Hi All,
Good Afternoon!!!
Myself Manav and i am interested in pursuing gaming as my career with respect to the programming part of making the games. But since i lack guidance i am unable to decide how should i start and go about it!! Kindly guide me as to which professional courses in Mumbai would help me achieve my aim….also one of my concern was i have completed my 12th from Maharashtra state board commerce division so now where should i start and which course should i select as my undergraduate subject to get into the field of game programming and also future scope of the same!! Really need your inputs as it is i have no guidance to go forward.
Thank you,
Manav Changoiwala
Ashish Chowdhary
Hi Manav,
It would be too naive for me to comment here as I haven’t made many games. I’ve just made my first game (just 1 World of the game is finished yet). I’m not sure about the courses in Mumbai but I’ll just share how I started with my game development.
My professor in my university made us play a puzzle game as part of our curriculum. I liked the concept and wanted to build a mobile app around it. But I didn’t know anyone in gaming industry and didn’t even have experience. So I just thought let me make the designs and show it to my then 6 year old niece. If she can understand and play, it’s worth it. I developed the UI (user interface) of it and hired a professional designer to design it. I spent money even when I didn’t know any game developer or if the game would ever take off. I had gone to meet professors of various universities who teach Game development (in Ahmedabad). But after the designs were made and after I had been a part of 3 mobile apps (on Android and iPhone), I had hired 3 interns for Android development – one of whom liked games and one other liked puzzles. 4 months had passed since then. I thought this was the perfect time to start the development on my game which has been on shelves for 4 months. But the problem was no one had ever worked on game development. We started reading and finally got to know that AndEngine can help us making games on Android. My developers learnt the language and in 1.5 months, they have developed the first World (containing 5 levels) of the game. And now we’re working on other Worlds. This might help you (these kids have started making Android and iOS games) https://www.godimensions.com/products.html
Lesson: When you don’t know something, there are still ways out. Go out and meet people, seek help and start reading online/from books.
P.S.: Anyone reading this comment, if you know AndEngine, I’d be great if you can help us in a few things. Please reply on ashish@catapp.in
Mahesh Khambadkone
The good news is that game programming does not need a qualification per-se. I know of college drop-outs to strong engineering students who have become good game programmers. So, your Commerce background should not be a concern.
I dont know of professional courses other than Neoteric, who have created course material for iOS with a game development section (we gave them inputs and a simple, sample game to make). I am certain there are others.
HOWEVER :-
A good game programmer needs to enjoy games – that’s most important – playing them, understanding how they are made.
A good background in mathematics is important, and an ability to define & understand algorithms -> how do you plan to solve a problem.
My suggestion to you:
1) Take your favorite 2D game.
2) Understand its’ components and how you think it’s made.
3) Start building a simple game using a language you are comfortable with ( let it be Corona, Flash, Unity, anything – just get started )
4) Use Google to help you find some starter code, and to help solve your tech problems along the way.
5) Take up a course only if you get stuck with the above approach. Give yourself about 2 months.