How old developer are you?

Hi guys How are you doing? I hope you're doing fine.
So I just wanted to ask a general question ,

1. How long have you been into development?
2. How old are you? (You may or may not answer this question if you think it's embarrassing).

I'm 16 years old, a first year college student and I've been into game development since when I was 14
(mid 2013). I'm so glad to say that I have learned programming , 3D modeling , animating , texturing and of course Unity so much in that time. Although I started with 3D Rad (free game engine with visual scripting support). I love programming , it's interesting and I'm always getting better and better in it. (C#)

Currently I'm working on a big project , I'll post the updates soon

Feel free to answer the questions

 

Nice horse you have there!

1. 5 years into Unity asset/games development, currently doing my master's degree in business informatics. Spending time in Unity and reading/doing dev things is the better part of this. My first Asset Store product came out 3 years ago and has hundreds of users, while the app store results haven't been that overwhelming.
2. 26.

I remember seeing similar discussions here, can't find any of them (not-locked) though.

 

That horse is from Shadow of the Colossus , my favorite game

Can you tell me the name of your asset? I would love to check that out.

 

1. This is a tough question. Professionally I started developing when .NET was version 1.1. However, I've been writing code since I was a kid... starting out with BASIC, GWBASIC and QBASIC. I wrote a lot of batch scripts in DOS (before Windows was around). I coded in Visual Basic 2 through 6 and some Pascal. As I got older I moved into HTML, JavaScript and PHP, and then classic ASP, and then VB .NET and then C#. Now I'm getting ready to learn the wonders that are TypeScript

2. I am 35 in actual years but I'm always a kid at heart.

 

Awesome!! You have a great background

 

1: I started doing game development stuff around 4 years ago (about 1-2 years into university) as a hobby.
Honestly i have to say that before i went to university for computer science, i had absolutely NO idea what programming was. I went completely blind to this field and i'm glad i did because i love this field now i'm only one year away from finishing my masters and becoming a software engineer.
I'm also already working at a company as a researcher/software developer on some big international projects (not game related) which is nice

2: 24 here

One thing i notice around the internet, is that programmers don't like/can't do other things besides programming like 3D, animation, textures, etc. I think that makes me kind of a rare species, since i like doing all of those things and have fun doing it

 

I am exactly like you! I jumped into this field being totally blind about it too. As a matter of fact , I was a BIOLOGY student in high school , lmao! And In college , I'm a computer science student just because I loved it.
And it isn't write that programmers can't do anything other than programming , I myself love to do 3D modeling, animating etc. like you. It's fun! Doing graphics is so cool lol

 

It's in my signature, don't want to turn this into an advertising thingy

 

Ah I see. Thanks.

 

I dabbled in typescript and actually found it way better than javascript/coffeescript if you're the kind of guy who values the compiler. Some things are annoying, sure, but I'd definitely go the typescript route for something non trivial and web based.

I'm also 35. I've been doing development professionally since I was 17.

 

I've been using unity for about two years now. Programming on and off since I was about 10 yeas old. Am now 29.

My degree is in Chemical Engineering. Thought about doing computer science. But at the time the field was considered saturated. There was nothing new happening, and more workers then work.

Between the time I started my degree and the time I finished it, both Facebook and smart phones became a thing. So my predictions were totally wrong.

 

I'm primarily a hobbyist developer and have been dabbling in Unity since approximately the latter days of 3.5. I have been programming since about the age of 12 and am now 32. I picked up the basics of programming with QuickBASIC, then the basics of OOP with C++, and have finally moved to whichever language suits my needs at the moment.

 

Tell me exactly what did you program in 1995? lol

 

At somewhere around that time I wrote a text based battleships game in QBasic. It used 3 levels, you could fire at air craft, boats or submarines. I was also messing around with Lotus 123 macro programming.

'95 was the glory days of gaming. We had Mario Brothers and Doom and Warcraft and Civ. Networked multi player had just come on the scene. Bulliten boards and dial up Internet was making distributing games widely possible.

