I've been fortunate to squeeze in about 15 hours of Mass Effect 3 over the past few weeks, and I love it. It's a bit glitchy, especially during the in-game cinematics, but those rare lapses are easily forgiven thanks to consistently pretty environments, dramatic and rewarding character abilities, and (especially) an interesting cast of characters that you can identify with. The guys and gals responsible for the aliens in ME deserve medals, both for how they look and animate, but also how they speak (good job, writers), and how they sound (good job, voice-actors). I genuinely care about almost every character in the game, and I want to be their hero.
The next paragraph is full of spoilers.
I was treated to several sombre moments during those 15 hours. I said goodbye to Mordin and watched him heroically cure the genophage while singing his version of the Major-General's Song softly under his breath—his singing provided one of my favourite moments in ME2. I said goodbye to Thane while reading scripture with his son. I wanted Legion's AI people to experience their awakening, but wasn't willing to sacrifice the Quarians for it.
My point is that in each of these situations I was genuinely feeling something that was much more far-reaching than what many might even consider is possible through this medium. I've been genuinely sad for these characters, and deeply conflicted in what choices to make. Hearing Mordin vehemently admit that he was wrong before sacrificing himself—seeing him close his eyes and hearing his characteristic sharp intake of breath as the lift took him to the top of the tower for his final act—this was cathartic and satisfying in ways that good novels and movies have only occasionally made me feel. Do you remember how you felt when Sia's Breathe Me started to play at the end of the season finale of Six Feet Under? ME3 is delivering miniature moments like these every few hours.
It's a big deal. BioWare has really achieved something here, just as they've always worked to do, and I'm pleased and even kind of absurdly proud that they're uplifting two of my passions, gaming and writing.
Anyway, to bring this ramble back around. How I felt during those moments in Mass Effect 3 are why I want to make games. I believe, like many do, that videogames are the art form of the 21st century and that these games can have enormous emotional impact. I don't think you can overstate how significant they will be over the next decades, and I'm looking forward to helping create moments that will make my players feel.
Did I mention R.O.Bit is a bit tragic? ;) In case you missed it, I provided a bunch of details about our final project over on the LiveFire Studios blog. Katie said she wouldn't play it if it made her sad, but my description of the game coupled with Grey's mock-ups might have convinced her.
http://livefirestudios.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/our-game-18/
Thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Friday, 16 March 2012
My First Piece of Games Journalism
Well, not exactly.
During the four-or-so months leading up to school I was writing for GameRant.com—you can see my pieces by searching for my name directly on their home page. I had to quit shortly after school started, but it was a good experience that gave me a greater appreciation for the news cycle and for that particular gaming news site. They focus on article depth at Game Rant, really digging in to the research for any given story.
With my writing background, I've been leery of each new class in the story stream here at VFS. After all, I took years of classes at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton learning to write, and I focused on the creative streams, especially scriptwriting. As a medium, games borrow heavily from film to tell our stories. And, as an art form, the quality of a written work is often subjective; it is rooted in the audience's experience. Sure, there are best practices and rules to follow, and these tools are extremely helpful in dissecting and improving written work, but it's far from a science when other people are involved.
So I've been worried as each new class begins that my instructors will hate my writing style and harpoon my chances at graduating with honours. That hasn't happened. Quite the opposite—my average over the story focused classes since term one is hovering around a perfect grade. That still didn't stop me from being worried on our first day of Games Journalism class, however.
Our instructor introduced himself as a notoriously hard marker with decades of games-industry writing and editing experience. He looks, sounds, and teaches like he has a real appreciation for classical art, which I almost universally detest for the praise we heap on it. He's direct—which I actually really appreciate, thank you—but when you're on edge and new to a person the 'wrong' criticism might sour your impression of them forever.
It's three weeks in, and nothing has changed, though as usual my fears were unfounded. Well, sort of. Jules has made good on all of his promises—he *is* a tough marker and he is rather direct in his criticism, but none of it is personal, and all of it is targeted to improve our writing. Frankly, I should have known. After all, a writer's ongoing job and the first responsibility they need to learn is to take nothing personally. Jules probably perfected that when I was still flicking chocolate milk on the roof of our classroom during recess. I shouldn't have worried that he would hate my written voice and sink my chances. Though it's still going to be hard work to impress this guy. I'll see what I can do.
Jules said my first piece was "publishable," though he rightfully pointed out that I was lazy and didn't cite my sources. I also let an easily missed grammatical error slip in. Can you find it?
Also, do you like the piece? Let me know with a comment.
---
During the four-or-so months leading up to school I was writing for GameRant.com—you can see my pieces by searching for my name directly on their home page. I had to quit shortly after school started, but it was a good experience that gave me a greater appreciation for the news cycle and for that particular gaming news site. They focus on article depth at Game Rant, really digging in to the research for any given story.
With my writing background, I've been leery of each new class in the story stream here at VFS. After all, I took years of classes at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton learning to write, and I focused on the creative streams, especially scriptwriting. As a medium, games borrow heavily from film to tell our stories. And, as an art form, the quality of a written work is often subjective; it is rooted in the audience's experience. Sure, there are best practices and rules to follow, and these tools are extremely helpful in dissecting and improving written work, but it's far from a science when other people are involved.
So I've been worried as each new class begins that my instructors will hate my writing style and harpoon my chances at graduating with honours. That hasn't happened. Quite the opposite—my average over the story focused classes since term one is hovering around a perfect grade. That still didn't stop me from being worried on our first day of Games Journalism class, however.
Our instructor introduced himself as a notoriously hard marker with decades of games-industry writing and editing experience. He looks, sounds, and teaches like he has a real appreciation for classical art, which I almost universally detest for the praise we heap on it. He's direct—which I actually really appreciate, thank you—but when you're on edge and new to a person the 'wrong' criticism might sour your impression of them forever.
It's three weeks in, and nothing has changed, though as usual my fears were unfounded. Well, sort of. Jules has made good on all of his promises—he *is* a tough marker and he is rather direct in his criticism, but none of it is personal, and all of it is targeted to improve our writing. Frankly, I should have known. After all, a writer's ongoing job and the first responsibility they need to learn is to take nothing personally. Jules probably perfected that when I was still flicking chocolate milk on the roof of our classroom during recess. I shouldn't have worried that he would hate my written voice and sink my chances. Though it's still going to be hard work to impress this guy. I'll see what I can do.
Jules said my first piece was "publishable," though he rightfully pointed out that I was lazy and didn't cite my sources. I also let an easily missed grammatical error slip in. Can you find it?
Also, do you like the piece? Let me know with a comment.
---
Bloody Memory Lane: How I Killed All of my Favourite NES Characters in one Afternoon
A bit of media made especially for you is a rare delight.
Seldom over the last decade has a movie, book, or videogame been so pitch-perfect that I felt the creators were some alternate-universe versions of me, delivering a labour of love whose goal was to make me happy. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (the movie) was one of these. Let's talk about another.
Abobo's Big Adventure (ABA) is simultaneously a free Flash game and a concentrated dollop of sense memory from my formative years, with each level more surprisingly delightful and familiar than the last. As a 29-year-old gamer raised on Nintendo but who was forbidden to play videogames during school days, ABA
As Abobo, the lumpy-headed miniboss from the Double Dragon games who busts through background walls to pound on the Lee brothers, you walk, swim, shoot, wrestle, and fly through eight varied levels ripped directly from several of the most beloved games of the NES era. The core mechanics of each level are different, and no matter the superstar status of a particular game character, Abobo irreverently makes them pay for the kidnapping of his son (Aboboy)—the object of desire throughout Abobo's rampage.
These murderous interactions provide a good deal of the charm in ABA ABA
In short, the game drips charm, graphic pixel violence, and crude humour, and it allows for many "older" gamers to relive their childhood glory days where one-hit kills and lengthy passwords were inherent to the medium. The team of three indy developers behind ABA
As brilliant and refreshing as ABA is, firing it up again after "wrapping" it, as we used to say, is bittersweet. Credit is due to a pixel- and byte-perfect re-creation of games that will, forever, occupy some small part of my brain, but as the surprises fade you see that ABA is simply a tribute. The “ultimate tribute to the NES,” in fact, where the 'what' has all been done before. Fortunately, the 'how' is mostly new.
The sweet, concentrated execution of so many classic ideas has maybe never been done so well in one title, but there's little on offer here for certain audiences. Younger gamers in particular—or at least those whose formative years were filled with the Master Chief rather than 8-bit Mario—might be turned off by retro aesthetics and unforgiving, pattern-based gameplay. In addition, the default keyboard controls, which feel backwards thanks to my console upbringing, can't be changed (though there is an option to play with a NES gamepad if you have the proper hardware).
