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Can I be a game dev without having any connections to others?

Started by November 26, 2013 10:09 AM
7 comments, last by JohnnyCode 10 years, 11 months ago

I kind of not want to be in circles with others, but I want to be a game developer. I found out that I am not interested in a majority of stuffs that others like. I would like to learn more stuffs, but there isn't a clear path for me to take. I prefer someone to take my hands and guide me through. I want to relearn everything, but these days, it's never possible.

That's my basis. Without knowing what most game devs already knew, I just a tadpole in a well. This can causes me to lose interests in a lot of topics. I wasn't taught with the basics you guys have learned about, and this is the bane of my existence.

However, I came up with a solution that will make me prevent this from happening, and that is to close off most connections. If I succeed, I will become a game dev, just not in a way most people liked to do.

Am I not supposed to say I don't want any connections whatsoever in the circles of game devs, but rather say that I'm unknowledgeable and I wanted to learn new things I never learned before, but I wanted someone to teach me? Does that mean I have to take classes in colleges/universities in order to learn what I missed out on by professors in their respective fields of expertise? But I looked in my wallet, and see nothing but a few bucks. I can't afford countless educational courses without additional aids, and I won't have a lot of time left in life in order to learn all the things.

One would say that I need to get a job, a real working job, a job that makes me earn more than a few bucks in order to get what I wanted in life. But that wouldn't make sense, as I can also invest all the time I had working at such a job into learning/practicing my coding skills and computer/technical aspects of many things. Juggling these options around is cumbersome and highly risky to do.

What do I currently know? Basic C++, basic Java, Reddit, news, gaming related information on up-and-comings, etc. Trivial things. What do I currently don't know? Job experiences, advanced topics of graphics, math, theoretical-ness, and game related ins-and-outs. How do I know them unknowns? I do them. How? I don't know. Isolation is one thing, being dependent on electricity, water, food, shelter, computer parts, and love is another.

Do I feel successful? Completely not. I don't feel anything special nor done anything I have accomplished so far. Why? I lack them. How do I know I lack them? I keep seeing many great things created/invented by others who are more powerful/knowledgeable than me. I never see things, regardless of how great they were, done by those less knowledgeable/powerful than me. I never understood why such is life, why such happens in front of my eyes, why such things I can't prevent from happening.

I feel indifferent. Therefore I wanted to just stay like this. Stay like I'm always a beginner. I don't know what I can do in the meantime anymore.

Can you be a developer without connections to others? Absolutely, of course you can.

Can you learn from others without connections to others? Obviously not, that doesn't even make sense; you can't have someone "take your hands and guide you" if you're not interacting with others.

Can you learn things without help from others? Absolutely, you certainly can, but it may be a little more difficult than it would have been otherwise.

If you want to learn the basics that a lot of others seem to know, why don't you try learning them the same ways? Read books, watch video lectures, or even enrol in courses.

- Jason Astle-Adams

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Can you be a developer without connections to others? Absolutely, of course you can.

Can you learn from others without connections to others? Obviously not, that doesn't even make sense; you can't have someone "take your hands and guide you" if you're not interacting with others.

Can you learn things without help from others? Absolutely, you certainly can, but it may be a little more difficult than it would have been otherwise.

If you want to learn the basics that a lot of others seem to know, why don't you try learning them the same ways? Read books, watch video lectures, or even enrol in courses.

If I done all of these, will I be in the same league as they are in?

Can you be a developer without connections to others? Absolutely, of course you can.

Can you learn from others without connections to others? Obviously not, that doesn't even make sense; you can't have someone "take your hands and guide you" if you're not interacting with others.

Can you learn things without help from others? Absolutely, you certainly can, but it may be a little more difficult than it would have been otherwise.

If you want to learn the basics that a lot of others seem to know, why don't you try learning them the same ways? Read books, watch video lectures, or even enrol in courses.

If I done all of these, will I be in the same league as they are in?

Thats really up to you, if you work as hard as "they" did you should be able to achieve similar levels of knowledge.

[size="1"]I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

Okay.


I found out that I am not interested in a majority of stuffs that others like

Heh, I know that feeling


I prefer someone to take my hands and guide me through. I want to relearn everything, but these days, it's never possible.

