false economy.
There is no way to develop depth in a large number of areas without corresponding amounts of time. You can become passingly familiar with a huge number of things if you invest some effort, but you will not excel and you will not have the understanding to do anything really interesting in any of those areas.
Most people specialize for exactly this reason.
If you want to avoid specialization, you need time. There is no tradeoff that makes this go away.
There is no way to develop depth in a large number of areas without corresponding amounts of time. You can become passingly familiar with a huge number of things if you invest some effort, but you will not excel and you will not have the understanding to do anything really interesting in any of those areas.
Most people specialize for exactly this reason.
If you want to avoid specialization, you need time. There is no tradeoff that makes this go away.
There actually are some trade offs. Its definitely possible to become a more efficient learner. But that also takes work and most people only like the IDEA of being a more efficient learner and will not be willing to put in the work.
Sure, you can be more (or less) efficient. But if you want depth in a broad range of subjects, it's going to take serious investments in terms of time and work.
Think of it this way: if you want to travel 1000 miles, you can walk or you can drive a car. One is going to be more efficient than the other, but you still have to actually go 1000 miles.
Think of it this way: if you want to travel 1000 miles, you can walk or you can drive a car. One is going to be more efficient than the other, but you still have to actually go 1000 miles.
Okay. I think you are trying to use the force of water to obtain maximim growth by penetration. I am not a water guy. I am a stone guy. Lightning will be your opponent.
In terms that can be understood. Specializing in one thing is good. Just may sure you are comfortable with what you think will take you far into your studies.
Author
Thanks guys. Okay so what I am getting is; One one side of the fence, Learning Skills means investment in time, one the other, just doing simple things and evaluating them, and repeating that process. My time investments are really heavily spent on learning in school, focussing on mid-level Math (Called Methods here) and basic physics, what you would expect at high school. I wouldn't say learning c++ would burn me out because, to some extent I already can do bits and pieces in that language, nothing fancy.
Thanks guys. Okay so what I am getting is; One one side of the fence, Learning Skills means investment in time, one the other, just doing simple things and evaluating them, and repeating that process. My time investments are really heavily spent on learning in school, focussing on mid-level Math (Called Methods here) and basic physics, what you would expect at high school. I wouldn't say learning c++ would burn me out because, to some extent I already can do bits and pieces in that language, nothing fancy.
Then my advice is to spend your time heavily on learning to make games, rather than mid-level Math and basic physics. However, this would mean your grades will suffer, and don't blame me or anyone else if this ever happens.
Okay. I think you are trying to use the force of water to obtain maximim growth by penetration. I am not a water guy. I am a stone guy. Lightning will be your opponent.
Huh?
Try to become "T shaped"
You can learn a lot of differing skills to a lesser degree in a relatively short space of time. You can learn the basics of pretty much any skill in roughly 6 months.
Going from knowing the basics to mastering a skill takes ~10000 hours (or about 10 years if you're working full time). There aren't really any short cuts. And not only does it take time, it takes deliberate practice.
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