There and Back Again: A Game Developer’s Tale
- C. C. Karma
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to make games and entertain people. Some of my earliest memories are of playing games (poorly) on the family Super Nintendo. Somehow, I went from having zero idea of how to make anything digital whatsoever to working in AAA game development. I want to share my journey with the hope that maybe it will help someone find and navigate their own path into the world of making games.
Pre-production
As a young kid I loved my video games. I would wake up at 5am and sit in front of the screen for hours until my parents woke up. If I could not find an action figure of a character from a game I liked, I would print a picture of them out on paper and glue it to a piece of cardboard. In elementary and middle school I drew "levels" of 2d platformer games in a spiral notebook. I would cut out a drawing of a character and "play" the level by sliding the character cutout around on the page. I appreciate that my parents were willing to buy me endless supplies for these constant projects. Many things I made were horrible, but I had taken an important step. I had made something. I had taken an idea out of my head and actualized it in the real world.
This would evolve at the start of high school when a friend of mine changed my life forever. I went to his house one day and we were hanging out when he said he wanted to show me something. He sat his laptop in front of me and ran a program in the command prompt. A game of tic tac toe suddenly appeared in front of me. I was not impressed until he told me that he had written it himself, then I was completely blown away. I had not really considered that making a game, albeit a simple one, was something I could do with so little resources.
I started learning how to write C++ programs, using a book called "Beginning C++ Trough Game Programming" by Michael Dawson (if I recall correctly, it was the second edition with the yellow and black cover). Many nights were spent on the phone asking my friend about complex concepts such as "Booleans". If you know anything about programming, you may understandably be confused as to why I found these simple
concepts difficult. I had a history of being notoriously bad with computers in our household, breaking them faster than my parents would have liked. The discovery of programming set me down the path of learning about operating systems and other technology. I even had a self-hosted Minecraft java server at my house for my friends to play on all the way back in 2011. Now, instead of asking me to stay away from the computers, my family won’t stop asking me for help!
The farthest I gotten at this stage was creating text adventure games that lived in monolithic and unorganized functions. These games as programs were “bad” in the technical sense, but they worked and they were mine. In college I did some side quests where I considered different paths other than making games, such as traditional engineering and music. I ended up back in computer science and was not a very good student. I think it had something to do with my computer science classes not having immediate utility towards making games that prevented me from taking them as seriously as I should have. I skid across the finish line of graduation and found myself unable to really get any traditional jobs as a programmer. I worked retail and interviewed for jobs writing java programs, database, websites, etc. I couldn’t bring myself to be excited about any of these things so I never excelled at them. I was organizing meetups with other people who also wanted to make games. We had a lot of good times and I learned how important it is to meet and network with other people with the same interests as me. Eventually I made the hard choice of once again going out to meet more new people and find a new path forward.
Production
I ended up pursuing a masters degree at a university a friend of mine suggested I should check out. Here I would finally spend a significant amount of time writing performance oriented C++ code. This time I was buckled in and red lining the engine. My all time best scholastic records were set doing the most challenging work I had ever done, because I had a goals and tasks that meant something to me. I don’t think anyone should run off to grad school thinking that it will be their ticket. My insight up to here is that you will only become great at something if you have a personal investment in what you are doing and you enjoy the process of doing said thing.
It was at this time I landed an internship at a small company working on augmented and virtual reality film projects. This ended up turning into a part time contractor position and eventually a “full time” contractor position of about 30-40 hours. The beginning of this was brutal. I commuted 3 hours one way to and from this company for the first 6 months or so. This was only two days a week during the internship, and I felt that this was my ticket into the “industry”, so I did what I felt I had to do. Eventually this turned into a 50-minute commute by car. A game was developed during this time, and we poured our hearts and souls into it. Unfortunately, it did not sell well, but the deed was done, nonetheless. Once again, I had made something, this time with a team, and it meant the world to us.
The connections I made here set me up for what was to come. Time passed after things ended at the old company, a friend and co-worker from this company asked me if I needed a new gig. I ended up joining him at a new company working on porting games to consoles. We got to really plug into the industry proper when we started working on big AAA games, even as a porting team. The number of people you can meet is vast, because you move between different teams, companies, and projects. I was even able to go to GDC and meet people in person I had only ever seen halfway across the world on a computer screen.
Game Developer's Tale Take Aways
To distill my rambling story into a few points, of a game developer's tale:
It’s ok to feel like you understand absolutely nothing. I was always the least technically capable of my friends, but instead of being jealous or being anxious, I pestered them none stop until I was at least half as good as them at whatever thing I was learning. I started from way behind, I still feel like I am way behind, and I assume I will feel that way the day I stop touching a keyboard as well, but that’s ok because I did my best. Never give up, never surrender!
Think first, then think again, and then act. I could have navigated this adventure thus far much faster. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything, but you don’t have to spend as much time as me spinning your wheels. Game dev has never been easier to get into. Download an engine or modeling software or whatever it is you like and make something!
Meet as many people as you can. Help people when you can and allow them to help you as well. Share your interests with other people, even if you are embarrassed or anxious. All of the experiences I have shared here were not possible without other people in my life helping me find and open paths and doors. It’s dangerous to go alone!
Go out and join a group like AVG. Share that goofy project. Hack and work on the things that being you joy. Good luck!
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