Incline Game Dev educational materials

[Agesilaus]

Post and discuss anything related to game development educational materials. Online courses, certifications, books, whatever.

I'm putting together a self-guided curriculum of Unity coursework that I should complete when I find the free time to take this more seriously. The goal is to become a vaguely competent game dev/programmer in Unity that could land a job (or just be much better at indie development). So far this is what I have:

1. Learn to count:
Algebra: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra
Pre-Calculus: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/precalculus
Geometry: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry
Statistics/Probability: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/statistics-probability
Math in a Coding/Game Dev context: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7wAPgl1JVvUEb0dIygHzO4698tmcwLk9

2. Learn to C#:
30 hour CodeCademy course: https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-c-sharp

3. Unity:
There's so much stuff out there that it's hard to choose, but Unity has official certifications:

https://unity.com/products/unity-certifications

The entry-level user certification is the simplest goal to work towards:

https://unity.com/products/unity-certifications/user-programmer

They offer preparatory courses and material for $100. Then, they offer a more professional looking certification:

https://unity.com/products/unity-certifications/associate-game-developer

The coursework and material has a similar price to the user level certification. It looks like only established devs qualify for more advanced certification.

At this point, I figure a person would be in a strong position to work with Unity to make their indie project, and could plausibly apply to entry level dev positions. You presumably would create a small portfolio of work while going through the coursework, to go with the certification. If you haven't produced anything presentable in Unity, then make something while exploring coursework on udemy.


How do you lot approach education? Any materials or coursework you highly recommend?

 

[Bester]

How do you lot approach education? Any materials or coursework you highly recommend?

When the framework is too alien for me to get into right off the bat, I usually pick a course on Udemy, download it from Rutracker, then put the speed on x1.5 and watch the entire course in one day. The next day I start programming.

 

[Ysaye]

There has been a bit of talk about Godot recently on this forum; I have been trying this out for a while and I can suggest the following book as primer for the basic principles:

Godot Engine Game Development in 24 Hours, Sams Teach Yourself: The Official Guide to Godot 3.0 eBook: Manzur, Ariel, Marques, George: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store

But in addition to that, some of the youtube videos I have found useful or interesting (some more than others):

General useful stuff videos for 2D or 3D CRPGs
Make your first 2D grid-based game from scratch in Godot - YouTube
Building a Roguelike from Scratch in Godot, "Dungeon of Recycling" (Tutorial) - YouTube
Godot game engine random timer - YouTube
Introduction to UI Containers in Godot 3 (tutorial) - YouTube
How to Create a Character Sheet in Godot 3.2 | Player Development Series - YouTube
How to Create a Stat System in Godot 3.2 | Player Development Series - YouTube

3D 1st person setup videos:
Godot 3.1: Creating a Simple 3D Game: Part 1 (Intro, Nodes & 3D Physics) #GodotEngine - YouTube
GODOT 3D HORROR TUTORIAL: #1 - The Maze - YouTube
How to make an 8 directional billboard sprite in Godot Engine 3 - YouTube
Basic Geometry and Texture Importing from Blender to Godot 3.0 Beta 2 - YouTube
RPG or Visual Novel dialog box for Godot! - YouTube

 

[LannTheStupid]

Torrent, please.

 

[Agesilaus]

I'm putting together a self-guided curriculum of Unity coursework that I should complete when I find the free time to take this more seriously.

Tendered my resignation today. I don't actually have an end-date, I'll probably still be working until the end of May or beyond, but I'm out. Time to do something I care about, like working through long programming tutorials and making bad indie games.

 

[Hag]

I'm currently going through https://learnopengl.com/
I've feared 3D programming for a long time but this tutorial is really well done. After finishing the basics I am now doing the last part : a real (small) game, which is good for real-life problem and code organization.
Tutorial is in C++ but I am using C, transition is usually straightforward and adapting OOP code in pure functional helps for clarity. Recommended.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm putting together a self-guided curriculum of Unity coursework that I should complete when I find the free time to take this more seriously.

Tendered my resignation today. I don't actually have an end-date, I'll probably still be working until the end of May or beyond, but I'm out. Time to do something I care about, like working through long programming tutorials and making bad indie games.

