Intro

[Vergil]

Hello,

I finally decided that I want to work in the game industry as a game designer. Game designer is rather vague as there are different types of game designers. However, if I can, I'd want to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of game designing, and if not possible, I certainly want to experiment different kinds until I found my niche.

I'm 23 and have already graduated from college (with philosophy). Though I love playing games (particularly computer games), I don't have any experience or working (unless you consider basic, crude) knowledge of game design.

My questions are:

Should I go back to undergraduate school? (Looking into USC and Vancouver Film School)
Should I go to graduate school? (Again, the same colleges)
Where can I start getting some game design experience? (I've read a lot of guides on this website. None seem to be too detailed or concrete and specific skills. The only one I've seem to pick up is computer science/programming.)
Are there groups of people out there willing to let a first-timer sort of "sit and watch" their game-making process? (I'd love to see how smaller, independent groups operate to gain some sense and maybe contribute).
Is it worth going to school? (I was also thinking maybe just going straight into the game industry, but I heard that route requires extreme passion, effort, and hard work, especially for a guy in my position.)

That's it for now. If I have more questions, I'll come back with them.

Thank you,
Vergil

[tsloper]

Originally Posted by Vergil

1. Should I go back to undergraduate school?
Should I go to graduate school?
2. Where can I start getting some game design experience?
3. Are there groups of people out there willing to let a first-timer sort of "sit and watch" their game-making process?
4. Is it worth going to school?

1. You don't need to, but if you want to, that's fine.
2. You can't get "experience," but you can build a portfolio. You can volunteer on an amateur project to get your feet wet - see indiegamer and gamedev.net. And read http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson12.htm
3. No.
4. Only you can make that determination. http://sloperama.com/advice/route66.htm