Game Programmer Employment Strategy Guide

[Rookiss University] November Schedule! Mon (Lyra), Tue (Asio Server), Thu (UE5 Tool), Sat (Programming for Art), Sun (Introduction to PD)

https://inf.run/1PU3V

Rookiss University is recruiting for the November schedule.
Mon (Lyra), Tue (Asio Server), Thu (UE5 Tool), Sat (Programming for Art), Sun (Introduction to PD)
Five lectures are opening.
- Please check the day of the week that the class you wish to take is held and apply for the start date of that class!
Please make sure to apply by the course start date for checks on attendance and announcements.
- To prevent mistakes, please leave a message about the course you are applying for.
- Sunday classes are free, so no separate applications are accepted. The Discord link will be released later.
- All course tuition fees are the same, but may change in the future.
- It will also be released through Infraon approximately 6 months after the end of the lecture.
- Some lectures (not on the list) were delayed because they were judged to require more practice.
- We are desperately looking for a professional with a lot of practical experience in Dedicated Server :)

1. Lyra Clone Coding (Haker): Serial Lecture (#2 Months)

Schedule: November 6/13/20/27 (Mondays 8pm-11pm)

Lyra is a sample content provided by Unreal Engine that gives hints on the basics of multiplayer FPS production from Epic Games. It is a knowledge base full of honey pots in terms of overall content production, such as GameAbilitySystem, DedicatedServer, and content management. However, when you download and open Lyra right away, the code is so vast and difficult that you don't even know where to start, so in fact, you can't even touch it. It is a very difficult task, but I thought it would be great to have a Clone Coding lecture that summarizes the most important key points and reassembles them from scratch, and after asking around, Haker agreed to take charge of it. Haker is currently a professional client & engine programmer with over 10 years of experience at a large company, and he is one of the top ten people I've ever met. He will be in charge of the Unreal Engine source code analysis topic in the future, but since Lyra and GAS are such important topics that are currently hot topics in the industry, I decided to open the door with a Lyra clone coding lecture in a hurry. For reference, many large companies are analyzing Lyra and GAS and are showing a move to introduce them in their next projects. If you learn these technologies, it will be a guide for not only job seekers but also junior programmers in the field to study UE in depth. Although the basic framework was completed in the first month, it is still sufficient to catch up, so we will open new recruitment until the second month.

2. Developing a C++ server based on Asio (Javawork): 1 month

Schedule: November 7/14/21/28 (Tuesdays 8pm-11pm)

Traditionally, in Korea, MMO servers have been built on Windows Server. However, unless it is an old company, developing such a server from scratch is inefficient and very risky. The recent trend is to actively utilize proven external libraries to improve development speed and to compete with the 'product' called a game. In particular, Linux-based servers are gaining attention due to the development of AWS. Asio is a famous C++ server library and has the advantage of running on both Windows and Linux. Asio is likely to be officially included in the C++ library in the future, and in fact, there are many cases of operating Asio-based servers in recent projects, so it is very valuable to study in the long term. I decided that it would be beneficial to create a simple server framework based on Asio and practice running it on both Windows and Linux. Javawork is a server programmer with over 20 years of experience who has worked at major domestic companies such as NC and Neople. He will provide practical server and DevOps knowledge every month. In the long term, I plan to learn server frameworks, MMO or room-based games, and AWS technologies that support them.

3. Unreal Tool Extension (Pepe): 1 month

Schedule: November 2/9/16/23 (Thursdays 8pm-11pm)

Unreal Engine is a collection of various technologies. In addition to simple content creation, we are contacting many experts to learn practical know-how that we encounter when carrying out actual projects. Pepe is a member of a large company's UE5 R&D team who has consistently conducted research on UE technology, and he has strengths in detailed topics such as optimization and Lumen. Although it may not be immediately visible compared to content creation, if you continue to learn various basic technologies, it will be of great help in solving problems later. The first topic will start with a light Unreal tool extension. The topic of tools is not fun, but as the project grows, you will inevitably have to create various tools, and it is wiser to use them in a form built into Unreal rather than creating them as external tools. Compared to Unity, there are not many parts organized in this area, so I would like to learn the know-how on how to use tool extensions such as Slate in real life and lay the foundation for covering other topics in the future.