Congrats! Now you're in the rough and tumble world of trying to make a living off video games :D

 

[Tavernking]

Can confirm that Godot is extremely easy, at least if you already know how to code.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Godot is really easy even if you don't know it - I learned it personally with a Udemy course (which was okay in hindsight) but see many people learning it with great success on YouTube. Made something easy to learn the basics and now I make something a lot harder.
Can recommend it - the newest stable version was released yesterday!

 

[Alpan]

I don't understand the interest around Godot when there have been literally no proven good games released with it, and a much better and proven alternative in the form of Game Maker exists. Many good games have been made with it, some all-time classics even. As far as I can tell, Godot is all hype and contagious thinking.

This reminds me of programming language cult behavior where people are compelled by how beautiful Hello World in <new language X> looks and then rapidly run into trouble as they try to engineer something that is non-trivial.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I don't understand the interest around Godot when there have been literally no proven good games released with it

GameMaker had a lot of time to prove itself but it's true aside from a PS4 port of Deponia there aren't very successful games yet made with Godot. The reasons why the engine is used are typically: free, great Linux support and open source (mostly just free).

The thought that the Engine that you use somehow makes your game more or less successful is quite moronic and thrown around often. How should that even work? If an engine limits you greatly - sure. But I don't see how this is the case with Godot. If the Engine has extremely bad performance also - but I don't see this problem in newer iterations of it.

To the Moon was successful and many people think it's a great game - should everyone use RPG Maker now?

 

[Catacombs]

To the Moon was successful and many people think it's a great game - should everyone use RPG Maker now?

Toby Fox made Undertale with GameMaker.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Yes

 

[Alpan]

The thought that the Engine that you use somehow makes your game more or less successful is quite moronic and thrown around often. How should that even work? If an engine limits you greatly - sure. But I don't see how this is the case with Godot. If the Engine has extremely bad performance also - but I don't see this problem in newer iterations of it.

To the Moon was successful and many people think it's a great game - should everyone use RPG Maker now?

The point is not that GameMaker makes your game more or less successful (because it doesn't) or that everyone should use it. The point is that it has been shown to enable the creation of very good games in a wide variety of genres, because these games actually exist and have existed over a wide interval of time. Assuming that "indie games" became a thing around 2007 and so on: Spelunky is 2008, Hotline Miami is 2012, Nova Drift is 2018, Loop Hero is 2021, and these are just off the top of my head, subject to recency bias and games I actually played. Meanwhile there is not even one standout title that I know of made with Godot. Sure, GameMaker has been around for longer (2007 for the current iteration of the program), but not significantly longer than Godot (2014). This tells me that GameMaker is a better engine for making 2D games, period.

It's the same deal with Unity. I have no idea why people keep using it when Unreal exists, because even good games made with Unity, made with developers experienced with Unity, are janky or technically deficient in some way. Why? Because it's just worse than Unreal, period.

 

[Raghar]

Problem with most people is they can't program whole project, and they are using engine without ability to program something complex.

So, would a person who is unable to design and program deque, be also skilled SW engineer? He doesn't need to program it, there is a perfectly working library. He doesn't need to program this, that, and in the end he lack both technical skills and experience. The biggest problem is when he didn't need to program all that stuff, he doesn't have any idea about technical limitations. Thus the game technically sucks.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Sure, GameMaker has been around for longer (2007 for the current iteration of the program), but not significantly longer than Godot (2014)

Like double the time. 7 extra years is massive + it was available in other forms prior to this.

I honestly don't care which Engine is better, it's just a stupid methodology. I used both, I decided against GameMaker and that's it. You don't compare the success of games in Unity or Unreal but compare technical aspects.
Godot is free and open source and has great Linux support - all things that are important to me. GameMaker has none of these. And certainly GameMaker has other advantages and discussing these is valuable.

Time in the market of Engines is massive. People stick to Unity not because it's better than anything else but they are used to it. Most people especially if they want to make money don't switch on a whim. If you used GameMaker from 2007-2014, you won't switch for an Engine that got reasonable somewhen between 2018-2020. Unity is around since 2005 or so and had more favourable release terms than Unreal in the beginning, so many people use it and it will take a while to change that. It takes years to build a good community with enough tutorials etc. Godot is there now. Let's wait and see how the next years unfold - I wouldn't bet against it at least in 2D.

