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Thanks for the feedback. It feels like making that move would uproot my life. It's scary. I wish I had a collaborator or someone I should bounce ideas off of.

by mydpy 11y ago

Thanks for the feedback. It feels like making that move would uproot my life. It's scary. I wish I had a collaborator or someone I should bounce ideas off of. My background is in advanced mathematics and I've gravitated towards data science and engineering. Would love to be a part of the game development process, even if not developing directly. If I were to use my skill set in game development it would probably be in MMO games, or something with lots of active users interacting. I have been following the handmade quake blog. I like it, just don't have enough time to really do anything meaningful. Advice?

MarkCole 11y ago
Yeah it can be a problem fitting it in, but if it's really what you want to do then you somehow have to manage it. Engineering comes in lots of forms, "frontend" working with the clients, 3d models, etc. "backend" handling events and networking. And much more in between, if that's what interests you. With a background in maths and data science, and knowledge of engineering? There are a lot of areas in Game Development where you could fit in. One that I might suggest is in "Game Design"? By this I mean a person who "thinks up" features (and/or whole games), does the math to calculate values of x and y, and the like. To figure out ways it could be exploited, and to circumvent them. Using your data science knowledge to find out what parts of the game are used and where it could use further development. Typically at our company we get given a game design document from the game designer, this can contain anything from a basic overview of how things function, to projections, maximum possible outcomes (think for example, the maximum amount of gold a player could gain from this scenario) etc.
- mydpy 11y ago
  That sounds really interesting to me. What size is your company? Would it make sense to work at a large company and get immersed? Do some mobile development? Design Mario maker levels? I've done basic game development before (built centipede). Really like the design considerations involved in VR. Would love to start playing with that.
  - corysama 11y ago
    Large mobile games do a large amount of straight-up data science. They analyse the behavior of millions of users every day. If you have data science skills already and just want to be in the game industry somehow, mobile game analytics would be an area to research. https://www.youtube.com/user/CasualConnect/search?query=analytics https://www.youtube.com/user/CasualConnect/search?query=anal...
corysama 11y ago
Rather than tracking down a specific celebrity, you would do better to speak to the large, friendly group at https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ They'll advise you to start small. Instead of making something meaningful for the world on your first try, make something meaningful for yourself. It is extremely common for new learners to show up saying "I don't know how to do anything. How do I make my own World of Warcraft??" I always advise them to start with making Pong, then Breakout, then Gradius, then Super Mario Bros or Zelda. After that, you'll have a good idea what to do next. If you are familiar with Python, PyGame is a great tool to start with.

by mydpy 11y ago

MarkCole 11y ago

Yeah it can be a problem fitting it in, but if it's really what you want to do then you somehow have to manage it. Engineering comes in lots of forms, "frontend" working with the clients, 3d models, etc. "backend" handling events and networking. And much more in between, if that's what interests you. With a background in maths and data science, and knowledge of engineering? There are a lot of areas in Game Development where you could fit in. One that I might suggest is in "Game Design"? By this I mean a person who "thinks up" features (and/or whole games), does the math to calculate values of x and y, and the like. To figure out ways it could be exploited, and to circumvent them. Using your data science knowledge to find out what parts of the game are used and where it could use further development. Typically at our company we get given a game design document from the game designer, this can contain anything from a basic overview of how things function, to projections, maximum possible outcomes (think for example, the maximum amount of gold a player could gain from this scenario) etc.

mydpy 11y ago
That sounds really interesting to me. What size is your company? Would it make sense to work at a large company and get immersed? Do some mobile development? Design Mario maker levels? I've done basic game development before (built centipede). Really like the design considerations involved in VR. Would love to start playing with that.
- corysama 11y ago
  Large mobile games do a large amount of straight-up data science. They analyse the behavior of millions of users every day. If you have data science skills already and just want to be in the game industry somehow, mobile game analytics would be an area to research. https://www.youtube.com/user/CasualConnect/search?query=analytics https://www.youtube.com/user/CasualConnect/search?query=anal...

corysama 11y ago

Rather than tracking down a specific celebrity, you would do better to speak to the large, friendly group at https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ They'll advise you to start small. Instead of making something meaningful for the world on your first try, make something meaningful for yourself. It is extremely common for new learners to show up saying "I don't know how to do anything. How do I make my own World of Warcraft??" I always advise them to start with making Pong, then Breakout, then Gradius, then Super Mario Bros or Zelda. After that, you'll have a good idea what to do next. If you are familiar with Python, PyGame is a great tool to start with.