At this point, I hope my recommendation for this game is clear. For fans of 8-bit Mega Man, Contra, and The Legend of Zelda, Abobo’s Big Adventure is a no-fail, laugh-out-loud way to re-experience your childhood, if only for an afternoon. Simply recognizing the tunes and characters as you progress is an enormous part of the appeal of ABA, but take all of that rosy pigment away and you still have a clever title that plays well, and best of all, costs nothing.
Intrigued? Check it out at http://abobosbigadventure.com/fullgame.php.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Term 4 - Less Learning, More Application
So, I guess our final project is here. We have taken the first steps in creating the focal point of my efforts at VFS. It feels both good and bad.
If you follow the blog you know that Term 4 was hyped as the toughest term of them all, with the full pre-production cycle stacked on top of a normal class load. The truth is that most of our instructors have taken that into account this time around, and the new and improved workload reflects that we want to spend much of our time planning our final project. There is still plenty to do, but it isn't overwhelming.
This is really good news. I'm really pleased to see my skills growing, and it's pretty satisfying to look at environments in Modern Warfare 3 or Mass Effect 3 and know that I could build them in UDK. With the assets of talented artists, of course. Still, it's nice to feel like there's a bit of breathing room before we launch ourselves full-blown into production of ROBit (our final project).
After six months of concentrated learning, we are now mostly just applying those skills and building useable assets. The artists are creating 3D characters in Maya, the programmers are coding minigames, and us writers and level designers are, well, writing and building levels.
I should admit that I *am* a little behind when it comes to Kismet, the visual scripting language in UDK. I've learned that new software doesn't come to me very easily, and the standard classroom setting doesn't work well to teach me the software (especially when the classrooms are as hot as 28 degrees). I've made a number of suggestions as to how our UDK classes could be structured to encourage good planning, better learning with lessons that would stick, and more effective personal work pipelines that we will need in the industry, anyway. Things to discuss with Dave when I apply to be a TA, and if I get the job.
Did I mention that we've made our decision on our final game? We have, and I've written about it on our dev blog over at http://livefirestudios.wordpress.com/. As a side note, I will be posting a little less here as the weekly posting schedule at LiveFire takes over that time. If you forget the URL, just google LiveFire Studios or Ikesgamingblog and click the first page that it pulls up. :)
Anyway, I'm working on some exciting projects right now. I have created a shotlist for the emotional cinematic (basically an in-game movie) I hope to make later this term, and I have some mission and environment planning to do for my UDK classes, but otherwise it's just design and management on our final project.
That should cover it for now. If you really want to keep up with my activities here at school, you should really go check out the LiveFire dev blog at the link I dropped earlier.
Thanks for stopping by.
If you follow the blog you know that Term 4 was hyped as the toughest term of them all, with the full pre-production cycle stacked on top of a normal class load. The truth is that most of our instructors have taken that into account this time around, and the new and improved workload reflects that we want to spend much of our time planning our final project. There is still plenty to do, but it isn't overwhelming.
This is really good news. I'm really pleased to see my skills growing, and it's pretty satisfying to look at environments in Modern Warfare 3 or Mass Effect 3 and know that I could build them in UDK. With the assets of talented artists, of course. Still, it's nice to feel like there's a bit of breathing room before we launch ourselves full-blown into production of ROBit (our final project).
After six months of concentrated learning, we are now mostly just applying those skills and building useable assets. The artists are creating 3D characters in Maya, the programmers are coding minigames, and us writers and level designers are, well, writing and building levels.
I should admit that I *am* a little behind when it comes to Kismet, the visual scripting language in UDK. I've learned that new software doesn't come to me very easily, and the standard classroom setting doesn't work well to teach me the software (especially when the classrooms are as hot as 28 degrees). I've made a number of suggestions as to how our UDK classes could be structured to encourage good planning, better learning with lessons that would stick, and more effective personal work pipelines that we will need in the industry, anyway. Things to discuss with Dave when I apply to be a TA, and if I get the job.
Did I mention that we've made our decision on our final game? We have, and I've written about it on our dev blog over at http://livefirestudios.wordpress.com/. As a side note, I will be posting a little less here as the weekly posting schedule at LiveFire takes over that time. If you forget the URL, just google LiveFire Studios or Ikesgamingblog and click the first page that it pulls up. :)
Anyway, I'm working on some exciting projects right now. I have created a shotlist for the emotional cinematic (basically an in-game movie) I hope to make later this term, and I have some mission and environment planning to do for my UDK classes, but otherwise it's just design and management on our final project.
That should cover it for now. If you really want to keep up with my activities here at school, you should really go check out the LiveFire dev blog at the link I dropped earlier.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
On Deck: The Toughest Term Yet
Term 3 has come to a close and I have a three-day weekend to enjoy before getting back to work on what has been hyped as the new toughest term in the program, Term 4. The reason? Term 4 stacks the entire pre-production cycle for our final projects on top of a standard course load (and if you've been keeping up, a standard course load here can become hectic in a hurry).
There is much to look forward to. I will be learning how to build machinima (in-game cinematics) in the story stream while continuing to build my skills with UDK. I will get to fully test my abilities to guide my new team, and I will have my two favourite instructors—Chris Mitchell and Olivia Bogacki—back this term to improve my processes, expand my horizons, and tell me what to do if I lose my mind.
With so much work to do it would be easy to relax a day too many and fall behind, but I keep tabs on the students who have come before; their advice usually constitutes the very practical "be proactive and work hard." I'm about as ready as I can be.
Over this break I have a list of 10 priorities that I want to take care of before I start again on Monday at 9:00AM. One of the lowest-priority items is posting what you are now reading, but when I have a lot to do I like to knock a few lighter items out of the park to build momentum for the tougher items. Here are a few of them.
1. Apply for the Associate Producer job at Irrational Games. http://irrationalgames.com/studio/careers-at-irrational/production-associate-producer/
2. Hold a LiveFire Studios meeting to discuss our priorities heading into T4.
3. Spend three hours each on making matinées and editing materials in UDK.
4. Get Pistol Reef internet-ready with the help of my Flash team.
5. Go through the business cards I collected this past term and contact the industry professionals to thank them for their time and establish connections.
You'll have noticed that some of those items are multi-parters, particularly applying for that very appealing job with Ken Levine and Co. Applying for that job involves updating a resume that will be so different from the previous iteration that I wonder if I shouldn't just start all over. Many new skills, many new featured projects, and even a new career direction. Stack a cover letter on top and you have a lot of work.
The only qualification I am missing is that I haven't shipped at least one title, but my years of experience as a manager could combine with the very targeted experience I am earning now in school to provide a strong case for equivalency. Without fooling myself, there's a possibility that I would be considered as a candidate. I don't really expect to get a call back, though.
It might make sense to hire me on paper, but if that was all it took I would have been hired at BioWare almost 10 years ago. No, I'm doing the work to get a leg up on the job hunt. I will be actively looking for work from here until I graduate. For that I will need business cards, an updated resume, and good portfolio pieces.
I mentioned the job application to one of my peers in the program—an artist named Jay—and he asked me what I would do if they offered me the job. After some discussion I realized that the only thing I could do would be to ask them to start my contract with them after school was done. Not only do I want to finish the program here and earn my diploma (with an honors average of 90+), but my team is relying on me to work my ass off over the next six months.
I'll keep you posted on my progress.
Thanks for stopping by.
Monday, 13 February 2012
Scheduling and Team LiveFire
Term three is winding down and I am looking forward to my break.
I may have mentioned that I have never worked this hard in my life. I know, I know—you hear that from people and it's easy to dismiss it, but I can quantify the claim for you by describing my average weekly schedule.
Here goes.
I have between seven and nine classes every week. Each class is scheduled for three hours, with a handful habitually only reaching the 1.5-2 hour mark, providing lab time for the remainder. Let's average that out to 25 hours a week in class.
I have major assignments due in two of those classes most weeks. Major assignments might take anywhere from five to forty hours to complete. Those are extremes at either end, and averaging them out is basically meaningless considering the range.
The time I spend at school is much more telling and useful. For terms one and two, I stayed home for about five days in total. That means I spent 55 days out of 60 at school. On average I probably did around 10 hours of work for each of those days, inside or outside of class. My schedule was a bit different in term 3, and I tried having a day off each week. It didn't go well, and I have spent the last week scrambling to catch back up.
