Work experience for Software Design or game development.

Steviemoyne

I'm going into my third year in college in Software Design (Game Development) and in the second half of that year we have to source unpaid placement and have it cleared by one of the lecturers.

Do any of you have any ideas on what businesses to approach? I'm based in the midlands but if push came to shove could live locally where the business is based.

Or better yet are any of you in the position to offer such an unpaid placement to a student?

I'm jumping the gun a little early here, realistically we're talking January of end of January. I just want to get a feel for this sort of thing as I imagine it is a difficult sector to get placement in.

Kilgore__Trout

http://www.gamedevelopers.ie/companies/

Here's a list of Irish gaming companies. Guessing placement might be tough, so jumping the gun might be a good idea

Reati

Steviemoyne wrote: »

source unpaid placement

Unpaid? Is that actually stipulated?

Steviemoyne

Reati wrote: »

Unpaid? Is that actually stipulated?

I basically presumed that it would be unpaid placement. Hell, if I was to get paid placement that would be excellent but I don't see it as a prerequisite.

Reati

Steviemoyne wrote: »

I basically presumed that it would be unpaid placement. Hell, if I was to get paid placement that would be excellent but I don't see it as a prerequisite.

Looking for games experience or general software development? What's the grades like and where are you in college?

Steviemoyne

Reati wrote: »

Looking for games experience or general software development? What's the grades like and where are you in college?

I am looking for either to be fair. I am in athlone IT at the moment, this years grades have not been the best because of certain issues I have faced throughout the year, if I am to be honest.

I do however have an aptitude to learn and do my best.

I expect my third year to go a lot better than the previous as I view this year as counting (towards a final degree).

Kilgore__Trout

Can happen to anyone. Hope things are going better now.

It should be a lot easier to get into a software development company than a game dev company, simply based on the number of each.

I'm guessing that a lot of Irish game studios have been set up in the last few years, and may only have up to a handful of people, so it might be genuinely difficult or impossible for some to take on a student for work experience.

You could take the initiative, and make a few simple games as part of a portfolio. Stuff like pong, breakout, battleships, hangman, chess.

Just out of curiousity, what engines/frameworks are you using? Have you made many games as part of your course so far?

Torakx

I am also looking for work experience(min 10 days) in the game industry here.
I've been told to have a website portfolio ready, so they can quickly check out my work to date and decide if I can be of use.
But then again, if your in a course for game development, that portfolio will probably be part of the course, or your work from the course can go to your portfolio.
Either way, I think thats one of the main ways to get peoples attention these days.
So , if you havent got a webite or portfolio, that could be one way to get ahead of the game.

Steviemoyne

Only engine we've been working with was Box 2D, learning it from scratch in teams of two working off the testbed car.h (drive a car through an obstacle course). We had to make a tank, join the parts together and give it controls. Next year we're moving onto the unity engine and I expect that will form the basis for our work placement.

This year has basically been Box 2D and creating games in the python programming language using Pygame.

As far as games go I've only made some really simple ones using Game Maker in first year and this year made a game where all you really done was chase (and be chased by) an "Awesome face" which would use a simple finite state machine to swap between two states, chasing and evading. Using vectors for movement...really really simple stuff, nothing exactly eye-catching to say the least.

I do find myself leaning more towards the software end of things to be fair, the code seems to come more easy to me using Java and C++ rather than coming up and implementing game concepts on my own initiative. As far as portfolios go we had to make one in first year of our collective work, was told it was going to be released online and that we were to update it every year but we heard nothing back on it after the first year so we all just presumed the idea flopped.

I did however help do the work on a 3 man project database with the intention of it being used to manage an imaginary mmofps e-shop, kind of like the call of duty franchise has with "Call of Duty Elite" where you can make game changes online. That would be something I'd be proud to put my seal of approval on to be fair.

Kilgore__Trout

If you are going to be using Unity next year then maybe that's a good place to start. I've spoken to a number of indie developers (2 in Ireland, 2 abroad) and all 4 are using Unity. Getting proficient with it will up your chances of getting in with a company that uses it.

Not sure if I'd be getting too worried about making something eye catching. There's a risk of getting discouraged and ending up doing nothing if you think like that. The most important thing you can do is sit down, and get in as many hours coding and gaining familiar with your chosen tools as possible.

If your not comfortable with designing a new game, you could try making a simple existing game. All the rules of these games are known, so it's just a matter of translating them into code. Since you know how to use Vectors to move objects around, might I suggest Pong?

DesperateDan

They made us do pong as our first game in XNA, aah the memories :pac: