I wouldn't say that 99% of making a game is programming. It really depends on the scale of the game. If you're just making a little RPG thing in one of those RPG maker pieces of software then, sure, that's pretty much most of what you'll be doing.
But something on a slightly larger scale, using something like Unity or the UDK? Well, that opens up a whole bunch of other worms and you suddenly need art, design, writing (maybe), project management and other such skills spread over your team.
And obviously all the big games out there have teams within a studio that do considerably different things, and people that have a focus on different areas.
That said I think that pretty much anyone involved in Games Development should have some sort of knowledge of programming, even if it is at a very fundamental level of just understanding how it functions and how your role interacts with it. But, I honestly think that goes for the art and animation side, too. Knowing how that stuff works is pretty damn useful for the programmers.
Basically, you can never know too much, but if you focus on one area at least learn a little of the others. Everything I know about the industry, all my contacts within studios and every professor I have had for Game Design units at University have told me the exact same thing over and over.
And those are just design or technical skills. Still need people who can effectively communicate, organise, manage and document stuff on a team. Oh man, documentation. The better you are at that the better a team can function, especially if it is a little team who are not in geographical proximity.
Anyway just wanted to throw my thoughts out there. There's a lot more I could say, but it's hard to make it all concise, and it isn't perfect anyway. I've learned a lot from the Games I've worked on at uni, and from the project I am working on right now, as well as my actual study and talks with my industry contacts, but my knowledge is still very very limited and growing all the time.
Speaking of my current project... Remember how we had a thread like this a while back, and I spoke with a bunch of people about starting a project? Well that is still going somewhere, and I've been working on pre-production with several IRL friends of mine, a few others from elsewhere, and Greg (Rose) as well. We've got some really interesting ideas for gameplay, setting and some very very rough story ideas (not something to focus on at all, yet) that I've been really excited about, and we've been tinkering around in the UDK (what we are going to use for it) to get used to it and be ready to begin some conceptual prototyping.
That said, I'm always interested in other projects, especially smaller ones, so I'd be keen to get in on this one as well. I am mostly art-side, though, and I am not sure how much of that is going to be needed in a little RPG maker game. It really depends on what folks have in mind.
But colour me interested, for sure.
But something on a slightly larger scale, using something like Unity or the UDK? Well, that opens up a whole bunch of other worms and you suddenly need art, design, writing (maybe), project management and other such skills spread over your team.
And obviously all the big games out there have teams within a studio that do considerably different things, and people that have a focus on different areas.
That said I think that pretty much anyone involved in Games Development should have some sort of knowledge of programming, even if it is at a very fundamental level of just understanding how it functions and how your role interacts with it. But, I honestly think that goes for the art and animation side, too. Knowing how that stuff works is pretty damn useful for the programmers.
Basically, you can never know too much, but if you focus on one area at least learn a little of the others. Everything I know about the industry, all my contacts within studios and every professor I have had for Game Design units at University have told me the exact same thing over and over.
And those are just design or technical skills. Still need people who can effectively communicate, organise, manage and document stuff on a team. Oh man, documentation. The better you are at that the better a team can function, especially if it is a little team who are not in geographical proximity.
Anyway just wanted to throw my thoughts out there. There's a lot more I could say, but it's hard to make it all concise, and it isn't perfect anyway. I've learned a lot from the Games I've worked on at uni, and from the project I am working on right now, as well as my actual study and talks with my industry contacts, but my knowledge is still very very limited and growing all the time.
Speaking of my current project... Remember how we had a thread like this a while back, and I spoke with a bunch of people about starting a project? Well that is still going somewhere, and I've been working on pre-production with several IRL friends of mine, a few others from elsewhere, and Greg (Rose) as well. We've got some really interesting ideas for gameplay, setting and some very very rough story ideas (not something to focus on at all, yet) that I've been really excited about, and we've been tinkering around in the UDK (what we are going to use for it) to get used to it and be ready to begin some conceptual prototyping.
That said, I'm always interested in other projects, especially smaller ones, so I'd be keen to get in on this one as well. I am mostly art-side, though, and I am not sure how much of that is going to be needed in a little RPG maker game. It really depends on what folks have in mind.
But colour me interested, for sure.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This lil' thing is thanks to Jarka!