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Ask HN: How to contact John Carmack

2 points by mydpy ↗ HN
It has always been my dream to develop video games. But I don't know how to get started now, given my current career and the state of the industry.

I'd like to try to get opinions from people in the industry. I've always looked up to John Carmack.

I'm really interested in Amazon Lumberyard.

Does anyone have any suggestions to get involved with game development? Contact John Carmack?

7 comments

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MarkCole
Hi,

What do you feel is stopping you from becoming a game developer? And how do you think John Carmack will change that for you? I don't think they can change anything for you, you have to change it for you.

If you really want to build video games, then build them. Try things, play with Lumberyard, play with Unity, play with Unreal, find what you like. Find what part of Game Development interests you, learn more.

Then from there it's finding a job, depending on your current career you'll probably take a pay cut, game development is notoriously underpaid.

I'm currently a developer at a decent sized game studio / publisher. I sort of just happened upon it, I was previously a web developer, I decided to apply for a job here, and now over a year later I can say it's something I really enjoy.

mydpy
Thanks for the feedback. It feels like making that move would uproot my life. It's scary.

I wish I had a collaborator or someone I should bounce ideas off of.

My background is in advanced mathematics and I've gravitated towards data science and engineering. Would love to be a part of the game development process, even if not developing directly.

If I were to use my skill set in game development it would probably be in MMO games, or something with lots of active users interacting.

I have been following the handmade quake blog. I like it, just don't have enough time to really do anything meaningful.

Advice?

MarkCole
Yeah it can be a problem fitting it in, but if it's really what you want to do then you somehow have to manage it.

Engineering comes in lots of forms, "frontend" working with the clients, 3d models, etc. "backend" handling events and networking. And much more in between, if that's what interests you.

With a background in maths and data science, and knowledge of engineering? There are a lot of areas in Game Development where you could fit in. One that I might suggest is in "Game Design"? By this I mean a person who "thinks up" features (and/or whole games), does the math to calculate values of x and y, and the like. To figure out ways it could be exploited, and to circumvent them.

Using your data science knowledge to find out what parts of the game are used and where it could use further development.

Typically at our company we get given a game design document from the game designer, this can contain anything from a basic overview of how things function, to projections, maximum possible outcomes (think for example, the maximum amount of gold a player could gain from this scenario) etc.

mydpy
That sounds really interesting to me. What size is your company? Would it make sense to work at a large company and get immersed? Do some mobile development? Design Mario maker levels?

I've done basic game development before (built centipede). Really like the design considerations involved in VR. Would love to start playing with that.

corysama
Rather than tracking down a specific celebrity, you would do better to speak to the large, friendly group at https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/

They'll advise you to start small. Instead of making something meaningful for the world on your first try, make something meaningful for yourself. It is extremely common for new learners to show up saying "I don't know how to do anything. How do I make my own World of Warcraft??" I always advise them to start with making Pong, then Breakout, then Gradius, then Super Mario Bros or Zelda. After that, you'll have a good idea what to do next.

If you are familiar with Python, PyGame is a great tool to start with.