The bottom line? I spend 60-90 hours a week on school projects. That might not seem like a lot to some people—I'm sure there are stock brokers or realtors or career criminals out there who spend 100+ hours a week doing their thing—but to most people, to me, it's a lot. As the end of each term rolls around I start to crave a little downtime for my brain. Well, I have some coming to me, though I have one more massive assignment standing in my way before I can really relax.
There are a couple of contributing factors to my excessive time spent at/with school. I want to do a good job of every assignment I touch, and I also want to maintain my honors average. I'm sitting at 93% atm. The other thing is my specialization. As a project manager I end up not only doing a fair chunk of every group assignment I am on, but I also take on the role of keeping other people rolling, setting deadlines, and organizing the workflow. This adds anywhere from 10-50% to my project workload, but someone has to do it for a project team to turn out good work, and I'm happy to be practicing the skills that I am hoping will get me hired at companies like Irrational Games and BioWare.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to polishing Pistol Reef over the break—I want to get it up on Kongregate or another web portal—and Sacrifice (my board game) is begging for some playtesting so I can get it up for sale online. That's work, too, but it's so far removed from the stressful school stuff that I am really looking forward to it.
Oh, and also? LiveFire Studios is a thing. I will be posting there a lot over the next six months. Check us out.
I may have mentioned that I have never worked this hard in my life. I know, I know—you hear that from people and it's easy to dismiss it, but I can quantify the claim for you by describing my average weekly schedule.
Here goes.
I have between seven and nine classes every week. Each class is scheduled for three hours, with a handful habitually only reaching the 1.5-2 hour mark, providing lab time for the remainder. Let's average that out to 25 hours a week in class.
I have major assignments due in two of those classes most weeks. Major assignments might take anywhere from five to forty hours to complete. Those are extremes at either end, and averaging them out is basically meaningless considering the range.
The time I spend at school is much more telling and useful. For terms one and two, I stayed home for about five days in total. That means I spent 55 days out of 60 at school. On average I probably did around 10 hours of work for each of those days, inside or outside of class. My schedule was a bit different in term 3, and I tried having a day off each week. It didn't go well, and I have spent the last week scrambling to catch back up.
The bottom line? I spend 60-90 hours a week on school projects. That might not seem like a lot to some people—I'm sure there are stock brokers or realtors or career criminals out there who spend 100+ hours a week doing their thing—but to most people, to me, it's a lot. As the end of each term rolls around I start to crave a little downtime for my brain. Well, I have some coming to me, though I have one more massive assignment standing in my way before I can really relax.
There are a couple of contributing factors to my excessive time spent at/with school. I want to do a good job of every assignment I touch, and I also want to maintain my honors average. I'm sitting at 93% atm. The other thing is my specialization. As a project manager I end up not only doing a fair chunk of every group assignment I am on, but I also take on the role of keeping other people rolling, setting deadlines, and organizing the workflow. This adds anywhere from 10-50% to my project workload, but someone has to do it for a project team to turn out good work, and I'm happy to be practicing the skills that I am hoping will get me hired at companies like Irrational Games and BioWare.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to polishing Pistol Reef over the break—I want to get it up on Kongregate or another web portal—and Sacrifice (my board game) is begging for some playtesting so I can get it up for sale online. That's work, too, but it's so far removed from the stressful school stuff that I am really looking forward to it.
Oh, and also? LiveFire Studios is a thing. I will be posting there a lot over the next six months. Check us out.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Pitching Shroud Isle
Shroud Isle is the name of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I ran with some buddies over the course of two years. It's a complex story that unfortunately never even reached its halfway point at the gaming table, though I had planned well beyond that. It's got everything, from love to betrayal; from gunzerkers to jungle ninjas; from conflict borne out of individual racial prejudice, all the way to the potential for the players' to end the world.
After spending so mich time and effort building characters and planning encounters and even creating a basic language for the natives of the island, the San'Nakkai, I have subconsciously been keeping my eyes open for an opportunity to pay all that off. I got it this term with my Creative Writing class, where we are expected to pitch a story as our final project.
Pitching a game story is a lot like pitching a game, something I have done a lot of these five months. As a side note, I am more than a bit flattered and proud to have heard from a couple of fellow students that I'm the best speaker in our class. Anyway, I've had four meetings over the past two weeks to pitch my game idea to fellow GD students and some of the excellent guys from the VFS screenwriting program. I was unprepared for the first pitch, which was unfortuate since that meeting was with a guy working as a producer in Vancouver. He was all business, and the 60 minutez I spent with him were exhausting.
The next three meetings went very well, with one listener even going as far as to say that he loved my story and thought I should pursue it to completion. Never mind that the game would rival a BioWare title for length, complexity, and production costs, it was still incredibly gratifying to have someone buy my creative work so completely.
I owe that positive experience to knowing my story well, understanding what a listener needs to hear to to keep them centered on the plot, and being passionate about the whole thing. I broke the ice first thing by asking him about his schooling, something I sometimes struggle with, and drew a map on a handy whiteboard to keep him oriented in the world as I told my story.
Most of all, I owed that later success to that first failure. I made sure to do all the things in that second pitch that I didn't do in the first, and while I hope I won't have to screw up to learn at some point in my life, I'll never expect it to happen. You learn a lot from failure.
Anyway, I'll be presenting that story in a couple of weeks, and maybe in five or ten years you'll be playing Shroud Isle or zome derivative for yourself.
After spending so mich time and effort building characters and planning encounters and even creating a basic language for the natives of the island, the San'Nakkai, I have subconsciously been keeping my eyes open for an opportunity to pay all that off. I got it this term with my Creative Writing class, where we are expected to pitch a story as our final project.
Pitching a game story is a lot like pitching a game, something I have done a lot of these five months. As a side note, I am more than a bit flattered and proud to have heard from a couple of fellow students that I'm the best speaker in our class. Anyway, I've had four meetings over the past two weeks to pitch my game idea to fellow GD students and some of the excellent guys from the VFS screenwriting program. I was unprepared for the first pitch, which was unfortuate since that meeting was with a guy working as a producer in Vancouver. He was all business, and the 60 minutez I spent with him were exhausting.
The next three meetings went very well, with one listener even going as far as to say that he loved my story and thought I should pursue it to completion. Never mind that the game would rival a BioWare title for length, complexity, and production costs, it was still incredibly gratifying to have someone buy my creative work so completely.
I owe that positive experience to knowing my story well, understanding what a listener needs to hear to to keep them centered on the plot, and being passionate about the whole thing. I broke the ice first thing by asking him about his schooling, something I sometimes struggle with, and drew a map on a handy whiteboard to keep him oriented in the world as I told my story.
Most of all, I owed that later success to that first failure. I made sure to do all the things in that second pitch that I didn't do in the first, and while I hope I won't have to screw up to learn at some point in my life, I'll never expect it to happen. You learn a lot from failure.
Anyway, I'll be presenting that story in a couple of weeks, and maybe in five or ten years you'll be playing Shroud Isle or zome derivative for yourself.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Post School Plans
This post is maybe a bit premature, but I wanted to talk about some of my potential plans once I graduate.
First of all, I really enjoy the academic setting. If you watch Extra Credits—please, please do if you have any interest in Game Design—you may have seen the episode where they discuss post-secondary Game Design education. Hundreds of people like me are graduating every few months with formal Game Design experience. This wasn't a thing ten years ago, and with game companies and publishers becoming enormous—with their triple-a titles now costing tens of millions of dollars—these companies are less willing to take risks on innovation. So where does innovation live?
At school.
You can also find it in the minds and skills of thousands of awesome indie designers out there, including more than a few entrepreneurial indie development houses. But school brings together dozens of passionate idea people and gives them the skills to implement those wacky ideas that become Minecraft and Portal.
I also love a bit of structured chaos and meeting new people and being a mentor, all of which I am finding at VFS. I have thought for a long time that I'd love to teach, too, so I am considering becoming a TA. Teacher's Assistants at VFS help teach, answer student questions, mark assignments, help with events, and do a number of other tasks as required. I think I'd be a good fit, and that it would be a good fit for me. The work/life balance I am seeing there is appealing, and I believe I would feel valued there. I will be able to bring my communications degree, five years as a professional writer, editor, and manager, and my game design diploma (and all the ancillary skills and experience) to the position.
Anyway, just thoughts for now. I need to set up some meetings with current TAs and speak to the program head to see if it would be as rosy as I think, but from here the view is just fine.
