So You Want To Be A Game Programmer - CGC2011 Panel Presentation by Karl Schmidt

Canadian Games Conference 2011

So you want to be a game programmer?

Karl [email protected]

Video of presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kN5XIihh1Q


Who am I?• Modding• Education• Career


Obvious Stuff• C/C++• Somewhat obvious:• Lua, Python, C#, etc• Opinion: Degree or college almost always best choice• So important: Co-op and internships


Not as Obvious• SCM• Perforce, SVN, CVS, GIT• Offline asset pipelines• AGILE (SCRUM, XP, etc)• Learning• Amazing amounts of resources


Not Obvious (cont)• Specializations• Industry changes/diversity• Mobile, Facebook, Flash, XNA, Windows 7 Mobile, etc• Programming specific: Many-core, memory latency problem• Career management• Socializing


Skills• Time estimation• Problem-solving• Bug-fixing/Debugging• Code reviews• Working with other disciplines• Low-level, usability


Resources• Mods• Open-source engines• ‘Free’ engines (Unity, UDK, etc)• Platforms (iPhone, Android, GP2X, PS2, etc)• Books• Twitter


Resources (cont)• Developer Slides• Blogs (so you want to be a graphics programmer? AltDevBlogADay)

• Developers directly• Free tools (Visual Studio, gcc, etc)• Demoscene

Big list of resources: karlschmidt.net/CGC2011

http://karlschmidt.net/CGC2011/


Vancouver• All sorts of companies: www.techvibes.com/blog/biggest-video-game-companies-in-bc-2011-edition-2011-01-14• Other social game companies such as DES Games, and more hidden away


So you want to be a game programmer?

Any questions?

Karl [email protected]/IonPulse

So You Want To Be A Game Programmer - CGC2011 Panel Presentation by Karl Schmidt

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Transcript of So You Want To Be A Game Programmer - CGC2011 Panel Presentation by Karl Schmidt