Amir Azmi

What is DigiPen?

DigiPen Institute of Technology is a school where you learn the fundamentals of game development in a specific focus such as programming, game design, audio, or art from the ground up. They assume you know nothing when entering and drill in the proper habits into you (Usually trial by fire).

Who am I?

Hello! My name is Amir Azmi, I am a gameplay programmer at Bungie working on Destiny 2. Prior to that, I graduated from DigiPen in 2021 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulations. I want to do a recount of the experiences I have had at DigiPen!

How Did I Hear About DigiPen?

I really enjoyed playing video games as a kid because of the sense of community and bonding and I wanted to deliver that nostalgic experience to the future gamers of tomorrow. I traversed schools looking for some that aligned with my goals and visited universities such as Full Sail but in the end I chose DigiPen for a few reasons. My favorite games were Naughty Dog games at the time and I parused the internet for some insight on how to work there. I came across a wonderful blog/tutorial site by Allen Chou (current gameplay programmer at ND) called allenchou.net. Reading his journey inspired me to make this leap of faith into the unknown. I also met the creators of Nitronic Rush who were in Georgia at the time to show off their game Distance which coincidentally they had also went to DigiPen. After chatting with them for the entire convention, I knew the decision I had to make. I wish I had known what adventures I would start when I made this decision because I would not change a thing. This was the main storyline quest but I had no clue what the result would be. I was nervous but excited.

Freshman Year – Living That High

I chose the very heavy programming degree called Bachelor’s of Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulations. I chose this personally for a few reasons, I was always hungry for critical thinking. It was one of those things I could never get enough of. The next was I wanted explicit control of everything. I am the type of person that needs to know how things are done inside the black box. My curiosity and hunger for learning is what made me choose this degree.

DigiPen’s first year is the hardest year by far. You will not be playing games at DigiPen, you will be making them. This distinction is important. Half of the people dropped out because they did not expect the rigorous workload that DigiPen offers right off the bat. It’s honestly a trial by fire. If you really wanted to be a game developer, the first year is your chance to prove it. Right there and then. The first-year schedule looked like so: 1 programming class, 1 math class, 1 game class, 1 Computer hardware class, and 1 elective. The killers for this class were the math and programming class. On top of all that, your game class and hardware class are both in-disguise programming classes.

Game class is what made DigiPen popular. You create games which become your portfolio pieces for your resume. In freshman year, the second half of the first semester, you make a text-based adventure game. Here you learn about the core game loop, and how anything can be game. Form your 3-man team and go! Passing this class is simple, did you learn and grow with your teammates? Did you overcome hardships as a team? If so, congratulations, this class is specifically for that! You learn about teamwork and most importantly, the team is what matters when making the game.

In the second semester, we start off running! Form your 5-man team, get dropped with a graphics library, and go! Again, trial by fire, but now you do some real learning. Game class is where you can put theory into practice. This is where I really learned how write something that would work with other people’s code. I created my first connection to a game of making numbers turn to pictures, and pictures into actions. It was exhilarating. And for 7 years, I have been living that high.

Our second semester freshman game.

Sophomore Year – Discovery

This year was a formative year for my development as an engineer but more importantly, it was the year I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. We will get to that, but lets start from the beginning with what makes this year interesting. At DigiPen, you make a game every year. Sophomore year is the first year you get to work with other disciplines such as artists, designers, audio, and other types of engineers on a singular game project for the year in a custom engine. I was fortunate enough to be an extrovert and was able to gather a team of 12 people where we all aligned on making a cooperative platformer.

This was also the year where you got the first taste of graphics programming in classes. I had dreamed of becoming a graphics programmer so even on our game team, I tried to do graphics related tasks like creating a particle system. As I got more and more into learning about graphics programming, the more I started to dislike it. This pedestal that I created for what being a graphics programmer would be like was slowly crumbling. But in the corner, something else was brewing. I found myself spending time creating gameplay systems such as consumables, interactables, AI behaviors, and just random gameplay atoms. This brought me a lot of joy and this project is what ultimately helped me decide on what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a gameplay programmer. Once I found my calling, everything else became second nature. It was the perfect fit for me since I was best when I was collaborative and creating the “fun” of the game. From that, we were able to make Project: Gemini.

Our custom engine in-game level editor for the sophomore game

Junior Year – Mastery

Junior year is the year to flex your chops. This was about creating the best possible game with the acquired skills from your previous games. It is super important to note: what you put into DigiPen is what you get out of it. And this year is the year to put everything in but it is a cascading effect. So my suggestion for you is, go hard from the start.

This time around, we created a 26-person team working in a commercial engine called Unity. With our experience from sophomore year, we tried to collect very driven and self-motivated people that were willing to always go the extra mile. It was truly like working in a AAA environment with standups, task coordination, and aligning on a vision. The only thing really missing was leadership and jira tickets.

I got to do what I love but also got to dive into spaces I was unfamiliar with. I got very familiar with being unfamiliar and this has become one of my biggest strengths at a AAA studio. This time around I got to work with the player controller, our camera system, and a targeting system that I believe would rival most AAA targeting systems in terms of functionality. (I looked back and oh my god could I optimize this and clean it up better).

Notice how game class is the only class I end up remembering vividly. It is because of the talented and passionate people I got to work with. We, together created something beautiful and it truly showed. We all had confidence in each other and most importantly we believed in ourselves more than anything else to overcome any challenges. We brought attention to problems early and with the right vision holder we were able to create a 3rd person-action adventure souls-like game. This is where we learned of scope-creep and what crunch is like. These experiences were necessary for all of us to succeed and I wouldn’t have it any other way. With that, we created Metamorphos, the Best Student Project and Best Visual Quality game awarded by Unity and Intel respectively.

Our Junior project Metamorphos

Senior Year – Everything Else After is Just a Bonus

This year was all about finishing up Metamorphos without artists and ultimately creating portfolio pieces to show to recruiters and hiring managers. We spent all our time the first semester working on wrapping up the game. This is where we went through multiple polish passes on game feel, encounters, boss feel, asset placements, and much more. This was a time where everyone was extremely stressed because of the ever-looming – time to get a job phase coming up.

During the second semester, I worked with everyone on the team to brush up resumes, create proper portfolios, and help prepare for interviews. It was a time where we all came together to make sure everyone was prepared for the job hunt. I remember countless hours of going over linear algebra, C++ specific knowledge, and game specific knowledge with my friends all in the pursuit of being ready for the real world. I am happy to say that most of the people I worked with had jobs during the first two years in some amazing places such as Arena Net, Activision, Bungie, Nintendo, EA, and more.

I was happy for everyone. Our hard work paid off. It has been 4 years now since I was at DigiPen. I have been at Bungie longer than I have at DigiPen but I still remember those days vividly. The long nights, the back and forth on game design and technology, the amount of shit we had to do for classes. I would not trade a single day from those 4 years for anything else. It truly was a magical place where maybe your dreams could come true. And with a lot of passion, hard work, and discipline, my dream of making a game came true. Everything else after is just a bonus.

I hope you enjoyed reading my brief journey of the good times future me. And for those that are not me, I hope to inspire you to pursue your dreams.