As a side note, James Portnow of Extra Credits is coming to VFS Game Design to chat with us about narrative in games this coming week, and VFS has asked me to write a short article about the talk. I'll link to that article later this week.
Thanks for stopping by.
First of all, I really enjoy the academic setting. If you watch Extra Credits—please, please do if you have any interest in Game Design—you may have seen the episode where they discuss post-secondary Game Design education. Hundreds of people like me are graduating every few months with formal Game Design experience. This wasn't a thing ten years ago, and with game companies and publishers becoming enormous—with their triple-a titles now costing tens of millions of dollars—these companies are less willing to take risks on innovation. So where does innovation live?
At school.
You can also find it in the minds and skills of thousands of awesome indie designers out there, including more than a few entrepreneurial indie development houses. But school brings together dozens of passionate idea people and gives them the skills to implement those wacky ideas that become Minecraft and Portal.
I also love a bit of structured chaos and meeting new people and being a mentor, all of which I am finding at VFS. I have thought for a long time that I'd love to teach, too, so I am considering becoming a TA. Teacher's Assistants at VFS help teach, answer student questions, mark assignments, help with events, and do a number of other tasks as required. I think I'd be a good fit, and that it would be a good fit for me. The work/life balance I am seeing there is appealing, and I believe I would feel valued there. I will be able to bring my communications degree, five years as a professional writer, editor, and manager, and my game design diploma (and all the ancillary skills and experience) to the position.
Anyway, just thoughts for now. I need to set up some meetings with current TAs and speak to the program head to see if it would be as rosy as I think, but from here the view is just fine.
As a side note, James Portnow of Extra Credits is coming to VFS Game Design to chat with us about narrative in games this coming week, and VFS has asked me to write a short article about the talk. I'll link to that article later this week.
Thanks for stopping by.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Magic Bullets
We, as a school, were very fortunate this past week and weekend to host representatives from some of my favorite developers. VFS hosts a weekend-long Game Design Expo and Open House annually, and it's always humbling and a little scary to meet people who you want to work for. With the games industry being, apparently, a tightly knit organization where everyone knows everyone else, you want to make a good impression or at least avoid making a poor one.
The presentations and Q+A sessions I witnessed Friday and Saturday were mostly pretty encouraging, with the mantra of "be awesome, be humble, be passionate, and prove it" being just as relevant now as it was ten years ago when I first applied for a Contract Writer position at BioWare Edmonton. As a side note, I may not have been anything but passionate back then, and I certainly couldn't prove the rest at the time.
Anyway, I was especially pleased to hear designers from BioWare Austin, Bethesda, and Eidos Montreal tell packed audiences how important good interactive narrative and project management—my disciplines—are to the success of their triple-A titles.
With so many hopeful students in the crowd it should be no surprise that the Q+A sessions often start off with a chorus of "what are you looking for in a candidate for position X, Y, or Z?" The short answer is always the same—be awesome, be humble, be passionate, and prove it. Sounds pretty simple, but being the best at something, or nearly so, and proving it to your prospective employer while putting your most gregarious and professional self forward and while fighting down the nervousness and worry—well, it's a lot to take on at once. Landing that great job is a long process, a lot like writing a good novel or a television script. After years of writing and editing, I know how to recognize immediately what not to do and I understand the theories of what to do well, but having the discipline to develop a good story while avoiding those traps, clichés, and bad days is a serious undertaking.
As a writer or a job applicant you are trying to connect with other people. A lot can go wrong. Your characters might be boring or hard to identify with. Their actions might be incongruous with their personalities. You might ramble on and lose your point. Your story might fizzle out during the second act. You might introduce an unwelcome and seemingly random solution to a problem that your audience doesn't get. You are almost always going to be too close to your work, and you might not realize it and let it show. Worst of all, the targets are always moving since you are dealing with people and not computer programs.
A misstep anywhere might sink your chances for success, and all you can do is recognize the pitfalls and work to avoid them while making yourself stand out. This is a long-view process. There are no certainties, and there are no magic bullets. I wish there were. Be awesome. Be humble. Be passionate. Prove it. I know, I know—I'm preaching like a self-help book, and those who know me also know that I don't always maintain the high standards I set out in writing. I always try to.
This attitude of being excellent and positive in all things, though, is always on my mind. Every day I go to school and shake my head when I see people cutting corners or having a "good enough" attitude. As I mentioned in my last post, my group formed a bit earlier than recommended, but it wasn't an accident. I recognized a group of people who have the skills and the attitude to do good work. In short, we hired each other because we saw each other displaying the qualities we wanted in team members over the course of four months.
The funny thing? It would be arguable to say that any one of us is the "best" at our chosen disciplines. What we are is ready to set our egos aside, form a vision, work hard, and make an amazing unified portfolio piece that you will be able to play six months from now.
Let me make one final point before signing off today.
I recognized a pattern from speaking to game industry veterans over the past few years. These 40- and 50-somethings joined the industry back when it was much younger, and their career-launching stories are often so removed from today's reality that they are hardly relevant (but still fun to hear). They usually start with "it was a crazy/random/happenstance event that go me my first job." Dave Warfield, the head of the GD program at VFS, was hired out of Radio Shack into QA at what would become Distinctive Software, Vancouver's first game developer. He was the entire QA department at the time, and he had no experience beyond playing a lot of games. Bruce Nesmith, Bethesda's Director of Design, had a similar story.
The game industry has matured into big business since these men were originally hired and hundreds of eager students like myself are graduating from game design programs all over the world. Competition is everywhere, and relying on a crazy random happenstance—relying on magic bullets—will get you nowhere today.
Though I'd take one if I could. ;)
Thanks for stopping by.
The presentations and Q+A sessions I witnessed Friday and Saturday were mostly pretty encouraging, with the mantra of "be awesome, be humble, be passionate, and prove it" being just as relevant now as it was ten years ago when I first applied for a Contract Writer position at BioWare Edmonton. As a side note, I may not have been anything but passionate back then, and I certainly couldn't prove the rest at the time.
Anyway, I was especially pleased to hear designers from BioWare Austin, Bethesda, and Eidos Montreal tell packed audiences how important good interactive narrative and project management—my disciplines—are to the success of their triple-A titles.
With so many hopeful students in the crowd it should be no surprise that the Q+A sessions often start off with a chorus of "what are you looking for in a candidate for position X, Y, or Z?" The short answer is always the same—be awesome, be humble, be passionate, and prove it. Sounds pretty simple, but being the best at something, or nearly so, and proving it to your prospective employer while putting your most gregarious and professional self forward and while fighting down the nervousness and worry—well, it's a lot to take on at once. Landing that great job is a long process, a lot like writing a good novel or a television script. After years of writing and editing, I know how to recognize immediately what not to do and I understand the theories of what to do well, but having the discipline to develop a good story while avoiding those traps, clichés, and bad days is a serious undertaking.
As a writer or a job applicant you are trying to connect with other people. A lot can go wrong. Your characters might be boring or hard to identify with. Their actions might be incongruous with their personalities. You might ramble on and lose your point. Your story might fizzle out during the second act. You might introduce an unwelcome and seemingly random solution to a problem that your audience doesn't get. You are almost always going to be too close to your work, and you might not realize it and let it show. Worst of all, the targets are always moving since you are dealing with people and not computer programs.
A misstep anywhere might sink your chances for success, and all you can do is recognize the pitfalls and work to avoid them while making yourself stand out. This is a long-view process. There are no certainties, and there are no magic bullets. I wish there were. Be awesome. Be humble. Be passionate. Prove it. I know, I know—I'm preaching like a self-help book, and those who know me also know that I don't always maintain the high standards I set out in writing. I always try to.
This attitude of being excellent and positive in all things, though, is always on my mind. Every day I go to school and shake my head when I see people cutting corners or having a "good enough" attitude. As I mentioned in my last post, my group formed a bit earlier than recommended, but it wasn't an accident. I recognized a group of people who have the skills and the attitude to do good work. In short, we hired each other because we saw each other displaying the qualities we wanted in team members over the course of four months.
The funny thing? It would be arguable to say that any one of us is the "best" at our chosen disciplines. What we are is ready to set our egos aside, form a vision, work hard, and make an amazing unified portfolio piece that you will be able to play six months from now.
Let me make one final point before signing off today.
I recognized a pattern from speaking to game industry veterans over the past few years. These 40- and 50-somethings joined the industry back when it was much younger, and their career-launching stories are often so removed from today's reality that they are hardly relevant (but still fun to hear). They usually start with "it was a crazy/random/happenstance event that go me my first job." Dave Warfield, the head of the GD program at VFS, was hired out of Radio Shack into QA at what would become Distinctive Software, Vancouver's first game developer. He was the entire QA department at the time, and he had no experience beyond playing a lot of games. Bruce Nesmith, Bethesda's Director of Design, had a similar story.
