Video Game Career

Hey Christopher,

Games design is a great goal! There is a lot of different things you can be doing right now to make progress towards it. I don't know what your current situation is but if you are in full-time education, you should look at what colleges/universities you can enroll in for computer science or games-focused courses. If full-time education isn't feasible, there are many online courses that also teach these skills that you can sign up for that you can do at your own pace. A structured course will educate you in the basics of game design and what it means to work in the industry.

You should spend some of your free time trying to make games; start out simple and make something text based like Blackjack or try and copy an old arcade game like Pac-man with a basic game creation software and a few simple graphics. You can then move on to using game engines like UDK when you're more confident in your skills or try making a mod for a PC game you enjoy - games in the steam workshop are great for this. The point of this is to practice designing fun games, they don't have to be super complex to begin with just practice your craft! Get your friends involved for feedback and iterate on your designs, anything you do make can be used as examples of your ability when seeking work. Start small and try a making a game that you can complete in a week or a month, if you are looking for inspiration look up "1GAM"; short for 1 game a month. The goal is to make one game a month from scratch for a year with a new optional themes for each month. There's quite a big community to talk to there and you can start and stop as often as you like. Its a good way to get feedback from a wider audience, discuss ideas and learn.

You'll have to know a bit about every aspect of game development like a basic understanding of programming, how are scenes composed? how are 3D models made and rigged? etc. so read as many books, articles, interviews etc as you can. There are plenty of resource out there like gamasutra.com which can help with this. Knowledge is power, the more you know, the easier it will be to become a Games designer.

Best of luck!

You should be a COMPUTER SCIENTIST! It is an awesome major where you can do awesome stuff with computers like make your own video game. Here is a link where you can learn more about major for college:

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/majors/computer-information-sciences-computer-science

You have to be a smart guy who likes computers and is good at math. If that is you then Computer Science and video games can be in your future.