Hello all, For the last few weeks I've been designing and searching/learning articles for my next 3D game engine. I'm planning to code something bigger, something with which I can(and I will) represent myself on interviews by game dev companies. Currently I'm standing before an important decision, whether to code everything from scratch or to use 3rd party tools(physical solvers, libraries,world-editors,..). It mostly depends on what the companies want. Do they want more finished games(due to shorter engine development time) or from-scratch-written engines? Can someone explain me which way should I go? Thanks in advance

This entirely depends on the company.

I would say a majority of the time, they want you to have some 3rd party experience as they most likely already have a prebuilt engine or are using externally developed components already. While we, as hobbiest, may have time to reinvent the wheel, they don't.

If you are applying to be a Gameplay Programmer then a ton of lower level engine development with not much gameplay experience may not be very effective against other candidates.

On the other hand, if you are applying for an Engine Developer position, to have built a full-featured engine on your own time with a small game to show it off says a lot.

I can't make any recommendations other than to make the best effort to become a well-rounded developer. Perhaps implement the rendering sub-system on your own, but use a 3rd party API for Audio, Images, Compression, Memory management, etc. This would hopefully speed up engine development time enough to be able to develop a full game.

Also, some people are set on doing one thing. If you only want to work on engines then focus all of your energy on that.

Game companies do realize that just because you haven't done a specific thing in development doesn't mean you can't. They will test your knowledge of the languages they use and determine your problem solving abilities.

Hope this helps!

Build something complete; it's less relevant if it's with an engine or not, but make sure you finish it. It should feel like a game, not a half-baked tech-demo.

This includes:
- UI
- Installer
- Front-end/menu system
- Multiple levels, game progression, etc
- Audio

You'll get bonus points for:
- Polish [looks solid, no visible bugs, signs that you cared]
- Testing [works out of the box on a normal system, doesnt' do anything strange in uninstalling, etc]

The scale changes a little depending on rewrite or reuse; if you're rewriting from scratch, a decent Tetris or Pong clone would be enough. If you're reusing Ogre or Halflife 2, I'd expect you to find a way to go beyond the samples that come with the box.

Allan

Thanks a lot for your answers guys, at the moment I am at secondary school, so I have some way to go before I can participate in such interview, but I'll keep in mind your advices on this journey :)

Another question comes in my mind regarding to this. I know that the education of participants matters, but how important it is in practise?
Do they take into consideration your marks from primary/high school? It is better to have complete projects, maybe some real work experience in the buissiness or do the companies prefer higher education(better university completed, maybe more universities completed, better performance on them)?



Thanks

Quote: Original post by MePHyst0
Another question comes in my mind regarding to this. I know that the education of participants matters, but how important it is in practise?
Do they take into consideration your marks from primary/high school? It is better to have complete projects, maybe some real work experience in the buissiness or do the companies prefer higher education(better university completed, maybe more universities completed, better performance on them)?
Thanks

If you complete university, I sincerly doubt they would bitch about your highschool grades ;)

Quote: Original post by MePHyst0
Another question comes in my mind regarding to this. I know that the education of participants matters, but how important it is in practise?
Do they take into consideration your marks from primary/high school? It is better to have complete projects, maybe some real work experience in the buissiness or do the companies prefer higher education(better university completed, maybe more universities completed, better performance on them)?

Just look at Job ads to see what they really want. Go to web sites of OPM Response, Datascope, Aardwark Swift job agencies and you`ll find exact requirements. While some companies are strict about education (stating the precise conditions of what should you have studied and even how well you must have studied), some don`t care and if you have several years of experience, that can be better than 5 years of uni. But who knos how`s that going to be in 5 years from now ? More and more companies get audited (ISO), and for this your workers must be skilled AND have relevant education. Otherwise the company doesn`t comply (or whatever is that called) to ISO.

PS in Slovak language: Mimochodom, co ta to popadlo ? Uz nebodaj koncis skolu tento rok ? Abo mas este 2 roky do konca ?

What about a FINISHED something? like a finished game, or a finished UI system, or a 3D engine...it really doesn't matter, but if its finished you'll get lot of points for that.

In a game development company you are not making the game, or responsible for the timescale. You are allocated tasks to complete in a certain timescale. So all they're interested in are your programming and related technical skills as well as personal skills.

If you happen to know a 3rd-party library they use then that's a plus but it's unlikely. Physics programmer is a specialty so unless you want to do that and just that it's not so useful - although a good grasp of maths and physics is impressive if you have decent prgramming skills as well. I reckon a finished game is better - whatever you us to get it is fine but be prepared to explain your reasoning.

Why don't you modify and existing open-source engine?