The game industry has matured into big business since these men were originally hired and hundreds of eager students like myself are graduating from game design programs all over the world. Competition is everywhere, and relying on a crazy random happenstance—relying on magic bullets—will get you nowhere today.
Though I'd take one if I could. ;)
Thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Being Proactive is not Always Good
The polite word for me is "driven". I like to meet challenges head on and make ambitious goals for myself, and I bring that attitude to most everything I do. I'm not sure if it's always welcome when it comes to group work, but for the most part it means I stay on top of things and have a leg up early on. It can also get me into a bit of occasional trouble—a side effect of all of this hard work is that I tend to jump to conclusions and into action early, too.
For example, I learned last January (8 months before I would start classes) that each GD class has at least one class rep, so I immediately made it my goal to be that guy. I got some funny looks from the staff here on day one when I asked about it, but we had a vote a while later and you know the rest. Win!
We needed to form flash teams for Term 2, and we could have let them work themselves naturally, but the other GD23 class rep and I chose to build them ourselves right after hearing the news. When our instructors asked for a list of our programmers to form our teams around, we handed them a list of fully-formed teams instead. Win!
After working with my flash team and having had many experiences working with others, I've formed a lot of opinions about my fellow class members. So with pre-production on our final project (and future career prospects) just around the corner, I decided to form my final project team a little early. Just before Christmas holidays we announced to our class that four of us were working together, and another group of five also stepped forward. A third of our class was suddenly in teams. Can you guess the reaction from the rest of the class? Lose!
Some people were mad. Most people were surprised. Worst of all, some people were panicked, maybe feeling they were being left behind and feeling they also should form teams. None of this was intentional, of course, and we were aware that we might cause a panic, but the alternative was for us to lie for several months. Not really an alternative at all.
In speaking with various instructors about this, it seems like we did what we needed to, but on the other hand we've also been told that we should maybe have waited before jumping into teams, and that we could expect our current group composition to change. I don't believe that will happen—I wouldn't have shacked up with my team if I wasn't sure I could rely on them to build an excellent portfolio piece—but I *am* open to the possibility that we could have disagreements or other problems as we go along, and as a four-man team there could be room for one more of the right people.
But that's a group decision.
Anyway, realizing that I'm new to the game and being eager to soak up as much experience as possible, I'm taking every opportunity I can to challenge my assumptions about everyone in the class, which is the advice we were given by one of my favourite instructors. The short version of this post is that I'm aware of my limitations and negative tendencies and taking steps to mitigate them.
I'll post about our team soon. We're working on our group identity right now and I am excited to see what our artist is going to come up with for our splash page.
Thanks for stopping by.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Interactive Narrative Homework
Yes, I know I'm WAY behind with my posts, but today will not be changing that. The following youtube videos are all going to be used in an upcoming presentation in my Interactive Narrative class. I'm sure some of you will be very familiar with the videos, and maybe we'll discuss them sometime in the future.
For now, enjoy some of the key moments of Final Fantasy III, what I feel is by far the best game in the series.
Assault on Narshe
1:19–2:35
Cyan's Loss
0:45–2:00
The Opera Scene
0:00–4:02
Welcome to the World of Ruin
0:40–2:35
Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Some Things That Went Wrong in our Flash Teams
Early on in term 1 I was speaking to another student several terms ahead about our classes. When we got to the topic of our production and team-management classes—the art and science of managing people and workflow to create quality products on time and under budget—he said "that stuff is all just common sense." He was dead wrong, of course, though I kept my opinion to myself since I was still in meet-and-greet mode.
The truth is that many people, maybe all of them, don't really know how to work well with others until they've been tested. They don't understand that their behaviors have sweeping effects on their peers, that poor attitudes and stubbornness are poison, and that ignoring the documentation or the stated purpose of a meeting is costing everyone on their team time, money, and patience. Dealing with others is harder than the most technical hard skill you can come up with because the targets are always moving. It shouldn't surprise anyone that being an effective team member is a skillset to be practiced and mastered, like any other.
I know a number of us GD23s know that now, though they may not have before our Flash projects this past term. At the outset of term two we had 6+ people interested in project and team management as potential careers. Now I think we're down to three, including myself. The common sense that is anything but scared them off.
Let's talk about some of those groups, the challenges they faced, and what I believe went wrong. First, though, I should point out that Marc and I, as class reps, sat down late last term and sorted out the groups around a strong technical core, then randomly assigned the rest. We then shuffled two people around because we didn't think they would work well together and ended with teams that, on the surface, looked very well balanced.
I should also point out that despite the problems in most teams, the games turned out pretty well.
Here's what happened.
Group 1 - This group had one member that was married to his/her ideas early on, creating division from the get-go. As time went on, this division caused bruised egos and hard feelings as the group continued to work. This problem member stopped producing and eventually stopped communicating with the team.
Group 2 - Group 2 also had a problem member that told everyone he/she wanted to work hard and improve their skillset, but then repeatedly failed to deliver. Attendance and not following instructions were serious issues that didn't improve with time.
Group 3 - With big plans and confidence, this team looked ready to succeed early on, but technical hurdles and a serious decline in engagement from most team members saw them scaling back again and again. At least one member of this group regularly made playing Skyrim for long periods of time a priority, which is obviously time that could have been better spent.
As you can see, a single team member with a bad attitude can have an enormous impact on the group, but there are also strong lessons about pre-production to take away from group 3, who were overconfident and let an impressive scope crush their spirits when the ideas couldn't pan out. In addition, ideas are cheap and everyone has them so you simply can't come to that initial brainstorming meeting stuck on one. Lose the ego, or be prepared for difficult times ahead.
To circle back to my original point, that project and team management is as complex and challenging as the thousands of people who are working in the game industry, each of those problems above could have been at least mitigated by a good project manager willing to lead a team through the "boring" stuff that is deadly important to the team's success. Careful scoping, building buy-in early, encouraging ideas, maintaining open communication, setting and maintaining deadlines and standards—these and many other leadership-related tasks and qualities will ensure success over brilliant design or amazing art every time.
Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the challenges our class went through during this challenging term. I can't wait to be one of the guys channeling all of the talent I am seeing towards a unified vision in just a few short months. :)
Thanks for stopping by.
The truth is that many people, maybe all of them, don't really know how to work well with others until they've been tested. They don't understand that their behaviors have sweeping effects on their peers, that poor attitudes and stubbornness are poison, and that ignoring the documentation or the stated purpose of a meeting is costing everyone on their team time, money, and patience. Dealing with others is harder than the most technical hard skill you can come up with because the targets are always moving. It shouldn't surprise anyone that being an effective team member is a skillset to be practiced and mastered, like any other.
I know a number of us GD23s know that now, though they may not have before our Flash projects this past term. At the outset of term two we had 6+ people interested in project and team management as potential careers. Now I think we're down to three, including myself. The common sense that is anything but scared them off.
Let's talk about some of those groups, the challenges they faced, and what I believe went wrong. First, though, I should point out that Marc and I, as class reps, sat down late last term and sorted out the groups around a strong technical core, then randomly assigned the rest. We then shuffled two people around because we didn't think they would work well together and ended with teams that, on the surface, looked very well balanced.
I should also point out that despite the problems in most teams, the games turned out pretty well.
Here's what happened.
Group 1 - This group had one member that was married to his/her ideas early on, creating division from the get-go. As time went on, this division caused bruised egos and hard feelings as the group continued to work. This problem member stopped producing and eventually stopped communicating with the team.
Group 2 - Group 2 also had a problem member that told everyone he/she wanted to work hard and improve their skillset, but then repeatedly failed to deliver. Attendance and not following instructions were serious issues that didn't improve with time.
Group 3 - With big plans and confidence, this team looked ready to succeed early on, but technical hurdles and a serious decline in engagement from most team members saw them scaling back again and again. At least one member of this group regularly made playing Skyrim for long periods of time a priority, which is obviously time that could have been better spent.
As you can see, a single team member with a bad attitude can have an enormous impact on the group, but there are also strong lessons about pre-production to take away from group 3, who were overconfident and let an impressive scope crush their spirits when the ideas couldn't pan out. In addition, ideas are cheap and everyone has them so you simply can't come to that initial brainstorming meeting stuck on one. Lose the ego, or be prepared for difficult times ahead.
