The MakeGamesWithUs Online Academy | Hacker News Reader

The MakeGamesWithUs Online Academy

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73 pointssama39 comments

I definitely recommend this course! I've met the founders and have participated once in a flappy bird class. definitely a program considering if you want to have something to show recruiters when looking for jobs

This looks absolutely amazing. And as was said, i am really looking forward to enrolling once swift will get added since i suck at learning new stuff.

Step 1 to learning new stuff: stop using self-defeating language. Step 2: Jump in and give it a try. There's no substitute for actually building something.

That is very true, i need to give it a go sometime. Thank you very much for the encouraging words!

It seems like there is a market mechanism missing here. We shouldn't be handing out free spots just for free. It should be in the form of, "I'll pay for your free spot if you commit to X hours of programming in return." Perhaps we use Karma as a proxy for trustworthiness and commitment?

So here's the deal I will offer. I will sign up over the weekend, and will give the free offer to someone. If you have over 1000 Karma, list how many hours of programming you'll offer me on a silly TBD side project (don't offer anything ridiculous like 100) and I'll pay for at least one of you. (I'm between gigs, otherwise I'd offer this to a dozen folks) You just have to promise that you'll finish the class no matter what, and give me a couple hours.

Looks like an awesome way to teach coding. I'd love it even more if there was a way to test run the first week, just to see what the style is like before dropping $100.

Is there any online game development course for desktop games ?. Or how to go about learning game development for desktop games like Warcraft, Doom etc.

I think you should be looking for courses targeting particular 3d game engines like Unreal, Unity etc. I found one for Unity which seems to be pretty popular. http://walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html

If anyone has a friend spot available I would love to learn how to create games with this course.

thechinpokoman@hotmail.com is my email. If everything works out I might even work with someone on a small project too, I'm an artist in my spare time and must admit my game programming skills aren't very good.

Oh, I should mention I've lurked HN for quite a few years, I just never had a reason to sign up until now!

I would seriously appreciate a friend spot if anyone has one that they aren't going to use. I would sign up for this in a heartbeat but I just had to blow my whole paycheck renewing my license and registration. Happy birthday indeed.

Out of curiosity, are there plans to introduce Swift development?

I see that it's primarily an Objective-C oriented course, which in light of recent revelations from Apple, may not be nearly as worth it as it was before WWDC.

There absolutely are! Note that most companies will be hiring Objective-C devs for many more years since existing code bases are not going anywhere and it's still unclear how much adoption Swift will get amongst non-hobbyists.

True, true. Either way, good luck, I think what you guys are doing for tech education, especially for the age group that you're addressing, is really awesome!

Is anyone enrolling in this that has a friend spot they're not using? I'm interested, but not so much so that I'm able to justify spending $100 on it right now.

I'm giving a spot for $50 if you're interested

micmcg at gmail if you are still selling it

We need to set up a swap system that allows people to gift their friend place to other interested parties.

Do you accept BTC? paying in USD would he a pain for me.

I signed up with a friend to split the costs in half but he didn't go through with it. Anyone interested in grabbing a spot for $50?

As long as we're looking for free stuff, my email is in my profile, if someone is incline to unburden themselves of a friend spot.

If anyone is willing to go 50/50 let me know! theadictspunk (a) gmail

I'll take a guest spot if anyone's got one - rod4400 at yahoo

Is there a list of games that the founders or past students have made?

Students from our in person course: www.mgw.us/games

If anyone has a quest spot, I'd really appreciate it.

rafael at dataminded.net

Is anyone enrolling in this that has a friend spot they're not using? I don't have $100 :(

yes, what's your email address?

can I have that friend spot? :) me(at)karlcoelho.com

Only iPhone game development? Sorry, no interest... Why limit your potential students by offering only one platform?

Especially, why limit the development to mobile devices when you can create much more impressive games for desktops and the like ?

Why learn basic addition when you can learn calculus?

And that comparison would be valid for what? Are you suggesting Mobile games are more sophisticated ?

No, I was suggesting that it might be better to learn one thing before learning another.

Sure, but why would mobile should be learnt first, then? I'd just like to understand your train of thought.

How about "Because you like mobile games?"

Of course, if you prefer desktop games, learn to make those first. Either way, go with what you enjoy.

Because there's no way that you as a n00b to game development can make an "impressive game for desktops" in 8 short weeks.

All games built using Cocos2D can be ported to Android within minutes using Apportable!

Limiting the course to mobile, and to iOS in particular, allows the course to focus on fundamentals (design choices, architecture choices, playtesting, etc) while still getting raw technical experience and a real app done.

As another commenter mentioned, porting is easy with Cocos2D, and also learning a new platform is simple when the rest of the software development process is better prepared.

I'm an Android developer myself, I think this course sounds like a wonderful way to breed technically competent game designers even though it just focuses on iOS.

The same question why should anyone just offer a class in Python, in Ruby, in X language? Because that's the whole point of the course. Because the instructor probably better at iOS development. Because they can.

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