Last year of Game Development study

Entry posted by AggrorJorn · September 7, 2013

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The last year of my Game Development study has already started. With only one year to go it is time so look ahead and view the possibilities that are available.

Focus

The coming 20 weeks I am following a minor in advanced software engineering and Game Technology itself will be put in the background. Game development will mostly be something I will do in my spare time. I thought that this year would be really busy one but so far it has been very quiet. The focus of the minor lies on Java, the Spring framework and web applications. I don't have much experience with those so that might come in handy for later. After those 20 weeks I will start my graduation trainee ship, although I first have to find a decent company where I can actually learn something.

Starting a career

I am a little nervous about comes after finishing my study. I could study further if I wanted to, but the experience I have had so far is that you just have to sit down and make something. Especially if you have someone (either friends or colleagues) that can help you develop your skills. I want to start my own game company but I do have a small college debt that I need to pay of first. So most likely I will start seeking a job withing the Gaming or Software industry.

Projects

My main project is still in combination with Leadwerks. Especially now that terrain has arrived I can really test out my work that I have been preparing for it. Progress has been going really well, although actual gameplay is still really far away. My game will be playable both singleplayer as multiplayer which adds an extra level of complexity and delay to the development and gameplay.

Tournaments

It is really nice to see more activity and interest with the Leadwerks Tournament. Although it can be really difficult to actually make something work in the amount of time you have available, it can be just the push you need to produce something. I have to admit that I was very enthusiastic about a themed tournament but in the end it didn't really helped much at all. Anyway, the third tournament will be a big one and has yet to be announced. The prizes will be even bigger and the length of the tournament will be extended to 3 weeks.

Tutorials

I haven't made a tutorial in a while although I do still want to make at least one of them (Particles). When the terrain has had some patches and/or new features, I will make some videos about that as well. I have created a nice little Tower defense game entirely with Lua. This game will be rewritten from scratch in a large video tutorial set. I am thinking of making this a paid tutorial set, which I can make available to users for a small fee. I have yet to see whether this is worth its time, but experimenting with it can't hurt.

FlowGUI

Besides the tutorial set, I'm also thinking about releasing FlowGUI as a simple GUI library for like 2/3 dollar. That depends a little on whether people would be interested in it or not. I stopped working on it when Josh announced a GUI editor with the Kickstarter, but since it might not be part of the engine for a while, it might be worth taking a look at it again. All scripts would be freely accessible and could be altered to a persons desire.

Let me know what you guys and girls think.

Jorn