To circle back to my original point, that project and team management is as complex and challenging as the thousands of people who are working in the game industry, each of those problems above could have been at least mitigated by a good project manager willing to lead a team through the "boring" stuff that is deadly important to the team's success. Careful scoping, building buy-in early, encouraging ideas, maintaining open communication, setting and maintaining deadlines and standards—these and many other leadership-related tasks and qualities will ensure success over brilliant design or amazing art every time.
Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the challenges our class went through during this challenging term. I can't wait to be one of the guys channeling all of the talent I am seeing towards a unified vision in just a few short months. :)
Thanks for stopping by.
Monday, 19 December 2011
Term 2 Post Mortem
So, four months (1/3) down. Do I feel 33% smarter? Well, maybe not, but I know the time has been worth it.
As with any school, you have to take the good with the bad at VFS—a $32k annual price tag doesn't magically give the school better contacts in the industry with which to instruct future game designers—so we have a handful of absolute stand-out instructors who are passionate and who genuinely care about making everyone's time worth that tuition. We also have a small handful of instructors at the other end of the spectrum, but fortunately you can learn a great deal from someone even if they are just there to collect a paycheque.
Anyway, it's been good. Term 2 is feared far and wide as "the Flash term" for the Flash game that is the first full game-building experience in the program. As an assignment, it spans seven weeks and many more major challenges. First time managing a team? Better learn fast, son. Lazy or unreliable team members? Engage them, somehow. Can't code in Flash? Someone in your team had better learn.
And so on. I'll post about my game, Pistol Reef, in the next few days. For now I wanted to talk about what I did well, what I did poorly, and what I learned from what was a draining but rewarding term of Game Design.
What I Did Well
* I prioritized my assignments well, put the effort where it was required, and zeroed in on what I could ignore early on. For example, I was able to avoid learning much of anything about Maya, recognizing that my only Maya assignment actually made extensive use of Photoshop. I will want to make up the time with Maya later, but during the term this provided me with upwards of 15 hours in-class that I could use for more pressing and relevant assignments. This also saved me an enormous amount of frustration that I will touch on later when I talk about learning styles in an upcoming post.
* I embraced the project manager role at every opportunity, and the feedback from my peers and instructors was very encouraging. I dealt with issues by using different management styles with different people, and the results were mostly very good.
* I made strong relationships with many of my peers and instructors.
What I Did Poorly
* I snapped on another student during a group meeting a couple of weeks ago, cowing him into silence with volume and tone. He deserved it, but it was highly unprofessional for me to lose my cool. There are thankfully only a few behaviors that will trigger this reaction in me—obtuseness and disrespect being right up there—but outbursts like that can get me into a lot of trouble, and they are never welcome in the workplace.
* I allowed myself to get run down, and the resulting cold sapped a lot of energy out of me for days. This had unfortunate sweeping effects across all assignments and relationships. What suffered most was my UDK Deathmatch assignment, which I liked, but the result was downright sloppy when set next to my previous UDK assignment. I expect my grade will still be good, but I will lose marks on polish.
What's my plan for Term 3?
* Continue to prioritize well, but be sure that my health is at the top of that list. When I am stressed and swamped I am all too willing to let my diet and sleep take the hit. The resulting colds are productivity and attitude killers.
* Be completely aware of my temper and manage both my expectations and the expectations of my peers. Realize that many people will not be as focused or as driven as I am. Setting up those clear expectations early is good for everyone involved, but it makes an especially huge difference in my ability to react and roll with the punches.
* Spend more time and energy connecting with students outside of my class. I have solid relationships with many instructors, and close friends in my own GD23 class, but it's so easy for me to ignore the 22s, 24s, and the many fine people in other classes. A surefire way to meet people is to host a game-related event at the school, so maybe I'll start with one of those early in T3.
Anyway, that's enough for now. Tune in next time for frank discussions of my classmates and the drama emerging from the formation of two final project teams (including my own) almost a full term early.
Thanks for stopping by.
As with any school, you have to take the good with the bad at VFS—a $32k annual price tag doesn't magically give the school better contacts in the industry with which to instruct future game designers—so we have a handful of absolute stand-out instructors who are passionate and who genuinely care about making everyone's time worth that tuition. We also have a small handful of instructors at the other end of the spectrum, but fortunately you can learn a great deal from someone even if they are just there to collect a paycheque.
Anyway, it's been good. Term 2 is feared far and wide as "the Flash term" for the Flash game that is the first full game-building experience in the program. As an assignment, it spans seven weeks and many more major challenges. First time managing a team? Better learn fast, son. Lazy or unreliable team members? Engage them, somehow. Can't code in Flash? Someone in your team had better learn.
And so on. I'll post about my game, Pistol Reef, in the next few days. For now I wanted to talk about what I did well, what I did poorly, and what I learned from what was a draining but rewarding term of Game Design.
What I Did Well
* I prioritized my assignments well, put the effort where it was required, and zeroed in on what I could ignore early on. For example, I was able to avoid learning much of anything about Maya, recognizing that my only Maya assignment actually made extensive use of Photoshop. I will want to make up the time with Maya later, but during the term this provided me with upwards of 15 hours in-class that I could use for more pressing and relevant assignments. This also saved me an enormous amount of frustration that I will touch on later when I talk about learning styles in an upcoming post.
* I embraced the project manager role at every opportunity, and the feedback from my peers and instructors was very encouraging. I dealt with issues by using different management styles with different people, and the results were mostly very good.
* I made strong relationships with many of my peers and instructors.
What I Did Poorly
* I snapped on another student during a group meeting a couple of weeks ago, cowing him into silence with volume and tone. He deserved it, but it was highly unprofessional for me to lose my cool. There are thankfully only a few behaviors that will trigger this reaction in me—obtuseness and disrespect being right up there—but outbursts like that can get me into a lot of trouble, and they are never welcome in the workplace.
* I allowed myself to get run down, and the resulting cold sapped a lot of energy out of me for days. This had unfortunate sweeping effects across all assignments and relationships. What suffered most was my UDK Deathmatch assignment, which I liked, but the result was downright sloppy when set next to my previous UDK assignment. I expect my grade will still be good, but I will lose marks on polish.
What's my plan for Term 3?
* Continue to prioritize well, but be sure that my health is at the top of that list. When I am stressed and swamped I am all too willing to let my diet and sleep take the hit. The resulting colds are productivity and attitude killers.
* Be completely aware of my temper and manage both my expectations and the expectations of my peers. Realize that many people will not be as focused or as driven as I am. Setting up those clear expectations early is good for everyone involved, but it makes an especially huge difference in my ability to react and roll with the punches.
* Spend more time and energy connecting with students outside of my class. I have solid relationships with many instructors, and close friends in my own GD23 class, but it's so easy for me to ignore the 22s, 24s, and the many fine people in other classes. A surefire way to meet people is to host a game-related event at the school, so maybe I'll start with one of those early in T3.
Anyway, that's enough for now. Tune in next time for frank discussions of my classmates and the drama emerging from the formation of two final project teams (including my own) almost a full term early.
Thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Presentation Skillz
This far into the year (almost 1/3 complete), we have done a LOT of formal presentations. Most of these are game concept presentations where we have a limited time—usually between one and six minutes—to explain and sell an original concept to the audience. Our audience is often our fellow classmates, but several times so far I've looked out over a selection of faces from the local gaming industry, from other GD classes, and instructors from all over campus.
Anyone familiar with pitching a script for a screenplay will understand the core of the experience. You have some key points you should hit, and above all you want to speak naturally and connect with the audience. These two goals are often linked. We have all seen presentations where the presenters are over-rehearsed, and it is very difficult to sell humour or be spontaneous if you are reading from a script in your mind. Public speaking is strangely nerve-wracking which usually magnifies any problems a person might have with presenting.
Anyway, it's been good. I established pretty quickly that I am comfortable presenting (sort of true), and I am still hearing from the other students that "I should be the guy to talk." As I predicted, this is levelling out as time goes on because the things I am good at—speaking clearly and naturally—are becoming more and more attainable by the other students through constant practice. The things I struggle with—general nervousness and making the same motions with my hands—are still very much a part of my presentations.
I look forward to presentations because it gives me a forum to talk about something that I'm proud of. I take every game concept assignment (and we have completed maybe a dozen of them since August) very seriously because I know it won't be long before I am convincing a roomful of people that my game is worth their time, attention, and money.
