Interesting points.

I mean to get a job working for a company producing games you need an impressive portfolio of work, i.e. games which you have made.

So for a person like me (who isn't imtimidated by the design aspect - i.e. creating graphics/artwork) I need to learn how to actually program a game?

And as I've said before - I'm no programmer, but I want to learn how to program. So what is a good medium to work in? Say for example I wanted to make a side-scroller - I could create the artwork - but then I would have to actually program it (not necessarily in that order) - So I could self-teach myself how to use a language.

Where would I find info to do that?

What is a good medium to learn?

Lol! The concept of programming is pretty alien to me, but also intuiguing. I used to dabble in BBC Basic when I was about 14, and was able to make pong-like games, and even simple top-scrollers (just using simple line-art)....

Where should I look? 

Just woke up, so too blurred to give actual advice, but no, you don't _need_ to learn to code to create a portfolio (in fact, given your releases you already have part of one).

Infer from following;

Those positions are generally given to people who work within the company

All I meant is that the odds of you starting as a game designer are very slim

but [...] its perfectly possible to start in level design 

but from what I have seen, surely making a portfolio that includes works in various engines is a definite plus? 

http://www.cprogramming.com/

Maybe I should make a mod. For Quake.

Although I feel that if I can get a handle on creating programmes/games it would become more addictive and interesting to me than mapping....

Well to apply for that course I need a protfolio anyway, which I will be putting my maps and webpage in. And a couple of pop-up banners which I created for a trade show.....

Hopefully they will consider me despite that fact that I only got to GCSE's, and a couple of other certificates. They expect me to have "A" levels, which I dont....

The thing is that I dont want the piece of paper, I just want the living/career. And to do the course I would have to do it part-time due to real-life situations.... Which would take four years....

I really am interested in learning C though. 

"but from what I have seen, surely making a portfolio that includes works in various engines is a definite plus?"

The engine you choose isn't all that important. What's important is that you finish things. That's really what companies want to see. The fact that it's in Unreal, Quake or your own engine doesn't matter.

Having an idea, building it, and actually releasing something to the world puts you leaps and bounds beyond most applicants. 

Lots of open source games are very short on manpower. You could pick one, add lots of artwork, squish all the bugs, and make a proper release. Especially if you can do artwork, many open source teams would kill to get you on their project.

http://happypenguin.org/

Learning C:

http://publications.gbdirect.co.uk/c_book/

and get a pet project to practice on.

Also, did you get my mail? 

Well if I can get my current map out of the way (imminent) I s'pose I can start on the said map you mentioned. I think I might actually have to be working on two maps at once though...

I'm really keen on making an ep. still but my current map is no longer gonna be part of it. It sucks. It was an interesting experiment, but ultimately a fail. Heh - you'll all see soon enough!

you can do artwork

Crikey! What I mean is i understand how to make artwork - bitmapped images. But really I havent got that much experience in the area..... Lol! its all to play for I guess.

I spent about an hour reading through the first tutorial on cprogramming.com then went cross eyed...

So yes, I'll commit to doing that one map to start with! Im in. :-)

BUT - I will be working on other stuff at the same time. Not to say that I'll never finish it, just that I will be attempting to multi-task....

Meh - I think I've HAD ONE TOO MANY CUPS OF TEA..... 

Oh, and as an aside ... QuakeC is not really, entirely, "C". It's basically C but it's so Quake specific and so locked into it's sandbox that whatever you learn there isn't really all that relevant to what you might get a job doing in the 'real world'.

You might want to start off doing command line based Quake tools or something if you wanted to get your feet wet with C. Find the file specs for a BSP file and see if you can open the file, read some info about it, print it to the screen and clean up. Stuff like that will teach you more than making the Ogre fire nails will.

Not that QuakeC is useless in this regard. It certainly isn't. It inspired TONS of guys back in the day to learn to code so in that light it's fantastic. It's incredibly satisfying to change a few lines of QuakeC and see the game itself change it's behavior. That's almost instant gratification, baby! :) 

#include <stdio.h>

yup - that means that the compiler has to look in a file called stdio.h before proceeding to obtain any, er, functions which might get called on within the script?

A bit like telling an xhtml script to look into style.css to get the definitions of each one of the heading/span styles?

Thats about as far as Iv'e got, and I dont even know if it's right.

Cups of TEA! 

If this is the rate you're going to ask questions, this is going to be a very long and painful process for everyone. :) Take it slow, compile a lot, change things and see what happens. 

You are, to me and at this time, the pretty much the best person to finish (and finish good) things around here. :)

(If you want to get into programming, join the dark side and install Linux!) 

