/digipen/ - DigiPenitentiary

2/10, almost maybe believed you.

transfer to BSGD, get here and then transfer to RTIS, because that's always how it works. Unless you're one of the lucky 4 that actually sticks with the BAGD program. Then good luck with you.

You better like writing also, because you're gonna be doing a lot. Also, you better like design a LOT, because that's pretty much all you will be doing for the next 4 years. Get really good at writing, and realize that 10 page papers are considered short here.

How much ass do you eat? You should practice that before meeting Ben.

>>2921

As a BAGD, here are my recommendations:

Spend some time creating games on your own. Don't use an engine, don't make video games or board games. Sit down and draw out levels, make a list of game mechanics, write a story. Make a comprehensive list of everything you want to be in a game. If you enjoy that, then you MIGHT make a good designer.

DigiPen will not teach you that. Everything here is about action, and planning is often looked down upon…so get practiced at it before you come here.

Also, don't listen to the shitheels on this forum. They will talk shit about BAGD's, but ultimately it just comes across as whining that the industry will only continue to move away from programmer led design. The job prospects right now are much smaller, but it's a growing field.

Extra Credits is a good starting place, but Portnow's word isn't gospel. Don't be that kind of BAGD that starts trying to pitch everything in terms of Intensity Curves and MDA.

>>2921

putting poop on a hook and casting it into the sea != bait, 3/10

>>2933

I was with you up until

>Also, don't listen to the shitheels on this forum. They will talk shit about BAGD's, but ultimately it just comes across as whining that the industry will only continue to move away from programmer led design. The job prospects right now are much smaller, but it's a growing field.

Wrong. People hate BAGDs because they come across as wanting to turn all of their amazing ideas into video games, without any of that gross "programming" stuff. The BAGD program spends at least the first two years telling you that you're awesome and a great designer as long as you follow the professors' instructions in making board games.

Video games are not board games.

Video games are much more complicated products than board games.

The BAGD program does not teach you to be a good designer.

Yet, you have sophomore and junior BAGDs strutting around, having fully deluded themselves into thinking that they are actually good at designing video games based on their excellent GAT grades.

You have BAGDs LOUDLY talking about how GREAT the design of Dark Souls is in common areas like the cafeteria, letting everyone around them know how smart they are.

You have BAGDs raising their hand every five minutes in every GAT class, as though everyone else in the classroom didn't exist and the class was a one-on-one DIALOGUE between them and the professor.

And you have BAGDs who are terrified of programming in any capacity, and that's just straight-up silly.

In order to make, say, your own pen-and-paper RPG system, you have to be able to write, so you can create a rules document. If you want to make a video game, you have to be able to write some kind of code. That's just the medium.

Also BSGDs hate BAGDs because the BAGD degree probably shouldn't exist and all the effort put into it should go into BSGD instead. I mean, I dunno, I'm not hiring employees for a game company or anything but I'm pretty sure "game designer who can competently write C++" is much more of an appealing hire than "game designer who made all these board games in school and the professor told them they were a real cool guy for doing so"

>>2937

As a later year BAGD, the program should be required to take the more recently added C++ for designers course or CS 120-180 with Mead. That said, a good BAGD accepts they are not specialty programmer, and will not be as successful in the field of programming as RTIS (and BSGD) students. They should know how to script, and how to learn languages and create code even if it only is for a prototype and that same code will be implemented in an infinitely less shitty way by someone else. Design is a creative field, ideas are great but you have to be able to execute on them and if you haven't learned the skills you can't. Also just saying but as far as I remember, my first two years involved them mostly telling me that I'm not working hard enough to be a designer with relatively little of "you're awesome" from anyone but art and adjunct faculty.

TLDR: To be a successful BAGD you will have to script and program AND prototype/create your ass off.

FFS Dark Souls is not the end-all be all. It is a low hanging fruit example (much like any game when you're talking engagement or intensity) and if you can only reference Dark Souls you have a problem.

>>2938

>Also just saying but as far as I remember, my first two years involved them mostly telling me that I'm not working hard enough to be a designer with relatively little of "you're awesome" from anyone but art and adjunct faculty.

Here's my perspective, as a BSGD who enrolled in 2013, and dropped out in 2015:

Average BAGD going into freshman year:

- came to DigiPen straight out of high school

- doesn't know how to program at all (maybe they took a web design class in high school)

- has never created nor contributed to any video game project

- thinks about game design while playing video games (at least sometimes)

- wants to make video games

- thinks programming is scary, which is why they picked BAGD and not BSGD

- enjoys traditional games, understands that you make traditional games in the BAGD program, but doesn't really care about designing traditional games that much, and really wants to get to the part where you design video games

- has a LOT of ideas for video games

- doesn't really know how the video games industry works

- assumes that there is industry demand for their field of study

Average BAGD going into sophomore year:

- listened in GAT class

- struggled through learning ActionScript or whatever (incredibly useful skill, now that browsers are dropping Flash support)

- know a bunch of terms and concepts put forth in GAT classes (many of which only apply to video games with stats-based systems, like RPGs, mobas, RTSes, etc.)