Anyone familiar with pitching a script for a screenplay will understand the core of the experience. You have some key points you should hit, and above all you want to speak naturally and connect with the audience. These two goals are often linked. We have all seen presentations where the presenters are over-rehearsed, and it is very difficult to sell humour or be spontaneous if you are reading from a script in your mind. Public speaking is strangely nerve-wracking which usually magnifies any problems a person might have with presenting.
Anyway, it's been good. I established pretty quickly that I am comfortable presenting (sort of true), and I am still hearing from the other students that "I should be the guy to talk." As I predicted, this is levelling out as time goes on because the things I am good at—speaking clearly and naturally—are becoming more and more attainable by the other students through constant practice. The things I struggle with—general nervousness and making the same motions with my hands—are still very much a part of my presentations.
I look forward to presentations because it gives me a forum to talk about something that I'm proud of. I take every game concept assignment (and we have completed maybe a dozen of them since August) very seriously because I know it won't be long before I am convincing a roomful of people that my game is worth their time, attention, and money.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
UDK is Now my Acquiantance
It's been a week again already, and class is just minutes way so I'll need to keep this
We've been introduced to some new software again this term, which is no surprise. Being brand new to UDK and heading for the Level Design stream, I decided to spend some serious time with it over the weekend as I prepared for our first "architectural" level. The tutorials at 3DBuzz.com are pretty good, and I spent a LOT of time on that first level, but it turned out great. Have a look.
It's just a couple of large rooms, but I have just shy of 500 static meshes in there, many of which are in the ceilings as pipes and wires, or disguising the frankly ugly and unnaturally sharp architecture you get when you apply materials to the bare walls.
Anyway, I have a lot yet to learn, especially when it comes to the lighting, sound, and fluid actors (like water). You can't see it in the screens, but there is a layer of water under the grates. I would have liked to have had a very subtle dripping sound, but I didn't have access to that.
Anyway, class time. Let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by.
We've been introduced to some new software again this term, which is no surprise. Being brand new to UDK and heading for the Level Design stream, I decided to spend some serious time with it over the weekend as I prepared for our first "architectural" level. The tutorials at 3DBuzz.com are pretty good, and I spent a LOT of time on that first level, but it turned out great. Have a look.
It's just a couple of large rooms, but I have just shy of 500 static meshes in there, many of which are in the ceilings as pipes and wires, or disguising the frankly ugly and unnaturally sharp architecture you get when you apply materials to the bare walls.
Anyway, I have a lot yet to learn, especially when it comes to the lighting, sound, and fluid actors (like water). You can't see it in the screens, but there is a layer of water under the grates. I would have liked to have had a very subtle dripping sound, but I didn't have access to that.
Anyway, class time. Let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Progress Made
Time keeps on tripping. :)
Let's talk about grades. My average is sitting around the 94% mark, even with a disappointing showing in Visual Design Principals (if you're coming into the program, spend five hours with Photoshop and some online tutorials and you'll be fine). I suspect I'm in the top 10th percentile in my class. Having said that, I would be surprised if many of my classmates are not sitting above an 80%.
Good grades like those are easy to come by in the first term of the program. Really good grades—honors are 90%+—are pretty hard to hold on to as an average, and it will only get harder as our instructors expect more from us and the technology keeps expanding. So far this term we have ProTools, UDK, Flash, and Maya on our plates. I'm gotten pretty comfortable with UDK, but the others are still relative strangers to me. Hopefully I can change that over the next few weeks.
Grades are not the point of the program, but I want to market myself as an honors student and I have no doubt it will provide a small edge over the many people competing for those same jobs, assuming my portfolio stands up. I'm still waiting on a few grades from last term, and I am especially anxious to learn how my board game stacked up. I'll post about it when I can.
The Flash project keeps rolling, and while there are still some questions to be answered, everyone is doing their part and the talents are fitting together pretty well. Most encouraging of all, I can see a bit of excitement from my group members as Pistol Reef comes together. I love to see the art assets being pushed around by the code, and with hand-drawn vector art our game is going to have that very strong Castle Crashers look I was hoping for. We worked on some sound mixing today, and I layered a shotgun blast over a water balloon releasing air under the surface of a pail full of water. The result is a pretty convincing bit of foley, and it should make for a perfect "super claw cannon" sound effect for our game.
We have a big week coming up, with a half dozen assignments due alongside our first Flash milestone, so my long weekend will consist of 18 or more hours of homework at the school. It's just how it goes. I'm looking forward to seeing my finished UDK map and hand-drawn character sprite when I'm done on Sunday, though.
Anyway, that about covers it for now. Have great weekends, all.
Let's talk about grades. My average is sitting around the 94% mark, even with a disappointing showing in Visual Design Principals (if you're coming into the program, spend five hours with Photoshop and some online tutorials and you'll be fine). I suspect I'm in the top 10th percentile in my class. Having said that, I would be surprised if many of my classmates are not sitting above an 80%.
Good grades like those are easy to come by in the first term of the program. Really good grades—honors are 90%+—are pretty hard to hold on to as an average, and it will only get harder as our instructors expect more from us and the technology keeps expanding. So far this term we have ProTools, UDK, Flash, and Maya on our plates. I'm gotten pretty comfortable with UDK, but the others are still relative strangers to me. Hopefully I can change that over the next few weeks.
Grades are not the point of the program, but I want to market myself as an honors student and I have no doubt it will provide a small edge over the many people competing for those same jobs, assuming my portfolio stands up. I'm still waiting on a few grades from last term, and I am especially anxious to learn how my board game stacked up. I'll post about it when I can.
The Flash project keeps rolling, and while there are still some questions to be answered, everyone is doing their part and the talents are fitting together pretty well. Most encouraging of all, I can see a bit of excitement from my group members as Pistol Reef comes together. I love to see the art assets being pushed around by the code, and with hand-drawn vector art our game is going to have that very strong Castle Crashers look I was hoping for. We worked on some sound mixing today, and I layered a shotgun blast over a water balloon releasing air under the surface of a pail full of water. The result is a pretty convincing bit of foley, and it should make for a perfect "super claw cannon" sound effect for our game.
We have a big week coming up, with a half dozen assignments due alongside our first Flash milestone, so my long weekend will consist of 18 or more hours of homework at the school. It's just how it goes. I'm looking forward to seeing my finished UDK map and hand-drawn character sprite when I'm done on Sunday, though.
Anyway, that about covers it for now. Have great weekends, all.
Sunday, 6 November 2011
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!
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!
Thursday, 3 November 2011
The Road to Pistol Reef
Pistol Reef is a 2D, third-person side-scrolling shooter where an adorably furious pistol shrimp named Rotor uses his claws and an arsenal of upgradeable weaponry to battle the forces poisoning his reef home. It will feature over-the-top character and enemy designs, a cel-shaded art style, and rotating weapon nodes around Rotor's body.
Pistol Reef is the Flash game my team is making over the next six weeks.
I mentioned before that we created our Flash teams before the end of Term 1. Our first step as a team was to discuss our roles, followed quickly by me (the PM) setting a deadlined meeting for the five of us to share at least two well-developed ideas for games that we would want to make and play. The results were lackluster, but fortunately we settled on an idea that has some real potential to be tonnes of fun and a beautiful portfolio piece. Before I get into that, though, I wanted to discuss why Pistol Reef, my idea, was chosen over the others.
Let me state first that my idea wasn't better than any of the other (few) pitches that came out of our first meeting. There were some intriguing ideas there that could make for good games. Still, I've found I often get my way—my ideas get "made" in the confines of our assignments and projects—for four reasons.
1. I take the prep time and the assignment seriously so I can develop good ideas.
2. I present entire ideas (not just gameplay concepts) using the structures we have been taught.
3. I only pitch ideas that I am invested in. I pitch ideas for games I would want to play.*
4. I'm willing to be wrong. Ideas are cheap and everywhere, and better ones are bound to come along. This makes humbleness easy to come by.
* From speaking to our instructors in the industry, this is a habit I will want to break if I want to seem intellectually fecund**; somewhere between one and five percent of professionally pitched ideas end up being implemented, so I should get used to pitching everything, not just the "good" ideas.
** I don't care how haughty this sounds. It's my vocabulary and I can dig into it if I want to. :)
Anyway, I have no doubt that being older and bolder than the other students also plays a part in me getting my stuff "made", but I've been more than willing to take the passenger role during group work when someone else steps into that leadership role. Someone's gotta do it.
Back to Pistol Reef. GD has six intakes (one every two months) right now, so there is plenty of wisdom to plumb, and the most common advice has been to manage our scope for these major projects. Pistol Reef's goal length has been set to a modest five levels, and while we have some ambitious art and design aspects (20+ enemies, minibosses, bosses, and multiple weapon types) I think our team is up for it. Ideally, it will look a little like Castle Crashers and play a little like Metal Slug, and if we can achieve those goals I will be incredibly proud.
