How did YOU become a game developer?

I have 3 questions for you guys. Whether you're a professional or an Indie.

1. How did you get into game development (What inspired you)

2. How did you discover / get-into unity?

3. If you weren't very experienced, how did you go about learning Unity scripting?

Thanks!

-Collin

 

1. I wanted to make a game.
2. I was looking at DS homebrew once and came across some Unity stuff on Youtube.
3. Just kept trying, eventually I just learned how to do it.

 

Played some games in 79, decided that I'd be doing that there and then.

I was one of the earliest people emailing Unity about a PC version. Years later I got it for my mac The reason was it was (and imho still is) the best cross platform 3D solution for a small team.

Well I had experience in everything EXCEPT js and C# at that point. But I learned the bulk of it within a week by simply coding relentlessly and every single time I didn't understand something I obsessively googled it or read Unity docs. I still do that. I think that's the number one thing people should do. Find out the stuff you don't know. There and then. Don't wait.

Even if it doesn't make sense to you at that point, it goes in your brain. Trust it.

 

Seems legit

 

RPG Maker as a kid and then played with the newest version. Turned out to be too limiting to what I envisioned.

 

1. Played games as a kid and thought building them would be more challenging/fun than playing them.
2. Being watching/playing with it since it came out. Got serious about it almost 2 years ago.
3. Already an experienced engineer, took a weekend to mostly pickup C#.

 

1. I wasn't inspired by anything to make a game. I just wanted to make a game. But my favourite games have influenced my ideas.

2. Was learning XNA when it was starting to die and I saw people talking about Unity in the IRC so I checked it out.

3. I learned C# and I used Google to find solutions to problems I would encounter, like "How do I move my character unity" "spawn object unity" etc.

 

I found xna on a dreamspark website for students for microsoft. Looking on youtube I kept seeing games with better graphics than I was expecting to achieve and they were videos using unity. Once I tried it I couldn't put it down, and after experiencing the editor I couldn't go back to xna.

I joined a local meetup group to meet others and have gotten some contracting jobs through people there and got a full time job using unity almost a year ago. It's great for 3rd party stuff like the oculus rift, kinect, and augmented reality stuff like metaio and vuforia. It seems like tons of stuff is coming out with unity wrappers to use their products, houdini, and hundreds of others.

 

1. I blame my dad! He is the one always playing games with us growing up, and most of those are still my favorite to this day, he had a good eye . He also was a programmer and worked on computers for a delivery business. Naturally at a young age, I picked up his BASIC book and started learning to make text based games, him helping me here or there when he had time.

2. Honestly have no idea, probably just found it on Google. I was out of a "normal" job and needed to find something I could do. So I checked out a bunch of engines, and this is where I ended up.

3. I only knew web programming at the time. Google is my best friend. Everything I learned came from the docs and searches that led me to different Unity Answers. I don't believe there was one thing yet I couldn't find help on. If there was, then I took up my own questions on Unity Answers.

 

1. I always wanted to work in Game Development, I find it interesting and challenging. Issue is so do many other people, so after college it was very hard to find a job in this arena. So I ended up being a C++ coder for API's in the business sector.. I built some funding up, picked up Unity and a couple of months after started my own Indie.

2. Well it was a choice between three engines, UDK, CRYENGINE and Unity.. After trialling them all out, I decided Unity had the most stable platform, great community and the SDK was slick and intuitive.. Hard to say no really.

3. Myself as the lead on the project, I'm very un-experienced in game development. Sure years back I learnt the fundamentals in college, but it's a whole new world doing it yourself.. Luckily enough the other programmer in the team is an uber geek and knows exactly what he's doing (I'm getting there, but it'll take time). Even with the other guy being experienced we have gotten stuck on bit's with Unity, neither of us have used C# before and were not used to Mono or any of the derived classes. That being said, I personally love it after years of optimising C++..

 

1. Started doing at a summer camp as a child with Gamemaker...4? 5?

2. I wanted to make 3d game, but with something better than Gamemaker. First I tried out UDK, but my gamemaker D&D experience didn't get me too far. Next I tried Cryengine but it crashed my computer. Finally I gave Unity a go, and got a character moving and physics working within half an hour.

3. Google. Lots of Google.

 

I made a game. (Because I wanted to and no one said I couldn't)

I made a game.

