Maniaplanet Forum

Just for a moment lets say that you want to design video games for a living. Even though chances are that you wont get into it. Does anyone here think that this software would help build a portfolio to show during an interview?

Zail_666 wrote:Just for a moment lets say that you want to design video games for a living. Even though chances are that you wont get into it.

That's not entirely true, a lot of people would eventually get into it. Something you need to strive for.

Zail_666 wrote:Does anyone here think that this software would help build a portfolio to show during an interview?

I would say no, this would be showing of your 'creative talent' in this specific game, they would be less interested in what you can do in this (or any other game) game.

Portfolios for game designers/developers would include projects you have worked on yourself, projects you have designed and/or developed. You would include a level-based gamed, a small game (flash, javascript etc) and possibly a written game design.

They are interested in your own potential creativity, production and development. In this case, they don't want to see your tracks/quests/maps in someone else's work, entirely irrelevant for game designing (that would float more towards "level designing", not full blown game designing/development).

fastforza wrote:Portfolios for game designers/developers would include projects you have worked on yourself, projects you have designed and/or developed. You would include a level-based gamed, a small game (flash, javascript etc) and possibly a written game design.

They are interested in your own potential creativity, production and development. In this case, they don't want to see your tracks/quests/maps in someone else's work, entirely irrelevant for game designing (that would float more towards "level designing", not full blown game designing/development).

I would argue that there's not as clear a division between "game designer" and "level designer" as fastforza presents above. There's a lot of overlap, and "game designers" can work on levels and "level designers" can contribute to the overall creation of the game.

Be aware though, that typically, no one gets hired as a "game designer" in the sense that you'll actually be designing a game. If you're trying to get into the game industry, you'll get hired for an entry level design position (or production intern, or QA, or artist/modeler or whatever), and then try to do well enough that you'll be given a greater measure of responsibility. The people actually designing the game are going to be the higher-ups and the senior staff who have been there a while and/or proven themselves.

Also, if they are well done, "your tracks/quests/maps in someone else's work" will indeed get you a job depending on the complexity of the work, and the polish and skill shown. Will TM maps get you a game job? Probably not. They're very simple and easy to make, and the work involved in a typical TM track is probably 1% of the work involved in, say, an Unreal3, Half-Life2, or Quake4 map.

This is a guess, but I'm assuming that creating levels for TM2/SM/QM will also be much simpler and easier than making levels for one of those games, solely because of what I've experienced with Nadeo's work on TM; they do a great job of making creation easy for the end-user. (Part of me hopes that the complexity is a bit greater than I'm expecting on the FPS/RPG front...we will see...)

If you really want to get into the game industry as a designer or scripter, you'll want to focus on making creations using more complex toolsets. Getting into the games industry is possible if you spend the time and hone your skills; just learn to make cool stuff that's comparable to what's in a recent shipped game, and someone will eventually say, "That's great! How about we pay you money to make us some?"

I agree with a lot of what you both have said, and I am happy for the input. I know I will have to work hard to get into the industry, I already am. The entry level job I'm hoping to start out in is q/a and game testing. I have also been hand writing game outlines, storys, charture modles, pretty much everything that goes into a game sence middle school. In all of that time all I have really outlined is a funny arcade shoot-um-up sandbox type game (well it a little serious with the story) and a FPS-RPG-MMO. I have been trying to hone my writing skills and creativity but I just need something to show my creativeity in a visual sence. But because I have dyslexia, so any spelling mistakes I apoligise, it's really hard for me to learn a programming language. I have, but the only one I have really learned well is python. It's a solid language, but it's not used in the industry. I'm going to college to get a bachelors degree in game design, and a masters in creative writing in the intertainment industry. I don't know, maby mania planet isn't for me and won't help me with my goles, but I do know my limitations and untill I know what program will really help me to hone my skills from writing, to level design, and to a finnished polished game, I think mania planet in my best shot for right now. That's how I'm hoping to use this program with the FPS and RPG portions of mania planet. I'm hoping I will be able to make a full polished game from conception, writing, individual levels, and finally have a game to show my creative skills from start to finnish.

Sounds like you have a plan of how it should be. One of the most used languages are c/c++ and mostly are requiered by enterprises, when you are searching for a programmer job. If you know java, then you might have there also a chance, but i think the real games are coded in c-based languages.
I wish you goog luck with your try.
About the maniaplanet stuff. If there is maniascript, which allowes you to create own game mods, this might be a possibility to show a little bit creativity.