138 Video Game Design Foundations
Menu Bar
The menu bar contains the pull-down menus. Clicking on the name of
a pull-down menu displays the menu. You can then select the tool from the
menu. The menu bar and pull-down menus function just as they do in other
Windows programs, such as Microsoft Offi ce.
Standard Toolbar
The
Standard
toolbar contains the most common tools found in the
pull-down menus, but displayed as buttons for easy access. Basic tools such
as New, Open, Save, Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo, and
Contents
(help)
are located on the
Standard
toolbar. This places the tools just a mouse click
away.
Navigate Toolbar
To move quickly from one area of the game programming to another,
use the tools on the
Navigate
toolbar. Tools included on this toolbar are
Back, Forward,
Storyboard
Editor,
Frame
Editor,
Event
Editor,
Previous
Frame, and
Next
Frame. Also included on this toolbar is the frame identifi -
cation and selection drop-down list.
a script language and are compiled into a
computer language. This type of programming
language is used by The Games Factory 2.
Game programmers are very highly
recruited by game design companies. These
people have important skills that can be used
to build games, proprietary software, and other
tools outside of gaming. A programmer straight
out of school would likely enter a company as
a junior programmer. There they would learn
how to function best on the programming team
and learn how to make programs needed by
the company. Later, they would be promoted to
a game programmer and have duties to work
with the design team and share ideas on what
a game could be programmed to do.
Other game programming-related jobs
include lead programmer, technical director,
AI programmer, software engineer, network
engineer, graphics engineer, and engine
programmer. All of these higher-level jobs
offer more responsibility and leadership in the
projects being created.
Most game programming jobs require a
college degree in computer science, game
programming, or software engineering. In 2009,
the average salary of a game programmer was
between $65,000 and $85,000 a year, depending
on experience and geographic location.
(Continued)
Several programming languages are common in game
programming.