I made a game.

You're welcome.

Seriously, stop thinking about how, just make something. It doesn't need to be good, just finish, release, learn and repeat.

 

1. I loved to play games, but there was never that game that you've ALWAYS wanted to play, or that you had a great idea for, so I want to make that game.

2. First, I tried to code everything from a code compiler, but then I saw games had these things called "Game Engines". I looked up what game engines did, and a list of some, and I got here.

3. Unity Scripting Reference, Unity Tutorials, and LOTS and LOTS of Youtube tutorials.

 

1) Making video games has always been equivalent of magic to me. Of course I liked games, I run my own tabletop game club and all, but I never managed to create more than some text adventures in C++ until...

2)...I saw Unity mentioned on some gaming blog in early 2010. I found TornadoTwins' Unity tutorial series on Youtube and I said to myself 'I could do that'. And I could. And that was awesome feeling.

3) My first few things were in JavaScript. I just looked different tutorials and I twisted them fit my needs. I did curse a lot, flipped my keyboard few times and almost punched my monitor. But I eventually got a hang of it. Knowing little C++ helped. Soon I heard about how much better things were in C# land and so I migrated to Boo for whatever reason. Yeah. Looked nicer than C#, I guess.

 

I started developing within a mod community for SW Jedi Academy in 8th grade.

Originally I wanted Torque 3d and my cousin bought it out of impulse. I quickly looked for better alternatives and that's when I found Unity.

I borrowed what I learned from RPGMaker SW and applied my efforts here. (3dBuzz was also an enormous help)!

 

1: It all started when I got handed down my first computer (an old Intel 386). It had QBasic on it. I had also just gotten The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Dragon Warrior I II for my Game Boy. I looked at the games and thought, "I wonder if I can build this myself?" So, I started writing code for my very first hand-rolled game engine. I had started my journey.

2: Fast forward to my college years. This whole 'iPhone' thing was starting to gain traction, and the engine I came from - The RPG Toolkit - was pretty much locked to Windows machines. I had created a work or two on that - the original version of 'Not Another Fantasy RPG', and a rhythm game called '/dance', and I wanted to try something more ambitious that I could sell and make some pizza money. While searching, I found Unity, the 'best game engine this side of $1 Million', so I downloaded and gave it a shot.

3: As a computer science student, I already had training in C#, some JavaScript, and of course my early foundation in QBasic. Code wasn't the problem, and still isn't - creating artistic assets is. I've gotten a technological foundation in the last two years, that lets me build time-consuming pieces of code pretty quickly (read: GUI stuff. I rolled my own wrapper for Unity GUI, and it helps a lot.) But, art is something that I have a hard time with - usually art is what kills my prototypes.

In my current project, I went back to my 2D roots, but leveraging the 3D side of Unity, and so far feedback is that it's working out well; I'm probably going to continue this style in future projects, but with improvements to the actual art style (I just got my Wacom Bamboo! WOOT!) and to the code controlling it (my hand-rolled sprite controller could use some work in all honesty.)

EDIT: WOOT 1600th post!

 

That's a nice 1600th post if I've ever seen one

 

1. I've been playing games longer than I can remember, and got into programming at a young age. It was kind of just an intuitive progression.

2. I was more or less forced into it, under protest, at work. A while later I wanted to get an improved version of a prior personal project ready for a trade show under a tight deadline, and since Unity was the package I was fastest in by then it was a no brainer to use it for that, too. The more Unity got updated the more I liked it, to the point where I considered myself a fan.

3. I was reasonably experienced at programming in general. I'd only ever done component based development once, way back at uni, so it took me a while to get into that. Using Unity and continued learning about game engine architecture (including writing parts of my own just for the learning) turned me into a fan of that pretty quickly. None of the languages were an issue since I'd learned enough by then that I could pick new ones up as I went with ease.

 

1: The first game I played was a game my dad let me borrow called: Legends of Zelda: Link's Awakening. I instantly fell in love with the idea of video games. I was about 4. It wasn't too long until I started making paper prototypes of all the ideas I had. Near the end of grade school, I started teaching myself how to use Game Maker.

2: One summer, I went to a camp at a university where they taught a program called Unity.