- were never taught jack shit about video game design outside of a few things in GAT120 that were taken from The Rhino's website and Extra Credits

- were never taught how to make mechanics in video games "feel good"

- don't really understand how game engines work

- spent more time struggling to get their GAM projects to be presentable rather than focusing on their design

- made some board games and wrote some long papers for GAT

- probably fucked up at least one GAT project and learned from their mistakes

- has probably heard that everything they were taught in GAT120 last year has been totally changed for this year

- messed around with Zero or Unity a bit during the summer, but nothing really came of it

- has thought about switching degree programs, but, after hearing that BSGD is even MORE fucked up than BAGD, seeing Ellinger care about the BAGD program at all, and not really being able to find any upperclassman BSGDs to consult at all, decided to stick with BAGD

- feels like they accomplished something by not dropping out last year – note that at every other college in the world, this is not an achievement

- made some friends last year, only to have them drop out this year

- had at least one friend who had zero work ethic and dropped out as a result

- assumes all dropouts are weak, and since the weak must be culled, they themselves must not be weak

- is going to be useless on their GAM team unless they have additional skills acquired outside DigiPen (programming or digital art)

Average BAGD going into junior year (assuming that they were on a GAM200/250 team)

- took all of their GAT projects very seriously last year, and is legitimately proud of their work

- started last year with some cool, seemingly well-scoped ideas for their GAM project

- made prototypes for said GAM project, and maybe even did some scripting for it (if the engine team managed to integrate a scripting language into their game engine, despite not being taught how)

- is fairly comfortable with Zero and all of its quirks

- is fairly comfortable with Zilch, a language that has zero value outside of DigiPen's walls

- still writes most code in the most trial-and-error way possible

- learned some good stuff about how game engines work in GAT240 (I think I have that class right)

- made a few short video games on their own in GAT240 and 250 (at least one of these games is from the side-scrolling perspective (if not all of them))

- spent most of their time while making these video games on getting the game to work at all and making the game get a passing grade on the rubric

- still has no idea how to make video game mechanics "feel good"

- uses GAT terms with an authoritative tone of voice in GAM meetings

- uses GAT terms with an authoritative tone of voice while discussing the design of commercial video games

- worked on Zero prototypes for this year's GAM game over the summer (maybe even in-engine if their engine team is super fucking awesome)

- maybe worked on a small project of their own over the summer (maybe not though)

- lost a TON of friends to The Culling

- is now entirely certain that they are awesome at what they do ("Designing", of course), because they remain enrolled and doing relatively well academically, instead of those losers who dropped out

Yet, every step of the way, most BAGDs think that they're somehow these grand masters of video game design!

Look at how much of that time is spent actually designing video games (the thing that BAGDs are paying money to learn how to do): almost zero. GAT240 and 250 comes closest, but 240 focuses on teaching designers what they need to know about game engines (a legitimately super important topic, and I thought that class in particular was pretty great [not for me or any other BSGDs though, holy shit]), and 250 is just barely getting your toes wet with "have game design ideas" -> "implement game design ideas". Many 250 projects are exercises in level design, not game design.

I'm not saying that BAGDs are idiots or that they've learned nothing useful or whatever, but like… from the attitudes some of them have, you'd think they spent their last summer vacation doing peyote with Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, and Hidetaka Miyazaki out in the desert somewhere, while talking about what REALLY makes games, like, GOOD, man.

It's like, come on, you've made some shitty Zero games that you probably don't even want to show off at job interviews, and yeah, Holcomb gave you good grades on your 25+-page GAT projects, and yeah, now you know how to use Zero better than most people in the world… but you're probably not a good game designer.

Yet, that's how the majority of BAGDs come across, after just a couple years at DigiPen. It's the fucking worst.

(the second-person pronouns aren't directed at you specifically >>2938, and neither is this post; you sound pretty darn rational to me)

It's unfortunate that this evaluation is fairly accurate for a large portion of students in the program. As a third year BAGD, I personally don't feel as entitled as this post describes those with my degree program, but I do know of plenty of students that do have this mindset for no good reason.

Above all else, I feel the single greatest mistake any student pursuing design can make is not valuing scripting highly. Plenty of BAGDs manage to get through freshman and sophomore without truly learning how to script, getting by on art or "level design" skills. Even if you don't learn C++, you won't get anywhere in the industry without the ability to create your own mechanics yourself. You can't go indi without the ability to use a prebuilt and you certainly can't get into AAA without the ability to prototype without getting the programmers to do it for you.

While Zilch itself isn't useful in the industry, being able to quickly learn a proprietary language is a useful skill and Zilch is fairly close to C# which is useful in Unity development at least. I agree that C++ is still the most useful language any designer can learn, and by paying attention while learning scripting concepts and syntax you can more easily learn it in the future should you opt not to while in school.

Hopefully this perspective helps your decision a bit more and good luck

>>3023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fvfsT3LNNM