I havent really had a chance to fiddle yet, this has all happened since I started work. This morning. Tomorrow who knows, I might be stripping and rebuilding car engines.... Anyone know any good links ? (jk)

Spirit - Lol! Wait till you see the map! 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EPeSU3H0Yv8

highly relevant! 

I tired to invite you to Quakelive but it says you have already been invited ;)

Still got 5 invites for the beta if anyone is interested? 

Thanks for the invite.

I thought you referred me, I got an email last night.

Had a go. Must not say anything else about it..... ;P 

My personal suggestion is to take a course relevent to what position you want, but not specifically geared toward it. What I mean by that is if you want to be a programmer, take a proper computer sciences course. An artist, take regular art courses. Designers take some programming and some art, along with heavy writing and social sciences courses. On the side, do lots of hobby work specifically for games to build that portfolio.

Personally, my feeling is that the courses specifically tailored to game development don't teach you much more than you can actually learn on your own, and the more standard courses will give you more in terms of actually learning relevent skills.

Seen lots of resumes and interns come in from these schools, and it's always a mixed bag. The strongest applicants tend to be the most self driven, who have done lots of personal work that's good, as well as have a relevent degree. 

If you want to learn C, I recommend this book as a reference:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/C-Programming-Language-2nd/dp/0131103628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231359709&sr=8-1

You will need a companion book that teaches you about programming in general, but the above book is great if you just need to look up what this or that does. The most important aspect you need to learn about C is pointers and memory management in my opinion. If you don't get that stuff right, you won't be able to do much real programming in that language. 

The K&R book? I wouldn't recommend that for an absolute beginner. Pick up something fluffy like a Sams "Learn C in 24 hours" or something. 

if c is a good language to start programming with in the first place. 

So yes, I'll commit to doing that one map to start with! Im in. :-)

Cool. It's not such a big map, so hopefully it won't stress you out too much. Take your time.

Learning C... personally, I learned a lot doing a Nethack mod. That's a text mode RPG. I just added a player class, some weapons etc. I also learned a good amount by modding Quake 2 and Quake engines, and bots. When I encountered things I didn't understand, I looked them up. Now the result is that I can hack, but I couldn't write a program from the ground up - that's why there are programming courses.

It's not a hard language to learn imo. If you can do QuakeC, the main things you'll need to pick up are arrays and structs. And pointers, of course.

Like Spirit says, install Linux, which should come with a C compiler, and install some games, and just look at their source and try to understand what's going on. I can really recommend old games like Nethack, Angband etc. They have no graphics to speak of, just things like monsters etc.

Yeah, #include blah means that pre-defined functions are taken from another file (a library). Leave out the include, and your compile will fail.

You should also know that there are Windows-specific extensions to C, and also Windows-specific libraries. These are widely used but often a nuisance when you want something to run on other platforms.

You don't write scripts in C. Scripts are interpreted, C programs are compiled. You write scripts for python, or bash.

Coding help thread? 

Nothing wrong with learning programming of course, and a designer will be better for knowing the other disciplines, but you definitely don't need to know how to code to be hired as a designer.

On the job, about the most code-like work most designers would normally do is either scripting events for your level (in a high-level language such as lua or some in-house language) and writing xml-like data files for UIs and the like.

As for what sort of first job in the industry you might get, level designer or junior level designer (some companies don't have multiple tiers, some do) is the most likely given your history of released quake levels. "Game designer" is typically a leadership role, not an entry-level job.

Portfolio wise, you want to show personal initiative, so the more projects you can show that you finished, that were NOT a homework assignment for school, the better, since it shows that you have drive and discipline. You have some good levels already, so this area mostly covered.

Someone said it doesn't matter what engine you mapped for, but I would say first, mapping for a variety of engines shows you are flexible and can learn new tools, and second, mapping for a latest generation engine like unreal3 can show that you are up on current practices/techniques.

Schooling and/or previous non-game work experience are useful in showing that you are somewhat mature and will know how to do work, even though they are not relevant to the subject of game development. This is what is working against a talented 18- or 19-year old, the fact that they just seem young and haven't really held a serious job or gotten a college degree.

As a data point, I have no degree, but when I entered the industry at 24 i had already worked a couple years at a dot-com startup, and had done some freelance work too. So I think that helped make me look a little less like a fresh-faced kid who might spend his entire work hours playing Robotron and Puzzle Bobble. 

I want one please! 

That's why I said he should get a companion book and use the KR book as a reference. 

Sorry Starbuck all my invites seem to have disapeared (?!) at the moment, maybe id is messing with some settings or something.

I'll check again tomorrow, in the mean time maybe Ricky can sort you out. 

Programming will help, your mapping portfolio as-is will help more, probably, having a grab bag of games made for different platforms (asteroids in flash with a novel twist) would be a major boost and experience of how to put things together and finish them is the magic ingredient.