Gettin Things Done

I went to a meeting for my university's local game dev group yesterday. The discussed topic was "What To Do Break Into The Game Industry." There were some helpful hints as to languages, networking events and the like, but one point that the speakers drove home (and I felt was VERY important) was this:

Make Games

It's so simple, but a lot of people, and not just those in the game development field, have a problem with it. Not just games, but all sorts of programs. In school, we usually just make some throwaway scripts that we use once for an assigment, and never look at again. Knowing how to do stuff is very important. Actually doing stuff, that's a whole nother level. If you go into an interview and say "I know how to do X,Y, and Z," they might be relatively impressed. However, if you can say "I did A, using X and Y, but I didn't get a chance to implement Z yet," that is umpteen times better than the first one. Companies don't care if you know how to do stuff. I know the basics of how to play baseball, that doesn't mean that the Phillies manager is going to be beating my door down trying to get me to join the team.

The problem with this is: making stuff can be tedious, and boring. For every cool bit, there are probably ten times that much of boring stuff that you have to slog through before you get there. It's hard to strike a balance, especially if you're like me and hate doing work in your free time. It's boring, but everything's boring if you do it enough. Try to add new stuff to the boring bits wherever possible, and you'll be okay.

Most importantly, though, do stuff, don't just learn stuff.