/digipen/ - DigiPenitentiary

>>1472
Absolutely, 100%. I'm in the same boat as you.

I wanted to learn to make goddamn video games. I wanted my games to compete with other games that weren't trying to set the world on fire with revolutionary new gameplay or graphics or whatever; that's what my future career is for. I wanted to make something small and good.

I'm dropping out and I've basically quit my team at this point after the designer failed to design a game to match the technical work that everyone else did. I could've been designer but I chose to be the engine guy instead. Now we have a great engine with a shit design, and I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

PS if you're dropping out anyways, and not planning on transferring or anything, do what I did and just quit going to classes that you don't want to go to. Start applying at various companies. Or take a week vacation or something like I have because fuck, after dealing with all this bullshit, decompression is vital.

>>1474
I'm actually transferring out so I need to maintain a certain GPA for a tiny bit longer..

I feel this so hard. I've made, I think, 4 games (not including solo projects) while here. The only one I'm actually proud of I didn't get credit for and had to cram in alongside 16 credits of classes, and work entirely on my own time.

Everything since then, one or multiple people on the team have been so inexperienced or busy with non-essential classes (see: classes that don't help you actually make fucking games) that they've dropped the ball so fucking hard that the project pretty much became nothing worth even showing my fucking parents.

It really sucks to graduate a game development school with 0 good looking games under your belt, despite working 60-100 hour weeks for 5 years straight in an effort to "make games."

>>1479 >>1474
Sounds like you've done something seriously wrong if you graduated without a single game you're proud of. There's plenty of good games coming out of the school, and if you're skilled, you shouldn't have a problem getting on one of those teams. Maybe you're just not good at networking, or are you just teaming up with the people you know, for lack of a better option?

>>1504
No, I think the majority of games here kinda suck despite competence from all team members. Everybody's got their own work they have to do in addition to the GAM projects. I mean, you can see potential in quite a few of the projects, and obviously companies here can as well from time to time. I've made a point to work with new people each semester and despite them being skilled, I've found that I'm not proud of my work either. (And no, it's not that *I* suck, either. I do everything in my power to improve whatever I work on)

>>1507
Don't know what to tell you then. Can't really blame the school if your project didn't turn out well though. That's on you and your teammates.

>>1509
Personally I'd be quicker to blame the workload.

>>1504
I suck at networking because I came to this school to fucking learn how to work, not to fucking meet people (which was stupid on my part, apparently). I don't spend my time going out and talking to people because I'm working 90 hour fucking weeks and trying to hone my technical skills. Serves me right for trying to be a better, more experienced worker instead of spending my time at school just looking around for the best team to be on, I guess.

I've repeatedly had teachers and students compliment my portion of the game, only for that to be cut out later (because devs didn't have time/willpower to fucking implement shit) or just the entire game kind of fall apart, again because nobody has time to work on the project. This school produces dozens of games a semester, and maybe 10% of those end up being good.

I fucked up and put all my effort into being the best worker I could be, instead of getting on the best team I could find.

>>1519 Doesn't matter if the best programmer on the planet, if you can't talk to people you will not get far at all.

>>1521
But skill is also relevant - shitty programmers don't keep jobs for long.

>>1523
Programmers that can't communicate don't either, and programmers that can't network don't get jobs.

People skills get you the job, skills help you keep it.

>>1519

And this is exactly why you will always be shit tier. I don't give a fuck if you are the best because I know you aren't. Anybody that says they spent all their time trying to "hone their craft" or some other similar bullshit is just telling me they don't know how to work with people.

No matter how good you are at something it will never make up for your shitty attitude and people can see right through that shit.

>>1537
I'm terribly sorry you got your titties in such a twist from me saying I wanted nothing more than to get better, but I never implied I was "the best." Far from it, which is why I still want to learn. I feel like a fool, in hindsight, for thinking that I would get good experience by working my ass off on an individual level, instead of just hitting the game-team lottery.

You can use smug hyperbole all you want, though, if it makes you feel morally superior.

>>1507
>I think the majority of games here kinda suck despite competence from all team members.
Nailed it. The thing is they're student projects, we have other classes, and some of us have a life outside of school. So in the end many choose not to spend 40 hours a week on a 5 credit course.

Though let's assume you have the team willing to put the hours, what ends up happening? Communication, morale, and willingness to work is all shit. I can keep going on about how much of a team dynamic is very important and with a very small team size you should enjoy working with that group. If you dislike someone then that's a possible channel of communication that's gone. That's why Rachel exists at digipen, though Ellen is slowly filling in that role aside from the whole day for a team on one where Rachel just spends half the time throwing out silly ideas for your game, at least in my experiences.

Is it their fault? Ultimately, yeah, but it's all a learning experience and you will get to your senior year where your team mate(s) are still ignorant of communication.

Once you graduate and not have to worry about juggling grades on the side I'm sure it's hardly a big deal at least from the graduates I've talked to.

>>1509
I don't blame the school, but you can certainly place some blame the professors for not offering feedback. GAM200/300 teams all have a uhh what was it.. co-producer?executive? The point of that role is to guide teams away from failure. They haven't done that at all. Though, it is all on the team for not asking for help.

>>1561
Our co producer was ellinger, who showed up weekly all of first semester to touch base. Then second semester he stopped showing up and shit all over our game at both presentations. He claimed that he knew our game better than the rest of the triad, but he hasn't talked to our team except for presentations for 3+ months now. (And has ignored our attempts to contact him both in person and his email)

>>1549

I never hit the game team jackpot. The simple fact you refuse to acknowledge how important social skills are just shows how much room you still have to grow.

Drop out, live life a little bit, then come back when you aren't so miserable.

>>1597
>Drop out
Working on it
>Live life a little bit
Working on it
>Come back
Nah. The school's what's making me miserable.

>>1584
Sounds about right, but if you ever want to talk ideas with him then he's all there for hours.

>>1690
I still love making games but I hate the ones that DigiPen makes me shit out with too little time to make a quality project.

>>1690
That game team bullshit is why people are hired right out of this shithole without a problem. at least for RTIS students Reason why? It shows you can work with a team.

>>1807 with Hanson if you take the effort to go and talk to him he is usually great at helping you and does genuinely seem to care. But you have to approach him.

>>1808
I said without a problem. Don't get me wrong you can get a job with said knowledge anywhere. That fine arts degree? Sure it's a worthless degree, but if you apply yourself to show off what a great portfolio you have then you have a job. Same goes for CS related jobs except that portfolio is more or less the interview seeing if you know how to program. Having team experience shows that you're competent enough on a team project, assuming the work listed reflects that. Why and what caused the upperclassman that I've seen to drop out? I'm focusing more on those that got jobs, but it was they worked on their project. They contributed so much to the game and their work shows that.

If you haven't learned anything from the overpriced & not transferable game class then I'm sorry. We can look at the negatives, but the positives are immense. You've applied your knowledge to a project, worked with other people, (i hope) created something that is decent to put on your resume. I agree that it's expensive to take 5 credits to put in more than 5 credits worth, but in reality you don't need to. If your team works right then yeah you can make a game with 10 hours/week per teammate.

I will say this though, GAM can offer more in the lectures and far more professor feedback. It is not worth spending 5 credits worth for a class that is 'go make a game' with little help from the professors. It is however worth it to be able to work with people on a daily basis.