Do you dream of becoming a great game designer? There are many indie developers who live a great life creating games for huge audiences and you can be the next one to get the jackpot! We have the best game design courses online to share with you in this article in order to help you get there.
We all know the story of indie developer Dong Nguyen who managed to score it big with Flappy Bird, which ended up earning $50,000 per day before being taken off the App Store eventually due to its addictive nature.
Sky is the limit when it comes to designing games and launching your own titles. So if you want to become the next Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima or, why not, Dong Nguyen, you have to start now! And if you know nothing about game design, these great online courses we have selected for you on Udemy are great to get you started or boost your skills to the next level.
Udemy is a real treasure when it comes to finding courses about anything that matters to you. We’ve already shared the best Udemy courses of 2017 in a previous article, but today we’ll dig deeper and focus on the best game design courses on Udemy.
So let’s not waste a single second and let’s check out these great online courses below. If you want to make it big in this industry, you have to start now. So don’t waste any second ! You’ll see that it’s not insanely difficult to get started in this field.
Become a Game Developer/Designer: Complete Master Series
by School of Game Design
This is definitely the course you should start with and if you were to only choose one on this list, this one would be it! It’s insanely complex and complete and covers all the important things about game design.
The course has hundreds of lectures and over 70 hours of video content, taking you through everything you need to know in order to get started with and become a great game designer. It covers all the important aspects of game design and after completing this insanely complete course, you’ll be able to consider yourself a game designer.
Sure, there will still be things for you to learn – there’s always something new to learn in this profession – but the Complete Master Series by School of Game Design is indeed the most complete course you can find online.
Some of the things that you will learn in this course include beginner to expert level techniques for 3D game development, programming, digital painting in Photoshop and computer animation. The course focuses on helping you work with Unity3D, Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox, and Photoshop, meaning that you will be able to develop games for PC or consoles (Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo consoles) or mobile apps.
This is one of the most popular game design courses on Udemy with over 20,000 students enrolled so far. It’s also highly rated, with an average 4.5 stars rating out of 5 out of over 1,500 ratings. In other words, it’s not only popular, but also highly rated by students who take it.
You can’t go wrong with this course and it’s definitely our highest recommendation on the list. Do give it a try!
Click here to sign up for this course right now
Create Game Characters with Blender
by Darrin Lile
If you already know some things about game development – either after completing the course above or because you’ve studied in the past, this course will help you get better at 3D modelling with Blender.
This means that you already need to have Blender and some experience with its modeling skills, which will be taken to the next level.
In this course, you will learn to model and sculpt game characters, animate game cycles for a game character, use more advanced Blender features and ultimately import your characters in Unity. You will also learn to create UV maps and bake texture maps, set up character controllers in Unity and more.
Although this is definitely a bit more advanced as you need to know some basics about game development, it’s great for honing your skills and getting much better at your job. Do check it out to find out more!
Click here to sign up for this course right now
Learn Blender 3D Modeling for Unity Video Game Development
by Billy McDaniel
This is another course that requires some basic knowledge in game development – and another solid reason to start with the Complete Master Series recommended above.
A bit more advanced, but extremely useful for aspiring game designers, this course will teach you some more awesome stuff to do with Bender and Unity, like designing Unity game props and levels, creating traps and obstacles in your levels, designing modular levels and more.
There are many skills that you need to have when it comes to creating games, and having solid environments and props in levels is vital – so this is why we are recommending this course here.
Click here to sign up for this course right now
Create a Game Environment with Blender and Unity
by Darrin Lile
Our final recommendation is also related to Unity and Blender, but also Photoshop. It’s also about creating game environments – as the name suggests, so my recommendation would be to check this one out, as well as the one by Billy McDaniel above and choose just one since they teach basically the same thing – although they branch out eventually and could be considered helpful if taken together as well.
In other words, this course teaches you about modelling game assets in Blender and importing them into Unity, create UV maps and texture maps and light your scenes.
It’s a cheap, quick course, that helps you specialize and get better at creating the environment you need for your computer, video or mobile games.
Click here to sign up for this course right now
So these would be the best courses on Udemy for game design. These courses will get you through the basics – or some more advanced mechanics – and you will have a lot to benefit from all of them. The Complete Master Series is by far the best and most complex resource and I would recommend you to start with it and then expand to other areas with the other courses.
But, in the end, the choice is yours and no matter which of these courses you choose, you’re making the right choice as you’re correctly investing in your future!