cornell have all their course material online at:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs3152/2014sp/lectures/index.php

it has full presentations and slides for each lecture and includes the lab source files needed to complete the weekly work. it does expect a basic understanding of c# but its highly recommended for people wishing to learn this field.

if you take it seriously as if you were actually enrolled then it can only be good for. it actually lists gamedev.net in its reading list!

With XNA being dead, C# may not be a good language to learn if one is thinking about a career in game programming.

So Unity developers should rethink their career? When looking for a new employer recently I saw studio after studio begging for people with C# and Unity experience.

Probably the most notable AAA game for it is The Sims 3, which sold approximately a bajillion copies of expansion packs. It is about 2/3 written in C#. Many other engines developed at various studios rely on C# to various degrees.

There have been a long list of popular mobile games that are written in C#. Draw a Stickman and Bastion both come to mind.

Let's say you are working for a studio that doesn't PRIMARILY develop in C#. You will still be exposed to it every day in the tools you use. C# is probably the most common language used for industry tools right now.

There are several languages I strongly recommend every aspiring game developer learn to some degree: C++, Java, C#, Python, and Perl. Even if you are only occasionally exposed to code in those languages, you will be expected to have a minimum competency in each of them.

Do you recommned unity for gaming development?

Do you recommned unity for gaming development?

Sure. It's one of the better choices available, and will likely meet your needs for most projects. Just like any other tool, it is not always the right one for a specific job. You wouldn't try to use Python for a highly-optimized, platform-specific math library, nor would you use x86 ASM for a large project targeting multiple platforms, so don't try to use Unity for something where it would fail miserably.

Do you recommned unity for gaming development?

For an individual who is learning, probably not. The engine provides a lot of functionality found in big studios. You will learn some things about game development, so you might consider at least playing with it.

For a small group of friends that includes a programmer, modeler, an animator, and maybe a level designer comfortable with modeling, (so most of the basic disciplines are covered) the engine can be awesome.


As a quick example, let's say you want to build a humanoid avatar in the game. The good news is that Unity can automate quite a lot of things; it can use IK to position and transition your avatar, it can use bone and muscle information to build smooth transitions between avatar states. But you need a well-built model, and those take 50+ bones for a humanoid. You also need to provide animations for muscle groups and for large motions, and these take time for animators to build. When all the parts are put together, Unity's animation system "Mecanim" can let a programmer easily handle a huge amount of open-world interaction. But then you need to open a door, so the modelers make door models, the animators make animations both for the avatar to reach out their arm and for the door to swing, the programmer ensures the path isn't in use, and so on.

If all you have is an EXPERIENCED programmer, you might use it to put out games like Cubistry. A programmer can make a game, but usually their art, modeling, and animation skills are not at a professional level as well.

If you have people filling every role, you can build beautiful, amazing quality titles pretty easily. Throw a few switches, manage your code properly, and do some optimization and you can put your program on Android, iOS,Windows phone, PC, Mac, Linux, and even on Web plugins. A licenced developer can get their Unity app to run on PlayStation, Xbox, WiiU, 3DS, PSP Vita, and more.


If all you have is one BEGINNING programmer, Unity is going to be a bit overwhelming.

Back to the topic at hand, has anyone with game development experience in addition to the OP looked at the Cornell link and able to comment on it?

Since the site explicitly states that the lecture slides alone aren't sufficient, it lists Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games as the textbook - anyone read it? It seems to have good reviews on Amazon.

I can't comment on the course content, but what I can say from my experiences of self teaching is that some people work a lot better with structure and deadlines. If you treat the online materials like the course and stick to deadlines for creating your content I can see it helping a lot of people out.

In regards to c# being useless if you want to get a job as a game programmer I couldn't disagree more. Monogame is very much alive and kicking and unity is getting more prominent all the time.

And let's be honest, out of the nearly 1/4 million users this forum has, how many are actually going to get a job as a game developer? The majority of people if they stick with it will do game development as a part time to their real job or even just end up putting games out there for fun.

In the UK c# has seen the largest growth out of all languages over the last 5 years in regards of wages offered and job adverts placed