Game Design

[Braydens]

Hello,

I am currently 15 and in the 9th grade and we had to do a career project a few weeks back and I had some questions. As you could probably tell by the title, when I grow up I want to be in the game design career field. Although this may seem a bit far out there, one of my major goals is to lead a team and design a successful mmorpg.

I know that there are many parts of creating a game. Two of which are designing, which in my mind is doing the drawing and graphics for items and, then there is developing which I believe to be the things that you don't see when you play the game like code. The question I have is that I cannot draw for the life of me, yet I can do some amazing stuff in programs like Photoshop. I also have coded some things for private servers including boss fights and some other neat things with lua and C++.

I was wondering what you would suggest for me to do in a career.

Another question is that at our school we have a Tech Center just down the road that you have the option to go to in 10th grade. There are two classes that have to do with computers. One of them is coding starting of with some simple things like QBasic and moving into Java and C++ in the later parts of the semester. The other class is all about networking and such.

Which class would be most beneficial for me to take while trying to pursue this career.

Thanks,
Braydens

 

[nfllover100]

I am not sure what class to recommend to you, but one thing I would like to say is you are smart for getting to know what you want to do early in highschool. Some kids are seniors and dont know what they want to do and then when they have to major they are lost, you need to start making smart choices early in life and not go down wrong paths, you can be very successful in life if you work hard for what you want. Good luck.

 

[gemetzel]

Graphic design may be a good road for you. It dose take some artistic talent (which it seems like you do have talent, just not drawing) but it, for the most part, deals with a broad array of fields that primarily use computer animation/design. I have a family member (well 2) that are in the field, one that has no drawing skills what so ever.

/shrug

 

[CodenameG]

i know this is going to sound stupid, but call up valve, or blizzard, or some other game companys. and just ask to speak to someone in human resources, basically you wanna speak with the person who looks at the resumes, or you can even write letters if you want. but what you wanna ask is what skills they are looking for. because to work for one of these company's unless your going to start your own, you dont need to learn everything, you get what i mean? figure out what you like to do, if thats coding, or graphics or whatever. and then see how you can build your skills around that. because the same guy who did all the little spell icons, isnt the same guy who coded the action bars. so to sum things up

find out what you like to do.
figure out how to advance your skills and tailor them to work in the industry you want to work in.