3: I was already fluent in Game Maker Language, JavaScript, and C++ by the time I found Unity. Answers and Docs taught me the rest.

 

professional (2+ years) of workin in a legit office with a boss n stuff with pc's that have Unity on them and pizza

back in 7th grade I made flash animations, I started making them more an more interactive (think "choose your own adventure") - slowly they became games

After making a game with Ogre3D I somehow found Unity3D (my memory is a bit fuzzy about how that went about) - but I recall I was instantly amazed on how easier everything was - Like, you could change something in a scene VISUALLY like in 3ds max, and you don't need to compile the project to test it out - at the time it was mind blowing and allowed my second game to be exponentially more complex

while I did have "some" experience, I think I would cringe at my early forum scripting questions
Thanks!

 

1. I got into game development by accident... (lol) I was playing around with another program and it got me wanting to learn more. This was before I understood 3D modeling.

2. A friend of mine was using Unity and he showed it to me; it was the best choice I ever made. Using Unity, I was able to put my vision to work and the rest is history.

3. Still trying to learn scripting since I am primarily an artist.

 

1. How did you get into game development (What inspired you)

My brother pretty much forced me.

2. How did you discover / get-into unity?

My brother found it and said "Learn This", I want to make games and I can't code and you don't want to make an engine.

3. If you weren't very experienced, how did you go about learning Unity scripting?

I had VB.NET and a little C# under my belt, most of my C# learning came from using Unity though.

 

1. I loved playing games on my SNES and PlayStation. I have always wanted to create games. Never imagined it wasn't the same as playing them. Xaxa.

2. I was looking for a game engine I could use and Unity was the first one being free, plus it was very intuitive. All the others I tried using at the time required direct code knowledge. No GUI or editor.

3. YouTube was the main source of inspiration because Unity didn't have any tutorials available online. There was just a manual for it. Then it was Google. Although, there are plenty of tutorials today.

 

Soldat map making and botting -> Command & Conquer Red Alert Modding -> Game Developer

Edit:

I think there was some school in there somewhere too

 

I killed a game developer and ate their heart.

 

1. I never could play the games that I always wanted to play or my friends played. So I wanted to create the games that I always dreamed to play.
2. College. I had to do it.
3. Tutorials, books and trials & error

 

Zork. I was inspired by the complexity of the parser.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

Google. I was researching game engines and it was one that repeatedly came up.

 

There was this girl I thought was cute. She showed me flappy bird and said how awesome it was. I told her I could make that in a day. She said "prove it". So I did.

Google. At this stage I didn't even know what a game engine was. I searched 'software tool to make a game' or something. I found JMonkey. I played with it for a few weeks. It wasn't really good. I went back to google and searched for 'best game engine'. I came up with a YouTube video that mentioned Unity. I haven't looked back since.

Entirely from the scripting section in learn. I'd programmed before, but only lightly. Then I went and became a guru on answers, using google to search out everything. Eventually I got to the front page of the users section, and got bored with chasing karma and migrated over here.

Just realized the thread is five years old and the OP hasn't logged in for a year. But its still an interesting thread.

 

Haha, well done to Quit for using the forum search feature and not duplicating the topic.

 

Google. Bringing people to Unity both to learn game development and to necro threads.

 

• I made (bad) games in BASIC on my TRS-80 when I was about 12-13.
• Forgot all about that and started a regular career as an artist, working at various places.
• When I was about 24 I found out from a friend that his girlfriend knew someone who was starting a game company and they were looking for an artist. I showed them my stuff and started working there (Tiburon/EA Florida) in 1994.

Oh, I didn't answer the other parts to the question. That was part one. Parts two and three just naturally followed as I dove in to make games all the time.

 

Best advice yet!!!

 

Real answer: To become a game developer, you must defeat another developer in mortal combat!!

 

Heh, yea. I was just about to respond, and the discoverered I already did half a decade ago.

 

It's going to get a little personal into my thoughts, but here's my answers.

1. How did you get into game development (What inspired you)
I grew up in a time of home consoles truly starting to pick up popularity while also playing almost every console from Nes to now (exclude some weird ones like Virtual Boy and Sega Saturn). I knew I would eventually at one point in my life try to make a game. The Xbox series Fable is a main influence to me truly wanting to start down this path.