We've come an incredibly long way since then. But that didn't mean gaming in those days was any less exciting.

 

I'm 46, been programming since 1982, and in C variants since 1984.
Been using Unity for 3 years now, learning as I go.

 

I'm 34, I started developing games as a hobby when I was 14. Gosh, that's 20 years!

First with text adventure games in QBASIC, then did some 2D stuff in Java and C++, jumped on Flash when it first came out and did that for a while, messed around with various engines like Blitz3D, kept learning C++ and attempted writing a custom engine, now currently playing with both Unreal and Unity, still haven't really finished anything.

 

A text adventure parser. It was never finished due to bugs, the extremely tight limits of 16-bit QB, and my own inexperience.

http://pastebin.com/ucdm34G5

 

I had forgotten how hard completely non-OO code was to look at

 

Yup. I still remember the first time I was introduced to OOP. I took a long break from real coding, and in that time OOP was invented and became widely used everywhere. The stuff was like black magic.

At least the GOTOs have named statements. Sending a GOTO to a line number made refactoring really fun.

 

I'm 15, I started at 9 with the Platinum Arts Sandbox Game Maker. I tried programming(using a language called CubeScript) but failed many many MANY times.Then at 10 i saw this Advertisement on YouTube, which introduced me to Unity.
Thanks to the many many free tutorials online I have learned C#, Javascript, and a little lua (Mainly C#); 3D modelling (mainly Architecture) and 3D rendering using Blender; Art creation and 2D graphic design using Inkscape and Gimp; Mobile Game Development; And much more;

If it wasn't Unity I'd probably wouldn't of known the things I know now (Thanks Unity!)

Now I'm just doing whatever comes to my mind, just playing around with Unity and painting in Gimp...I have loads of free time all year long and I just can't think of anything to do (Open to suggestions there) - I joined the forums a few months ago and I've just been lurking around |||
It's funny how much time I waste everyday doing absolutely nothing...

 

old enough for you not to ask

i always wanted to say that and i'm now finally old enough to be able to say it

LOL

ok i started when i was around 14-15, but that is all i will say...

 

I can't help but feel like these kinds of threads are always intended to make us somewhat older devs feel bad about our age...

(I'm 32, I've been using Unity for roughly 5 years)

 

Crazy that being near 30 makes you old on these forums.

 

Heck dude .. I am 57..but I could whoop most of you youngsters in a foot race. I have been using Unity since 2009. I have been doing 3D since 1995 and coding since 1999. I was a child prodigy in fine arts. If they had this stuff when I was in high school in the age of psychedelia I would never have failed trig and calculus math. If I could have used trig to make 3D Marvel comics characters and animate them I would have gotten 100%..but probably skipped school to do it

 

It may have become widely used during that period, but many concepts we consider OOP mostly came in the 1960s.

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

 

I'm really sorry if it offended you but 32 is damn young! Even 40 is young! There's absolutely nothing bad about being old. I mean when I'm like 100 , I'll come here and say , "I'm 100 years old developer , been using unity for 85 years" lol
All my favorite actors are 35 , 40 , 50 or even 60+ and I love them. Never cared about age and Never will!

 

Nice! And yeah , from 1990 - 2000 , that is also my favorite decade for games. Unfortunately many new games aren't good enough , I'm a retro + modern fan!

 

Wow mate! It's great that you started it all at 10. Why don't you start working on a project? Like commercial project , try your luck dude! Just utilize your skills and experience and make a game , a platformer game maybe. Then publish it to Play Store and see if you're the next flappy bird developer, lol

 

Cool!

 

That's about as useful ask asking wheather C# or JavaScript is the better language for scripting in Unity.

 

To add further to @BoredMormon's statement, choosing an engine is a bit like choosing a programming language. Each has strengths and weaknesses. It is up to you to determine if an engine will fit the needs of your project.

Learning a new engine is a bit like learning a new programming language. The learning curve that comes with your initial choice will be a lot higher than subsequent ones. Don't be afraid to choose a different engine depending on your needs.

