Game Design Degree
Have you ever played a video game and wondered how the world you have immersed yourself in was created? Do you play video games on a regular basis but don’t think you “have what it takes” to create a video game of your own? Well you may have what it takes and you just don’t know it yet. Game Art and Design is something you can learn and getting an education in Game Art & Design could be the key to unlocking your talent. There are schools all around North America that offer to teach you the tools you need to successfully acquire a job in the game industry. Some schools may offer a Bachelor’s degree while others may offer a diploma or a certificate of completion. Whatever school or program you choose, what matters most is you and what you do with the new skills you learned from that school.
When starting your search for potential game schools to attend, keep in mind what your current strengths are. If you have an interest in drawing and creating characters, buildings and environments then you may want to look at a program that offers instruction on Game Art. Instruction in color theory, art history, life drawing, animation, storyboards, painting, sculpting. Everything that has to do with creating game art assets for the gamers viewing pleasure. But what if you can’t draw you say? Well drawing is not a natural given talent you get at birth. Drawing is a skill that can be learned by anybody. The saying, “practice makes perfect,” applies to this and just about anything else in life.
If you have an interest in computers, science, math, computer programming, scripting and you just have that kind of “tech” head on your shoulders then you may want to look at a program that offers instruction in Game Design. Game Design, while still requiring some artistic skill or basic art knowledge, tends to lean more towards programming but there is so much more to it than that. In Game Design, you must think of everything that will be in the game and how it will play out, you’re basically writing the rules of the game. How big is the game environment? How big are the characters? What are the controls? How will the game keep score or will the game even have a score to keep? What’s the story of the game going to be about? You need to be able to establish a detailed description of a game and do plenty of planning before you start writing the code for the game. Game Design is where your game ideas, your art concepts, and your gameplay become reality. Without the designers, games are nothing more than an idea.