2. How did you discover / get-into unity?
Around Freshman year of High School I got tired of trying to learn UDK so I downloaded Unity and tried to use it on an old Vista pc I had. It was around the time of Unity 3.2 I think? It seemed very user friendly so I stuck with it.

3. If you weren't very experienced, how did you go about learning Unity scripting?
I started with no scripting knowledge at all. I started with watching various Youtube videos on Unity-Script and would keep it really simple. However, young me never took learning seriously. I always would find code online but never knew how to edit it to my uses. I would take projects and mess around with them and game myself a superficial feeling of "Learning" when in reality I was just hindering myself. At some point I started to learn a bit of C# but it wasn't at a self development level. It wasn't actually until High School graduation that I really started learning. Of course I remembered some things here and there from before that started to make more sense, but I've always been upset with myself that during High School I didn't take learning C# or game development seriously.

 

I believe you mean MORTAL KOMBAT
*INSERT INSANE TECHNO*

 

I like video games.
I like programming.

It was inevitable.

 

It’s what every game developer hears when they close their eyes

 

as a kid
I like art
I like science
Professor urging you at 14 to think about a future job career
what could combine art and science?
Except the job didn't exist at that time, no game designer, only programmer
And that's why I don't care about the tropes and fanboyism of the field
I regret game design though, it's a pointless narrow job

 

Literally been a lifelong dream, well before that I was a very serious 9 year old that wanted to be an astronaut but things changed.

 

"Ah you think game development is your ally? You merely adopted the development. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see a game until I was already a man"

Lol Worth

 

I'm both. In work I'm creating VR stuff (no games) and as a hobbyist I'm working on own games.

1. I wanted to know it. I'm always curious person.

2. I started with processing.org to learn the basics. To understand the concept. After few small hobby projects I started looking for something better. I was deciding between Unreal, Unity and Cryengine. I tried all of them but Unity looks easiest of them to learn.

3. I had a lot of experiences with different programming. But I needed to learn about Unity components and their documentation usually is fine. However there is still stuff I don't know because I don't need them yet.

 

I downloaded Unity to visualize my condo in VR when renovating it. And the rest is history.

 

I started off as a writer. For a very long time I thought I really didn't like programming, until in my last year of enviro engineering we did some Matlab and I was hooked. Around that same time I played Homeworld 2 and several things conspired to make it a bit of a turning point in my life. The idea of creating something with the atmosphere of that game combined with a lot more player agency has been bubbling around in my system ever since.

 

I grew up gaming on Genesis. I used to like playing them but didn't like some details some of the devs missed on those games, either because of limitations or because of the fact they didn't bother to double check it.

 

Well if everybody is gonna do it

1) I think I was in kindergarten or first grade when I decided I wanted to be a plumber when I grew up - which later I re-evaluated to mean I wanted to be like mario from NES/SNES, which again I later re-evaluated to mean that I wanted to make video games. I think before I knew I wanted to make them, I knew I wanted to know HOW people made them more than anything else...

2) I was interested in XNA and had been kinda tinkering with other engines around the time unity started offering a free version on windows, and somehow ended up sticking with unity for...ever?

3) I had some experience during school with BASIC and had a strong tech support background, so C# and unity took me a bit of time to get the hang of, and then all the sudden I don't know how I got by without it

 

Okay, I'll answer. I'm not a game developer.

As a kid, I learned BASIC on my C64 (I was 5-6 yrs old) by making stupid game clones, then C64 Assembly. Then I made some demos. Then I went to a programming High School. Then I didn't have job for a while (my home country had some serious economical issues at the time), then my daughter was born, so I didn't have a choice. I went to work as customer service agent, then I went to do the same as technical customer service agent at an internet company, then I got involved in web development (around 1998-ish), so I became a web developer, later I became an enterprise developer (Java and all the bells and whistles). But I have never stopped to make my family happy with my unpolished little "games".
A couple of years ago started to learn unity, because why not. So I'm finally working on a little bit more serious game-like project in my very little free time (when I'm not playing the smart*ss on the forums).

 

Dead thread revival Level 99, hence why I didnt bother giving a decent response.

 

I think with these kinds of threads, why even start a new? Many of the ppl who originally answered in 2013 are still around, and I don't think the story of how they started has changed