 

I'm good with Unity , I was just wondering if Unreal Engine is great or not. But I'm not planning to switch my game engine. Now that Unity Personal Edition has no limitations , nothing's better than that!

 

Try it and see... There's numerous engines, find the one that you feel suits you best. All have pros and cons.

 

Unity is best!

 

Ya the 1990's have always had my favorite and most memorable games. But it could be because I "grew up" during that time, and that's when I was most into playing games. Warcraft 1 is still probably my favorite game of all time (1994 for the win).

I am 32 years old, and I've been using Unity for a little over 3 years now (since April 2012). I had absolutely no computer science classes or any programming knowledge whatsoever before 2012. I didn't have a clue how to program, or how games were actually made. Now, it's hard for me to stop working on making a game It has become my biggest hobby, and it's pretty much all I do when I have free time and don't have a physical ache or pain keeping me down.

Whoever said they wouldn't have failed calculus if they would have known about game programming, I feel the same way! I hated physics and vectors when I was in school, and now vectors are my best friend. Anyone who is above the age of 40 and was programming since the 80's etc...... I have much respect man -- much respect. I like hearing about the 80's and how rudimentary games were back then

 

I did 2 commercial projects this year actually, I quit both. First one was a 2D platformer(meant for mobile) where you could make your own "Gadgets" and machines to battle all kinds of robots that mimic the way animals behave, all throughout different locations. I quit that one due to the fact that minimal games were ruling the Play Store (and still are), and platformers just weren't becoming popular.
So I stared another project, which was a minimal mobile game. The idea was great, and 100% original. I quit that one about 2 weeks ago. Somehow multiple ppl must have gotten the same idea at around the same time, I found 3 games already that are very close MY ORIGINAL idea...
I don't know what to do now

 

Well are you sure that those games that share the same idea as yours are better than your game? Even if they are , there is nothing wrong with publishing , at least it's better than doing nothing.

 

I will be 13 in 3 months and I am using unity for 9 months now and I am trying to learn Development form 2 years

 

It's kind of funny actually, most of my ideas were used. For example, one of them was to have each "Stage" to have a different set of minimal colors. EVEN THAT IDEA was used, including the effect when the player dies! Though unlikely, I did have my game backed up to my google drive, which I did not know was public so anyone could've downloaded my complete project with all my assets in it, and changed a few things and published it. But it was only public for a few weeks till I found out about it and set it to private, and the odds of that is extremely low.

Now I'm thinking of maybe selling some of my old assets on the Asset store (if my mom will let me lol)

 

LOL I see , I hope your assets weren't downloaded And go for it (if your mom lets you lol).

 

1. Used unity for about 2 - 3 years, did modeling in autodesk maya for 5 years, did programming for about 2 years, and did some filmmaking for 6 years (mainly youtube videos and skits, not very many of them but I learned a lot from them). Did alot of projects and I code in Javascript (switching to c# in the near future). Currently making an app.
2. Im 13 years old.

 

Nice little brother!

 

1. I've been programming since I was 10, making minecraft mods then I started game development a year later with Java. A few months later I found Unity. I've used it ever since I'm beginning to get a little bit into web development and I wanna get back into Java when I finish my current main project.
2. I'm 15 now

 

Im surprised how much young developers there are in here. Thought there were only a few young developers around the age I am, and I thought unity was like an adult community only

 

Youngsters are the future of game development

 

Cool , I also used to mod my favorite PC game "The Rage" when I was around 9 or 10 , I had a lot of fun doing that

 

Been modelling and general art stuff for 3 years, coding maybe 1 but not as much focused by me.
Am 17 ;P

 

@eskovas I noticed that too. My guess is that generally some programmers are too scared to try something new or its too hard for them and they don't want to break out of there bubble. Which is understandable but you can't really grow or learn being so lazy and cozy in the couch.

BTW @eskovas you were my inspiration when I was learning unity!

 

Yeah!! Another young developer!

 

1. Around a year and a half.
2. 17