LO2 - Task 3: Understanding the skills needed to fulfil the role of a Game Programmer.

Having good communication skills is one of the most important things that you need for becoming a games programmer. Game programmers work on a whole range of tasks and that often includes working with code that other programmers have written. Therefore you must make it clear through the code and any relating paper work how you want the code to be made. When I was working on Unit 46 (Creating a short film trailer), there where a lot of documents that where used in the pre - production stage for example: Storyboards, Treatments and call sheets where I could put down some of my ideas on what to have in the trailer. So whenever the group got together we could work with what we had on these documents.

It is important that there is verbal communication within any group. When it comes to a game programmer they would need to communicate with the designers so that they don't come up with something that would conflict with the what the programmers are doing. Whilst working on Unit 46 having good verbal communication skills was crucial for us to complete the unit, not everything would work well together so it was important to get your point across and offer some new ideas to overcome some of problems whilst we where filming.
Although having good communication skills is crucial for this job role the most important skill is having the knowledge the carry out the tasks that you need to do especially for the role of lead programmer. They translate the design into the technical specification for the game and then they delegate tasks out to the programming team. With regards to Unit 46 I had taught myself how to use Adobe Audition so I could edit all of the sound to remove any background noise and hiss.
Like in most technical jobs there will always be problems that arise in some part of the production process. So it takes a certain level of creativity to find new ways to get around this problem, there is always more than one way to create something it is just up to the individual to find it.
Areas for further development
From looking at the skills that are required to become a games programmer and at my current sill set there are some areas for improvement. One of these things that I could develop are my organisation skills. I tend not to plan or map out any of my ideas on how to approach something, this leads my to struggle later on the task as I don't know what I would need to do next. One of the other aspects that I could improve on is my time management. Sometimes I dwell too long on one thing which often ends up in me not having enough time to complete the rest of my work. This was one of the problems that I had with Unit 46, we spent a lot of time doing all of the practical work and not we spent very little time doing the paper work which meant that we was struggling to complete the work in time when it got to the end of the course. The last thing that I would need to improve on is team work, I am more used to working on my own and I find it more comfortable working this way however, sometimes it is important to work with other people as they help you if you become stuck or the task my just by too big to complete on your own.

In order to gain a greater understanding in programming I plan to:

• Do the Lloyds Banking Group Intern-ship which specialise in IT, Retail Banking and Business Management.
• Study a Bsc degree in computer science at Leicester University, I feel as if this is the best option as I would learn a range of programming types and it might give me an insight as to what it might be like working in the industry.
• After my course has ended I plan to go on a software development course with Sky to gain some experience with working in the industry.