well, i'm a 23 young girl in 2º semester on college of analysis and systems development and i love games.
i like to know how to get started at first in game development, what i'm have to study and practice?
starting in game development
There's the Start Here FAQ.
For academic focus, since you're going the programmer route get all the math and logic you can tolerate, especially around trigonometry (manipulation of angles) if you haven't taken it already, statistics (probability and statistical functions are everywhere in games), linear algebra (the mathematics of spaces) and calculus (the mathematics of change). Some people also find discrete mathematics useful, the math used in computer numbers. Some programmers seldom use calculus, others rely on it for direct calculations and desk manipulations, but many schools require it because it is useful to have in your toolbox. Pay attention to Computer Science theory classes, since everything is made up of data structures and algorithms. Pay attention to hardware topics like locality of data, computer architecture, hardware caches, since games focus on getting more hardware performance than most other modern programming fields. If you're interested in network programming — which is increasingly more critical in industry — include some networking classes and pay extra attention every time you hear the words ‘concurrency’, or ‘concurrency control’. If you like back-end work pay a little more attention to database classes and again everything dealing with concurrency and concurrency control. If you're interested in gameplay programming pay some extra attention to state machines and automata since that will fill your career. If you're interested in graphics pay extra attention to everything hardware and rendering related, take any courses they offer on computer graphics theory and background.
Every school offers a unique blend of topics, and every person comes with their unique interests. There is no One True Path, you need to figure out your own path that you choose to take.
It may also be worth simply downloading a few game engines and playing around with making (initially quick-and-simple) games with them.
(I'd suggest looking for engines that use whatever language you're being taught at the moment, at the least as a starting point.)
This may provide some experience in the practice of game-making, as well as one means--if called for--to determine what elements of the craft you particularly enjoy. Further, it may simply allow you to “dip your toes into" game-making relatively early. (Plus it may be fun. ;P)
What you have to study depends on your approach to game development.
- Approach 1: As a hobby
- This is a valid approach. Not everyone is interested to become a professional game software programmer. Sometimes you want to have fun coding cool stuff. In that sense there are plenty of tutorials dealing with any concept physics, AI, UI, Shaders, animations, lighting, etc… The good part about this option is that later you can professionalize yourself.
- Approach 2: As a profession
- In order to become a professional you need 2 things:
- To learn the architectural language they use to produce professional software: The architectural language is something independent from any specific programming language. That is a base in OOP, Design Patterns, SOLID principles, MVC… You may ask why is it necessary all this stuff, that's because since it's independent from any specific language is something any programmer can agree.
- To work in a Agile team (SCRUM): As important as it's to know how to code, the programmer needs to be communicate, humble, respectful and know his responsibilities inside a team of professionals.
- In order to become a professional you need 2 things:
Both approaches are perfectly valid. I know people who started business keeping their skills as a hobby and they still managed to make it, but you have to understand that people are producing spaghetti code and they are awful team colleagues because they don't know/don't care about being professionals. All the horror stories come from them not wanting to leave their bubbles making the lives of the others miserable.
If you are interested to be a professional I did a gamedev bootcamp targeting all the topics you need to know to be that:
(One To Seven) Game Development Online Free Boot Camp - YouTube
But don't take my word. Search for books about game design patterns or how Agile teams work. There are plenty of books dealing with that subjects.
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