 

[Bester]

This tells me that GameMaker is a better engine for making 2D games, period.

It's the same deal with Unity. I have no idea why people keep using it when Unreal exists, because even good games made with Unity, made with developers experienced with Unity, are janky or technically deficient in some way. Why? Because it's just worse than Unreal, period.

Attempting to discern which engine is better by the "number of good games created on it" is like trying to discern which president is better by the color of his socks.

And that's actually the only difference 99% people would be able to tell between two presidential candidates. They're not qualified to tell which one is better. But they sure like talking about it, looking stupid, just like you're doing now.

I've read interesting discussions about the difference in memory management between Unity and UE4 on consoles. I've read stories of the horrible code IL2CPP produces sometimes which makes games crash, and then you gotta correct the C++ manually, but then it means you can't ever change the C# code again. I've read interesting arguments about Godot vs Unity in terms of draw call batching, which doesn't exist on Godot. This conversation is not one of them. It's like listening to children screech "my dad is better than your dad". Thanks for bringing down the quality of discussion to this level.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Godot vs Unity in terms of draw call batching, which doesn't exist on Godot

This actually changed thankfully. Since Godot 3.2.2 it's implemented in GLES 2.0 and since Godot 3.2.3 it's implemented for most projects (GLES 3.0). But that change wasn't a full year ago.

 

[Alpan]

Attempting to discern which engine is better by the "number of good games created on it" is like trying to discern which president is better by the color of his socks.

And that's actually the only difference 99% people would be able to tell between two presidential candidates. They're not qualified to tell which one is better. But they sure like talking about it, looking stupid, just like you're doing now.

You don't get it. Try reading it again, but I don't think I can help you: The fact that you think a debate even exists between Unity's and UE4's memory management tells me all that I need.

 

[Eisen]

I'm just glad Godot isn't bloated for 2D like Unity is, and isn't highly priced as GMS2. Although, Godot could be better in some aspects, i'm hopeful that the 4.0 version will fix some things

 

[BreadGrill]

Books:

• Required reading for game programmers: http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
• Learn C#: https://starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/
• Game design: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965
• Juicing: https://www.amazon.com/Game-Feel-Designers-Sensation-Kaufmann/dp/0123743281
• Pixel art: https://pixellogicbook.com/
• 2D animation: https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X
• Game animation: https://www.gameanim.com/
• Music theory: https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Computer-Musicians-Michael-Hewitt/dp/1598635034
• Morale & Focus: http://www.gameprojectcompleted.net/

Pixel art:

• Tutorials: https://www.slynyrd.com/pixelblog-catalogue
• More tutorials: https://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/
• Various resources: https://lospec.com/
• Gotchas: http://2dforever.com/fix-your-pixelart/
• References: https://www.spriters-resource.com/

 

[LannTheStupid]

What's the point in referring to books without providing links to free downloads?

 

[BreadGrill]

What's the point in referring to books without providing links to free downloads?

Just borrow them from the [Burger name for the Sega Megadrive] Library.

 

[Alpan]

Avoid spaghetti code: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Martin-Clean-Code-Collection-ebook/dp/B00666M59G

I don't know about your other recommendations, but this one does active harm. Recommending anything by Bob Martin is one of the absolute shittiest, most counter-productive things you can do to program well, much less program games. There is something to be said about avoiding spaghetti code, and it involves actual engineering. Robert Martin has written or engineered no program of any consequence, he certainly hasn't worked in a performance-critical context like games (he thinks 20 FPS for Spacewar is good enough) and is in no way someone worth taking seriously unless you're a middle-manager for an enterprise software house wanting to do good by your higher-ups. That's his target audience, not anybody interested in getting better at programming.

Here's an actually good book for having a stronger appreciation for the kind of stuff involved in engineering for games (Game Engine Architecture): https://www.gameenginebook.com/

And this book is pretty decent as an introduction to the kinds of mathematics used in 2D and 3D computer graphics (3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development, available for free reading online): https://gamemath.com/

 

[distant]

Good thread. Just started looking into developing something small pretty recently. Took a bunch of C# courses on pluralsight based on the top comment of this thread that were pretty great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/csharp/comments/8l4n01/what_courses_do_you_recommend_taking_on/dzghw8o/