(2023-OCT-31 Update: This page is no longer being updated.)

2023-OCT-31 UPDATE:

Here are links I never categorized and wanted to share as there will be no more updates of this page:

• Advice for getting into the Games Industry
• Brenda Romero Training Courses
• Unity - Manual - Reducing the file size of your build
• What no one tells you about coding interviews (why leetcode doesn't work)

And some from Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty):

• Bernie Mac - Chasing Money Won't Lead to Success - The Oprah Winfrey Show
• DON'T CHASE MONEY - Powerful Motivational Video
• Nintendo Saved my Dream Indie Game from Disaster

Original page starts below:

 

Resources for game developers. Physical events in Nova Scotia, Canada. (Share with xona.com/resources.)

 

Animation:

• Twelve Basic Principles of Animation*

*Idea Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Art Design:

Games:

• Forza Motorsport 7 (2020 GDC Virtual Talk)

 

Art Assets (Free Sources):

• Julio Sillet
• Julio Sillet (hosted at NSCC)*

*Link Credit:Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Audio (Free Sources):

• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Part 1 - 2015 (Sonniss) "SOLD" OUT
• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Part 2 - 2016 (Sonniss)
• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Part 3 - 2017 (Sonniss)
• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Part 4 - 2018 (Sonniss)*
• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Part 5 - 2019 (Sonniss)*
• The GameAudioGDC Bundle Parts 4 & 5 (Sonniss; hosted at NSCC)*
• Bfxr (sound effect generator)†

*Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)
†Bfxr (and sfxr before it) were used to make sound effects in our Xona Games titles, including Decimation X and Score Rush series.

 

C# (Programming):

• Learn C# (Microsoft)
• Learning C# (lynda.com)
• C# Beginners Tutorials Playlist (thenewboston)

 

C# / Unity (Programming):

Beginner:

• Unity Tips (Unity)
• Large Project Organisation (Unity) (#15 tip)
• Learn Unity (Imphenzia)*

Intermediate:

• Unity Best Practices
• Save & Load Game (Persistence) (Unity)
• Game Manager + Singleton (Unity) (found within the persistence tutorial)
• Pluggable AI With Scriptable Objects (Unity) (AI state machine)
• Scriptable Objects  (Brackeys)

Advanced:

• Entity Component System (Unity)

All:

• Unity Tutorials (Unity)

*Imphenzia is also a musician, and composed the OST for our Decimation X series and Duality ZF games .

 

C# / XNA / MonoGame (Programming):

• Building XNA 2.0 Games* (on building your own 2D game engine)

Author Credit: James Silva / Ska Studios (and Xona Games friend!)

 

Company / Business:

• Start Your Own Game Company (John Romero)

 

Documentation:

• Functional Specifications vs. Technical Specifications (Joel on Software, Gamasutra, Arcana Project example)
• Technical Specifications vs. Design Documents (StackExchange)

 

Entrepreneurship:

• How to Survive Your First Indie Game (You Don't Stand a Chance) (Rami Ismail @ Control Conference 2015)
• Development Hurdles (Ars Technica War Stories)*

*Link Credit: Sean Morrow (NSCC Game Development & IT faculty)

 

Game Development: 

• The truth is that many games are held together by duct tape (VVVVVV) *

*Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Game Design & Level Design:

Games:

• World Of Goo
• Roll-a-ball Unity tutorial comparison: good, good*, bad.
• Metal Gear Solid† (LEGO level design)
• TUNIC (grey box level design)
• Doom
• Super Mario Bros. World 1-1: Eurogamer, Extra Credits, Wikipedia.
• Ultima Online (economy)
• Mega Man
• Zelda

Juice:

• Juice it or lose it (Klooniegames)
• Secrets of Game Feel and Juice | Game Design Basics§ (Game Maker's Toolkit)

Misc.:

• Disneyland‡ (level design)
• Nintendo - Putting Play First (Game Maker's Toolkit on gameplay)
• Lessons in Game Design (Will Wright on SimCity)
• Realistic Village & Forest in Unity 2019 (level design)
• How to make your game 2X as fun!§ (gameplay)
• Better Jumping in Unity With Four Lines of Code§ (jumping)

*Game Credit: Myke Wills / N163LPH03N1X (NSCC Game Development graduate and Xona Games friend.)
†Link Credit: Noah Levering (NSCC Game Development graduate)
‡Link Credit: Suzanne Labrecque (NSCC Digital Animation faculty)
§Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Game Development Process (Team, Process, Production, Milestones):

Process:

• Development Team: designer, artist, programmer, level_designer, tester
• Development_Process: high_concept (documentation), pitch (documentation), concept (documentation), game_design_document, prototype (build)
• Production: game design, game programming, level_design, art design, testing
• Milestones: first_playable (prototype), alpha, beta, final (gold master)  

From "Video game development" Wikipedia article.