Honestly, you might hate what I am going to say and some people may even disagree but you might want to get out of this 'hand holding' approach fast and quickly, tbh quite rarely you will need to ask a question, most have been answered. You will need to research your ass off, searching online, investing in books (decent books), watching vids, reading sources etc. As long as you know what the task is you want to accomplish, you really have no reason not to do it. If you want to relearn everything then do it, there is no point saying it isn't possible, it IS possible. Seriously majority of the time you will be researching / learning anyway, the rest is probably debugging, people should avoid hand holding unless it is something very specific and unanswered, something that will probably not get answered anyway. Oh and one more thing, DONT COPY AND PASTE when it involves maths / physics, I am not sure what you want to do but the worst thing you can do is follow a copy + paste approach that worked well during beginning learning, you need to understand what you are doing.


Without knowing what most game devs already knew, I just a tadpole in a well. This can causes me to lose interests in a lot of topics. I wasn't taught with the basics you guys have learned about, and this is the bane of my existence

I think most people self-taught themselves, from books and stuff, I would even say the ones who went to uni or did a course learnt complex topics on their own. Then again it depends what you are using, the basics in an engine are much easier to learn than with something low level like D3D / OpenGL, still eitherway going back to what I said above, if may sound sucky but you are going to have to research your ass off and learn for yourself and ALL the basics have been covered enormously, you shouldn't have any issues.


Am I not supposed to say I don't want any connections whatsoever in the circles of game devs, but rather say that I'm unknowledgeable and I wanted to learn new things I never learned before, but I wanted someone to teach me? Does that mean I have to take classes in colleges/universities in order to learn what I missed out on by professors in their respective fields of expertise? But I looked in my wallet, and see nothing but a few bucks. I can't afford countless educational courses without additional aids, and I won't have a lot of time left in life in order to learn all the things.

You don't have to have connections with other people, no one will force you too either. As for knowledge, again it may suck to hear this but we are in the information age, you really need to get out of this "hand holding" approach to learning, you are just going to have to research, research and research. You don't need a course for this either, books will do, majority of my personal favourite books have been free, though I invested heavily in many other books for other topics. Most of my graphics knowledge came directly from understanding DX sdk / Nvidia sdk examples / reading their books and the ones important to me were all free anyway, they were also heavily referenced so that I could expand on the topic very easily and again freely. The only thing you have to concern yourself with is time, do you have the time to do all of this?


One would say that I need to get a job, a real working job, a job that makes me earn more than a few bucks in order to get what I wanted in life. But that wouldn't make sense, as I can also invest all the time I had working at such a job into learning/practicing my coding skills and computer/technical aspects of many things. Juggling these options around is cumbersome and highly risky to do.

I quit a well paying job in London to focus heavily on programming, people even thought I was having a breakdown when I handed in my notice. I haven't regretted it one bit, probably the best decision of my life. Just make sure you have enough money to live off :P if not you might have to do what I did and move. I couldn't balance my career and programming, figured I would either end up getting depressed and fail both or sacrifice one and succeed in the other. Sadly not everyone can do this, people have dependencies, mortgages etc and it isn't always possible to live of savings


What do I currently don't know? Job experiences, advanced topics of graphics, math, theoretical-ness, and game related ins-and-outs. How do I know them unknowns? I do them. How?

Research, research, research. The only way you are going to learn them is well by learning them, read books, read sites, watch vids but don't expect a magical teacher to appear and tell you what to do, you know what you want, break your project down, and do each task while researching.


I keep seeing many great things created/invented by others who are more powerful/knowledgeable than me. I never see things, regardless of how great they were, done by those less knowledgeable/powerful than me.

Seriously, stop focusing on others and start focusing on yourself, if you compare yourself to others you will go mad, the knowledge people got did not come natural, people who researched stuff put their blood and sweat into it, that is why it took centuries to get where we are now and we STILL haven't colonised other planets yet or even know why cats purr, pretty crappy if you ask me ;) anything in life worth doing is difficult and sadly you will have to put your blood and sweat into your work (not literally), that is the only way you will see results and sacrifices must be made along the way.

Good luck

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This is an informative post. Understood.

*sigh* I missed the 90's.

Hey, don't feel alone. Every venture I've worked toward I've been alone in. It's good to be a pathfinder in this industry. We need people willing to go out on a limb because without people like that alot of advancements that defined the industry wouldn't even exist. Sometimes being alone allows you to think outside of the proverbial box. You can have flexible hours, a defined goal not convoluted, and most importantly you can live up to your own expectations. I've found that if I try to develop things that can impress me, then I've matched or even exceeded industry standards. So, don't lose sight of your dreams, because the next great advancement could be right around the corner.

Airlight is looking for game developers

it happens to be that game development is an extensive work...

what are games?

totaly unknow thing...

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