Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Developing gameplay features and architecture to support other departments.

Tasks include input/control mechanics, gameplay mechanics, physics, artificial intelligence, graphical user interface hook up, audio & visual effect hook up and bug fixing.

Aside from coding, I am occassionally tasked with writing documentation or proposing new features or systems. I attend various meetings and have free form discussion about future features with people of all departments, but mostly with programmers and designers.

It's rewarding to create something that I enjoy and that has a visual response to your work, not just numbers and databases. It's also extremely challenging and I enjoy getting to do new things and come up with new ideas to solve problems day.

A lot of the time what you are trying to do is very bespoke, there is no right way to do it, and everyone will have a different idea on how it should be done. The challenge is to make code that is generic and reusable that everyone can use and yet still has all the functionality you require. Other times you're simply trying to do something which is incredibly tricky to get right and there is no go-to solution that will work every time (this is very typical when it comes to AI and Physics).

I like playing games and creating them was something I aspired to do.

The most important skill is C++ by a long way. After that 3d vector math, state machines and basic AI/search algorithms are important too.

I have access to a large library of programming books, videos & online resources through Microsoft. We also have in-house training days where the leads train people on new features of the engine or new c++/std/stl features.

1 year at small mobile applications company

3 years at mid-sized games company developing for Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and iOS.

Currently working for Microsoft developing games for Microsoft consoles.

Progressing my career through the games industry to become a senior, lead and potentially director.

Learn C++ and 3D vector math. Make sure you understand virtualisation, pointers, memory management and code efficiency above everything else.

Try making a simple game with a free engine like Unity, get to know how game mechanics work.

Video games are awesome!