Hello everyone,
To put it simply, I am in the military (USMC) and I am interested in learning game development on the side. I wanted to make games before I decided to join, and it's still something I'd like to do after I get out. I've just graduated from my MOS school, which was 6 months long, and I'm heading out to my first real duty station in 2 weeks; so these questions are from a Marine who hasn't seen fleet life yet. If there's any Marine POG's out there (former or current) who've been in a similar situation, or other members of the service, maybe you can give some helpful advice. These are the questions I already have:


How do you keep your mind "fresh" and creative after a long day of work?

How do you manage your schedule to fit in development time without sacrificing your effectiveness at work (get enough sleep, get PT in, proper nutrition)?

How do you switch between the creative, free thinking of game development and objective, mission - oriented mindset of the military without compromising?

How do you do all this while living in the barracks(with roommates)?

In short, how can I be a good Marine and learn game development at the same time?

I'm just looking for honest advice. This is really something I want to do, but only so long as I can do it without it getting in the way of being a Marine. Advice from those who have had success learning game development alongside any demanding full time job would be helpful.

I am not in the military, but I have been programming games for a long time next to my day job (which is also programming, but different stuff that also needs your full attention).

While it's both programming, the mindset is totally different, and I can fully agree it's hard to stay productive outside work.

Your questions seem to assume there is a lot of difference between free creativity, and a mission-oriented mind set. I don't believe there is that much difference. Game programming serves a goal, just like military missions do. The game programming problem you solve today is one step in that goal, just like the military action is.

You have had a lot of practice so you can do many military actions with your eyes closed (so to say). In the details of programming is also a lot of such work, but you may not have had enough practice to see that yet.

The military action does require flexibility and creativity if plan A fails, just like creativity is needed to solve a programming problem.

To reply a bit more towards the questions: Many of your questions don't have a unique answer. Different people handle this differently.

The best advice I can give you is to try and find out what works for you.

It comes down to fitting your 'game time' around work, and getting into some kind of rhythm. To get around your limitations wrt your environment, you can do different things at different times.

Some different aspects of programming are:

1. Thinking about a deep problem that you do not know the answer to (yet).

2. Work out the details of a solution.

3. Coding a solution.

4. Refactoring code (rewriting it such that it still does what it is supposed to do, but better).

5. Getting the thing to compile.

6. Test stuff (see if it works!).

7. Drawing art (no experience with this, but my guess is there are different kinds of work in here too.)

You'll get all these things (and more) at the same time, but in different places in the game. You'll have to figure out what you can do at what time.

Some notes:

- Thinking can be done any where any time. I do it while walking home, late evening while almost asleep sitting in a chair, while doing the dishes, or between the not-asleep and have-to-get-up moments in bed. Others do it while in the shower, while having lunch (which is useful since you have a table for some paper to write on).

- Working out details usually requires paper and a pen, and some area to write on.

- Coding to testing needs a computer.

- Drawing... no idea, never done that.

For me, the key is to spend time on it in a systematic way, so it stays part of my life. It's amazing how much progress you make even if you spend only a little time on it daily.

Getting to the point where you left off last time is the difficult part here. For some aspects it takes time in itself (which is not bad, as it's tracing your steps, checking them again for correctness of decisions), for other aspects, you can start in seconds with just one look.

Last but not least, I found that you cannot really think too much, as long as you don't start thinking in circles (thinking the same sequence of steps over and over again).

Programming is associated with typing stuff behind a computer, but in my experience, if you take the time to consider a problem carefully, thinking about it until you cannot see further, you are much more effective in coding. (Coding then becomes just typing the solution rather than figuring out a solution while you type.)

For me, the key is to spend time on it in a systematic way, so it stays part of my life. It's amazing how much progress you make even if you spend only a little time on it daily.

Getting to the point where you left off last time is the difficult part here. For some aspects it takes time in itself (which is not bad, as it's tracing your steps, checking them again for correctness of decisions), for other aspects, you can start in seconds with just one look.

+999

Pretty much this... if you only have 4 hours per week to spend on game dev, so be it. Just make sure you try to spend your 4 hours EVERY week... or at least as often as you can.

Those hours add up fast, and expecially when learning something new, skipping a week / scheduled time is the worst thing you can do. For one, every week you are not doing your scheduled "training", it becomes harder to get back into training... just as with PT for us civilians. And also, you will forget a lot if you do not keep using it.

The hard part is to start, when you lack confidence and direction as well as skill and expierience, and then from time to time when you have to solve a difficult problem that cannot be done in one or two weeks. Push through these though times, plan smart (maybe make sure you stretch the hard stuff to multiple settings so you have spent at least half of your weekly game dev time on something fun), and you will have a lot of fun with game development.

Good luck!

The well thought out responses are much appreciated. I joined right out of high school and never held a real job before, and all I've experienced so far is my schooling(mentally taxing as well as a very busy schedule) so I'd had some trouble wrapping my head around having a "side project". So it's good to get helpful ideas like these and hear that it can be done.