Examples:

• Hardspace: Shipbreaker (alpha)
• Subnautica (first playable to release)*

*Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Jobs:

• How to get a job in game art (gamesindustry.biz)

 

Marketing:

• Twitter (#screenshotsaturday)
• Instagram
• TIGSource DevLog Forums*
• YouTube

Be active on these forms of social media.

*Games that started here include: Minecraft, FEZ, Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, Manifold Garden, Project Rain World, Ultima Ratio Regum, Owlboy, etc.

 

(Game) Programming Patterns: 

• game loop
• update method
• finite state machine
• object pool
• singleton

See more game programming patterns at gameprogrammingpatterns.com, which is a book that can be read for free online.

 

Project Management: 

• Agile (Wikipedia)
• Scrum (Wikipedia; daily scrums, sprints, scrum master, etc.)

 

User Interface Design:

• UI Tutorial (Unity; scene selection menu, modal windows, main menu, polish)
• UI vs. UX
• 1974 computer UI
• Diegetic, Non-Diegetic, Spatial, & Meta (UI types)  

There are additional Unity Tutorials on UI. Click in and filter the "topic" by "user interface".

 

Productivity: 

• Stop Wasting Time (Jordan Peterson)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Programmers (TechLead)
• Why I'm so Good at Coding (How You Can Become Good at Programming) (TechLead)
• How I Tricked My Brain To Like Doing Hard Things (dopamine detox) (Better Than Yesterday)*
• Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator*
• How I Finished My Indie Game (Even When I Hated It)*

*Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

Social / Networking: 

Meet Ups:

• CGX Meetups - monthly by CGX: Canadian Gaming Expo & Jillian Studio Services (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
• Halifax Game Collective - monthly meet up (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Game Jams:

• FaxJam - annually by CGX: Canadian Gaming Expo & Jillian Studio Services (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
• Global Game Jam - annual global game jam (Volta Labs, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)
• NSCC Game Jam - annual game jam (twitter, instagram, etc.) (NSCC, Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Pitches:

• 30 Things I Hate About Your Game Pitch

 

Social Anxiety: 

• Bill Hader*
• Navy SEAL*

*Link Credit: Sam Robichaud (NSCC Game Development faculty)

 

(Game) Quality / Polish: 

Related to publishing quality and quality required to win indie game contests:

• IGF Observation #1: Compatibility Problems (David Edery)
• IGF Observation #2: Slow Initial Experiences (David Edery)
• IGF Observation #3: Polish Required (David Edery)

David Edery was the worldwide portfolio manager of Xbox LIVE Arcade -- the first digital distribution platform of Xbox games. These articles were written in December, 2009, and are timeless.

IGF is the Independent Games Festival, one of the top indie game contests and indie showcases worldwide. Past winners include: Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, Fez, Minecraft, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Nidhogg, Hyper Light Drifter, Limbo, Castle Crashers, Audiosurf, BaBa is You, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, FTL: Faster Than Light, Spelunky, World of Goo, Braid, Gish, Antichamber, This War of Mine, The Stanley Parable, Osmos, Super T.I.M.E. Force, etc.

 

Note About Author:

Matthew Doucette has taught video game development in various partnerships:

• Microsoft / Xbox — educated Xbox and indie developers since 2008 while working on his own games at Xona Games and working on Ignite Labs incubator. Awarded an Xbox MVP award for these efforts.
• Brilliant Labs — created Kids Make Games under a Xona Games and Brilliant Labs partnership, where we taught game development to K-12 students in public schools as a part of the curriculum. Used the same technologies Xona Games used to publish Xbox and PlayStation games (C#/XNA/MonoGame).
• NSCC — As a faculty member and faculty working group chair of the NSCC Truro Campus Game Development program, with concentration in Game Programming Concentration.

Thanks to all contributors. We are connected with many game development students locally and globally, and these are resources that we found helpful for all of them.

Let us know if you have any links to add.

 

That is all.