Shameless plug incoming…
A couple of friends and I developed a game for the Global Game Jam this past weekend. Check it out and rate it highly if you are so inclined :).
Right from their website:
Can we sell games and make money with the free version of Unity?
Yes! You certainly can-- and without royalties nor paying any revenue share! If your game is a commercial success, we hope you’ll upgrade to Unity Pro! 
I am kind of out of college working at a big company. (I work at a big telecom company.) I think it is a pretty good experience since there are multiple layers of things so you are held accountable for what you are doing.
Awesome! =D In that case, I’ll be toying around with it this weekend.
A colleague of mind is actually fooling around with DirectX right now. I can’t help but feel that he’s working too hard.
direct x isn’t too bad depending on what you’re doing with it. 2d direct x stuff is pretty easy, 3d can be hard to get running though(writing a mesh loader is kind of gross), but even that is’t too hard.
I was watching this video about the History of Atari, the video game part, when it was really big.
They were engineers poetically reliving how awesome it was.
They’d work long hours just because they wanted to, it was fun.
When you got hired, you were handed a game concept, and told you had 6 months to implement it.
Every week they’d send someone (different) out to buy booze and have a Friday party. Sometimes a person would skip it because they were deep into their game.
They way Atari worked back then was great. They had way too much money and could afford such lax standards. They’d hire people who were passionate. They had just the right amount of work where one or two people could design and implement an entire game. The (big) game industry just isn’t the same. No way one person could expect to make a high production game anymore (I’m thinking stuff like Fallout, Tekken, Half Life). The smart phone and tablet market with the App store has re-created this possibility. We might have just a short time again, now, where compact games are very popular.
Binding of Isaac is a great example of how you can make an awesome game with a small team, and be financially viable
Yeah, that’s actually what he said he was doing. The last message he wrote said he was working on a multiple texture loader for his mesh, too. I do think that’s really cool; I’d like to learn some DirectX at some point myself just for the experience (though I have done OpenGL before). But I also know it’d be a lot of extra work if he wants our group to have a game done by the summer. =P
Yeah, I get kind of sad when I realize that I missed out on the golden age of video game development. Working at an indie startup isn’t quite the same as having the financial backing of Atari, SEGA, or another large publisher back when.
Today, it seems that someone who wants to be a video game developer either has to choose between the safe® misery of the large publishers or sticking their necks out on indie development where they might have more freedom, but might also possibly also train wreck their finances. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, they could have had the best of both worlds.
DirectX 2D =
DirectX 3D = 
Seems to me no matter which route you go, DirectX, OpenGL, or Unity, etc. the hard part is still the same: getting quality art assets.
Yes, that will indeed be a problem for us on down the line. We do have multiple 3D modelers (myself being one of them), but I don’t know that any of us can do quality 2D art. That will probably require us to employ people from outside of our circle to help… that, or just half-ass it ourselves. =P
Really though, I would expect that getting quality music might be the biggest hurdle.
How do I gear my job search towards startups?
I’m sorry to bomb this thread with my job hunt again, but you guys made startups seem appealing. The interviews I’ve had for jobs don’t seem like they’ll pan out, so maybe I can switch up a bit. Is there a database of startups in my area I can call/contact? I’ve been on job boards selectively giving my resumes to random companies with positions I want. I never “aimed” my search at a category of company.
What’s a good, free editor for writing HTML pages? I’ve begun working on my website.
Also, what’s a good page for checking out all the current standards for HTML programming?
I already have Notepad++, but I thought there might be something better for specifically writing HTML pages. Ah well, I’ll stick with that, I guess. Thanks for the site!
I use Bluefish. Came with my Linux distro (they have a Windows version on their site if you use that), so it’s what I been using. Has syntax highlighting, pop-up tips, auto closing elements, stuff like that.
And W3 Schools is fine for a novice, but if you’re looking for expert stuff don’t use it. I’m having to use Google a lot more to look up Javascript functions that W3 Schools does not have referrenced (and I do mean a lot of functions).
Also, if you’re looking to use HTML5 and CSS3, the newer stuff, just be warned that it’s not an official standard yet, and browsers may not support the same items as others (Firefox does not support <input type=[number|range]> yet for example, and Opera is the only one that supports <input type=color>).
On windows I stick with ultraedit normally, and VIM otherwise. If you want autocomplete features then there are just too many options to list, but really with all the weight we put on JS nowadays the core DOM structures are simpler than ever.
In relation to the comment above: personally I think you should only be using the native methods supported by the JS objects on w3c for right now. If you need more advanced functionality or something only found within the spec of one browser you should write it or throw the pressure onto your JS toolkit of choice. I could however have misunderstand what you meant. Anyway, I joined because of this thread! Long time SRK lurker.
lol that’s a good question i never really thought of that
i just had a friend in school who referred me to the startup he had just joined. also my cs department had tons of job listings and postings and mailing lists for exactly that purpose.
i used notepad to edit HTML and then transitioned into notepad++
edit: i think you are asking about stuff such as dreamweaver but afaik nobody really uses dreamweaver to actually build websites. we use visual studio at work, and people edit the files directly using visual studio.
Thanks for the responses. I’m gonna stick with Notepad++. I need to use it more often anyway.
I hit a wall with the game I’m making. I’m at the point where I need to buy a Windows Phone device so that I can actually save my data and not lose it when the emulator is closed. It’ll also ensure that my game runs fine on the phone. The problem is, I don’t want to spend $500+ for a phone (I don’t have money to burn at the moment, as all my money goes towards school). I guess I can focus on making a Flash version or something; I’m trying to have a complete, non-prototype game to show off to employers. I would love to be able to tell an employer that I have a game on the marketplace (even better if it sold well).
I
I have an extra one I can probably sell. It’s the Samsung Focus