Ritual Defeat in SF4 and (more) Lessons from Term 1

First, I was absolutely destroyed, for the third time now, by GD23 Andy in yet another poor SF4 showing. It was the finals this time, and it was during our party thrown for the new GD class (GD24). I even thought I had counter-picked my opponent's Blanka with a surprise switch from Sakura to Honda. Big mistake. At some point since I last played him, Honda was hard nerfed, and the priority battles he used to win uncontested now trade in very painful ways. I was dizzied in my first round before I knew what was happening.

It would have been humiliating if I wasn't so used to it by now. ;)

Good party, though! Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I enjoyed running it, and I managed to meet a few people that I didn't know before. A good deal of the burden of running the show was lifted from me thanks to fellow 23s Sean, Dave, and Ian. Thanks guys!

Anyway, back to the serious business of learning to design, create, and manage games. This is a couple of weeks overdue, but I have a short list of pointers for anyone entering the school behind me.

1. Excel in every way you can, but strike a balance.

I've written at length about managing your time and focusing on the important tasks. Do that. Assuming you are like me, you have to balance your desire to be awesome with the abilities of your instructors and peers to reward you for it. I believe the extra hours I spent in Sketchup and Powerpoint and Photoshop and writing my guts out in Word have established me as one of the hardest-working students here, but I stressed myself out and my grades in some cases are only marginally better than the people here who are opting for the path of least resistance.

2. Double-check that every assignment has been submitted to Moodle by downloading it in a separate window, ideally on a separate machine, and then check it a third time later.

3. If you can't be on time, come to school early. There is a short list of people in my class that are habitually late. I'm not convinced I can rely on them to deliver, and that will affect my choices for teammates as time wears on. I expect it will have similar effects on our instructors working in the industry when our resumes cross their desks.

4. Follow Directions. With so many instructors, classes, and students, it can be challenging to keep things straight. Even the instructors occasionally fail when communicating exactly what's required. At the end of the day, though, you are responsible for your work and your learning here. Following the assignment directions is the quickest path to good grades. Use your eyes and rely on yourself.

5. Know Your Role. As a student, you're here to learn. As a friend of mine once said when I was interviewing at BioWare, "be awesome and be humble." I`ve noticed a lot of bruised egos getting in the way of learning here at VFS, and the sooner you get past the impulse to protect yourself you learn that being wrong, especially at school, is awesome.

You can boil this all down to taking this seriously. Have fun, get drunk, play games whenever you can, make friends, but expect to spend at least 60 hours a week transforming yourself into a professional skilled and lucky enough to work alongside the awesome people making the games you love.

I feel like I've been standing on a soapbox too often lately, but as our group projects get into full swing I'm becoming more aware of, and less forgiving of, people who are giving half an effort. There's just too much at stake.

The next few posts will be more fun, though. I promise. Thanks for stopping by!