4. Programming for Art (Meerkat): Serial Lecture (#1 month)

Schedule: 4/11/18/25 November (Saturdays 1pm-6pm)

I think that the TA field, along with client/server, is an area that must be studied and conquered. In order to break the cycle of Tech not knowing Art and Art not knowing Tech, we are planning several related lectures. The [Programming for Art] lecture aims to cultivate basic Blueprint utilization skills for art professionals who have no coding knowledge. In fact, since the principles of coding are the same, it doesn't really matter which language you study, and the ability to transfer your own way of thinking into code is important. In order not to be caught up in complex grammar, we decided to first focus on learning coding using UE5 Blueprint, a practical visual coding system. The coding lectures that Rookiss has previously serialized are conducted from a programmer's perspective, so they progress quickly and are generally difficult. While recruiting experts who can conduct lectures that are a bit more suitable for non-majors and beginners, we ended up recruiting Meerkat. Meerkat is a middle-level programmer from Com2uS, and his teaching ability, especially his ability to explain things easily with amazing analogies, is overwhelming. The goal of this weekend class is to take care of those who find traditional coding classes difficult, so that no one gives up, and that it feels like receiving private tutoring, even if it is okay to proceed slowly. The ultimate goal is to solve various practice problems in real-time live lectures, and for students to share their personal screens so that the instructor can check the difficult parts and answer all the questions that are usually embarrassing to ask. We do not accept aspiring programmers, but only recruit non-majors, especially planners and art professionals, for a coding class that starts from scratch!

5. Introduction to PD Studies (Rookiss): Serial Lecture (#1 month)

Schedule: 5/12/19/26 November (Sundays 8pm-11pm)

Most people who enter the game industry study and step into the industry, thinking about the games they love so much. However, when they actually join the company, their expectations are shattered and the project always feels like it is drifting. New employees who join the planning department are full of hope that they will spread their imagination and create a great game, but in reality, they become slaves to data and become odd jobs that take on ambiguous tasks. My efforts to analyze games diligently are useless, and I feel a great sense of disillusionment at the work of having to write a reverse planning report for a gacha game that is in the top sales rankings. I have seen countless planners who are disappointed by this reality while working at the company, and many of them change their positions to programmers or other departments. Surprisingly, contrary to popular belief, planners in the game industry do not plan. In the first place, the absolute power to make creative plans and set directions is given only to PDs (directors).

In my opinion, a <planner> is ultimately a PD. Even in a large company, there are only about 10 projects, so there are only so many positions for a PD, so it doesn't seem necessary to worry about it. However, in order to achieve something in a game company, you must become a PD, or find a great PD and join that team. This is because no matter how excellent the team members' abilities are, if the game is headed in the wrong direction, the project is already hopeless. So what should you study to become a PD, and what talents do you need? How do actual companies select PDs, and what do they expect from them? These are very fundamental, essential, and obvious concerns, but it's not easy to get a clear answer to them. This is because these concerns are mainly raised by company executives or management, not by ordinary workers.

PDs actually have 99% of the project's success stakes because they determine the direction of the project. Although this is such an important position, it's hard to see any systematic efforts to train PDs, and there's no perfect answer in the first place. If there's someone who has a 100% sure answer on how to make a fun and well-selling game, it's probably a fraud. And of course, I don't know the formula for success either. However, at least in this uncertainty, I think the essential qualities that a PD should have are clear.

I was fortunate to gain experience at a great company and indirectly witness the process of creating a blockbuster game called <PUBG>, and on the other hand, I was able to experience the problems of drifting projects. Many projects went downhill due to various internal political issues and the lack of capabilities of the PD or development team. The company always tries various things to find answers to these concerns, and some even introduce an incubator system to receive challenging proposals. However, when I meet and talk to the company's executives, the common complaint is that there is no PD who understands development well but has a good sense. Employees who have not usually had these concerns propose extremely ideal games that do not consider realistic conditions. (Ex. I want to make a game that combines WoW+Genshin+Zelda!) In essence, unlike webtoons and web novels, games should not be planned <anything> <using imagination>, but should be thought about considering the best cost-effectiveness and schedule within a realistic development scope.

In this course, which Rookiss will personally lead on Sundays, we will systematically learn the basic development knowledge that a PD should know, development process, schedule calculation, team composition, and development cost measurement, and we will show you the process of starting from game ideation and turning it into reality with the goal of launching. (And you can get some training if you attend the live lecture :D) The goal is to naturally cultivate a PD's sense by learning the development cycle that includes organizing a development team by setting a budget, outsourcing some art, and leading to BM design and post-launch indicator verification.