How long should the learning program be?

[snowfrogdev]

One of the first thing we should decide as a community is how long this learning program should take. I propose that a well designed one year program would probably be sufficient to get an aspiring dev from zero to, well maybe not hero, but atleast enough to teach him the process and decisions that go into designing and making a game. At the end he should know enough and have enough practical experience to set his own - somewhat - realistic goals for his next game making projects. What do you think?

[ghost]

Different people learn at different speeds. Why not take advantage of the fact that this is an online resource where people can learn at their own pace.

Instead of thinking of things in fixed lengths of time perhaps it would be better to look at which skills are deemed necessary for a game developer to reach a certain goal:

Be that goal to become employable, or to become skilled enough to start developing independently. Whichever the goal may be, I think that is a way healthier way of structuring the learning path.

Really, before even discussing length, the learning goals should be clearly defined. There is a world of difference between learning how to be a solo indie developer, to learning how to be a systems programmer to being an artist or something else.

Do you mean to make a curriculum for people to learn solo dev? Everything from coding to animation? Or do you want to make a course to teach programming, meant to function as part of a team?

If you want a thorough curriculum maybe instead we should allow for flexible paths: A system wherein someone can choose their end goals in checkboxes and material & learning suggestions will be added to their individualized curriculum based off of that.

I imagine something where people answer a short series of simple questions covering their basic experience and their learning goals and then we offer them a learning path. The learning paths simply being data, may then be maintained by a community of contributors.

Perhaps if the project is ambitious enough it could even be vetted by industry experts and studios since they're the ones best qualified to know what they are looking for, at least in regards to employment.

[snowfrogdev]

Different people learn at different speeds. Why not take advantage of the fact that this is an online resource where people can learn at their own pace.

My idea was to include a suggested deadline (unenforced, of course) with each assignment but not for the overall program. It could be a simple statement like "try to spend no more than X hours working on this assignment". Of course, someone going through the curriculum full time would finish much faster than someone working on it a few evenings a week, and that's ok. So maybe I can qualify my question a little: "For someone who's able to spend at least 20 hours a week working through the assignments in this program, how long do we expect it should take before he has progressed enough in skills, knowledge, experience and confidence before he is almost certainly able to fly on his own and choose realistic parameters for his next project on his own?"

Do you mean to make a curriculum for people to learn solo dev? Everything from coding to animation? Or do you want to make a course to teach programming, meant to function as part of a team?

I want to make a curriculum for people to learn solo dev.

If you want a thorough curriculum maybe instead we should allow for flexible paths: A system wherein someone can choose their end goals in checkboxes and material & learning suggestions will be added to their individualized curriculum based off of that.

I imagine something where people answer a short series of simple questions covering their basic experience and their learning goals and then we offer them a learning path. The learning paths simply being data, may then be maintained by a community of contributors.

That seems complicated. For now I am not planning to write an app or anything. My idea was to simply supply a list of game making assignments with various requirements. I was not planning on providing actual learning resources. Aspiring devs would have to find their own learning resources in order to complete each project. Of course, learners would be free to meet the requirements of each assignment however they see fit.

If an assignment asks learners to design and develop a game with a musical soundtrack, learners would be free to go as deep as they want into learning about making music for video games, learn music theory, download music software etc... or they could just grab some free music online and plug it in to their game. Or let's say one assignment requires that the game uses 2D physics simulation to move the player object around. The aspiring dev would be free to learn about developing a physics engine or he could just use the one provided with whatever tool or engine he's using. I think you get the idea.

Each assignment would carry various requirements in different aspects of game design and development but learners would be free to focus on certain aspects more than others, as long as they meet the requirements.

Perhaps if the project is ambitious enough it could even be vetted by industry experts and studios.

That would be very cool and I am actually looking for the input of experienced game designers and developers to help me put together this list of assignments.