This is the first project of this scope for all of us, though, so I am being cautious with my optimism, but yesterday we received feedback from our instructors on our concept document, and it was overwhelmingly positive. The few negatives were already picked up by us and addressed as a team, and we were also warned to put our core gameplay before our sweet unique mechanics, lest we fall behind and have to scale back.
I'm hopeful, and I know we have the talent to make a good game, but we have our work cut out for us and I have some creeping doubts that I am hoping to address soon.
I'll tell you about those soon. Thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
My First, Real Test in Project Management at VFS
So, let me just acknowledge how poor a showing I've made with the blog lately. Mid October was the last time I even so much as tweeted anything. Shameful. With the new term ramping up (but still relatively, blessedly light on work), I will write here more often over November.
Let's talk about my Flash group.
The second term in Game Design at VFS is well-known as the Flash term. There are plenty of other assignments to do, of course, but creating a Flash game from nothing is "the" assignment that defines these two months. Late last term I sat down with the other class rep and we worked to create six teams from the 26 students in our class, endeavoring to create balanced groups of programmers, artists, level designers, and project managers. We succeeded (or, if we haven't, no one has brought up that they are missing a key skillset just yet).
My team is five people strong, and we are pretty well balanced overall. Over the past week and a half we have organized ourselves into roles, chosen a game concept from a shortlist that each of us brought forward, and played some sample games (Castle Crashers, Tentadrill, and Metal Slug 3) to help develop our aesthetics. As the PM, I have deadlines set for each of our team members so we have a prototype running on Monday. Things seem to be humming along. I have high hopes and a solid plan to bring this all together, but I also have some concerns. I want to expand on one of them here, and I'll do another tomorrow.
First.
Despite how often and how clear it has been communicated to us that being unprofessional is bad for us during our "year-long interview", one of our team members is habitually late for class. I'm not sure how you commit a solid year of your life and a modest year's worth of wages to an organization, and then fail to show up. Each late in GD drops a student's grade by 5% (to a maximum of 10%), not to mention the considerations given to our professionalism grades (each class has some of those, too).
Worse than all of that, by far, is that the people who are teaching us know EVERYONE we will be working with when we graduate. Those bullshit lates and unexcused absences will stick in the minds of our instructors and classmates, and they provide the easiest excuse you could ask for to pass on a resume.
You might be thinking that this is all none of my business, but I disagree. Not only am I working directly with this student—the success of my project hinges on his hard work and consistency—but his attitude reflects on us as a class. The gaming industry is a tightly knit group of people, and my time as a GD23 will likely follow me for much of my career. I want us to be known as a class of professionals that created consistently excellent work, and I know we can be that group, but not if we have people wandering into class late or not at all.
Anyway, enough preaching. The short version is that I hope this student can turn this around and destroy the reputation he has built for himself. I'm going to help him do it, if I can.
One bit of wisdom that I learned during my past career was to "praise in public and punish in private." I won't punish anyone, but I will talk to this student, one on one, and let him know what's happening. He might not really see the effects of being late; he certainly doesn't see the reasons of some instructors who are learning his name for the wrong reasons. There could be something in his personal life that I have no right or need to know about, but this understandable issue could be affecting his ability to be a professional student here.
I'll get the facts, lay out my expectations, and see how we can work around any limitations (if any) that there are. If there are none, I will expect him to be as productive, hard-working, and dedicated as everyone else on my team.
Am I being unreasonable? Got any similar stories from your semi-professional lives to share? Leave a comment, and thanks for visiting.
Let's talk about my Flash group.
The second term in Game Design at VFS is well-known as the Flash term. There are plenty of other assignments to do, of course, but creating a Flash game from nothing is "the" assignment that defines these two months. Late last term I sat down with the other class rep and we worked to create six teams from the 26 students in our class, endeavoring to create balanced groups of programmers, artists, level designers, and project managers. We succeeded (or, if we haven't, no one has brought up that they are missing a key skillset just yet).
My team is five people strong, and we are pretty well balanced overall. Over the past week and a half we have organized ourselves into roles, chosen a game concept from a shortlist that each of us brought forward, and played some sample games (Castle Crashers, Tentadrill, and Metal Slug 3) to help develop our aesthetics. As the PM, I have deadlines set for each of our team members so we have a prototype running on Monday. Things seem to be humming along. I have high hopes and a solid plan to bring this all together, but I also have some concerns. I want to expand on one of them here, and I'll do another tomorrow.
First.
Despite how often and how clear it has been communicated to us that being unprofessional is bad for us during our "year-long interview", one of our team members is habitually late for class. I'm not sure how you commit a solid year of your life and a modest year's worth of wages to an organization, and then fail to show up. Each late in GD drops a student's grade by 5% (to a maximum of 10%), not to mention the considerations given to our professionalism grades (each class has some of those, too).
Worse than all of that, by far, is that the people who are teaching us know EVERYONE we will be working with when we graduate. Those bullshit lates and unexcused absences will stick in the minds of our instructors and classmates, and they provide the easiest excuse you could ask for to pass on a resume.
You might be thinking that this is all none of my business, but I disagree. Not only am I working directly with this student—the success of my project hinges on his hard work and consistency—but his attitude reflects on us as a class. The gaming industry is a tightly knit group of people, and my time as a GD23 will likely follow me for much of my career. I want us to be known as a class of professionals that created consistently excellent work, and I know we can be that group, but not if we have people wandering into class late or not at all.
Anyway, enough preaching. The short version is that I hope this student can turn this around and destroy the reputation he has built for himself. I'm going to help him do it, if I can.
One bit of wisdom that I learned during my past career was to "praise in public and punish in private." I won't punish anyone, but I will talk to this student, one on one, and let him know what's happening. He might not really see the effects of being late; he certainly doesn't see the reasons of some instructors who are learning his name for the wrong reasons. There could be something in his personal life that I have no right or need to know about, but this understandable issue could be affecting his ability to be a professional student here.
I'll get the facts, lay out my expectations, and see how we can work around any limitations (if any) that there are. If there are none, I will expect him to be as productive, hard-working, and dedicated as everyone else on my team.
Am I being unreasonable? Got any similar stories from your semi-professional lives to share? Leave a comment, and thanks for visiting.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The Power of Planning (for me)
I had an interesting convo with Marc (the other GD23 class rep) last night while we were on a break during Level Design Theory.
We were discussing our deathmatch levels—just a few minutes shy from submission—and he made the comment that he *never* creates a theme before starting to work. He prefers to just dive in. No story. No characters. No setting for the events to take place. No real events, even. He just starts working. And apparently, it's working for him. His map was clean and functional and he'll probably get a good grade.
I'm the opposite. Everything starts with a plan; a group orientation meeting; an impromptu design doc. I answer every question I can before ever start the work itself, and this allows me (and other stakeholders) to focus on that vision. I also spend way more time than I would bet every other student in class on any given assignment. I also iterate and detail throughout. My map (I'll post it below) is detailed, functional, and I will also probably get a good grade.
The difference? I'm betting I spent almost twice as long on my map. There's another time management lesson here—it's the same as the last few—and one of these days I'm not only going to learn it, but actually act on that 80/20 rule I keep talking about. ;) I'm sure my planning will be very helpful in my chosen career path, but for now I have to be careful that it doesn't burn me right out.
Anyway, I *did* manage to keep my scope down this time around—it's a four-person map, and it is straight-forward in its design. I wanted something that would be fast-paced and accessible to multiple play styles. And, of course, I wanted the players to feel like they were in a set of crumbling jungle ruins.
We were discussing our deathmatch levels—just a few minutes shy from submission—and he made the comment that he *never* creates a theme before starting to work. He prefers to just dive in. No story. No characters. No setting for the events to take place. No real events, even. He just starts working. And apparently, it's working for him. His map was clean and functional and he'll probably get a good grade.
I'm the opposite. Everything starts with a plan; a group orientation meeting; an impromptu design doc. I answer every question I can before ever start the work itself, and this allows me (and other stakeholders) to focus on that vision. I also spend way more time than I would bet every other student in class on any given assignment. I also iterate and detail throughout. My map (I'll post it below) is detailed, functional, and I will also probably get a good grade.
The difference? I'm betting I spent almost twice as long on my map. There's another time management lesson here—it's the same as the last few—and one of these days I'm not only going to learn it, but actually act on that 80/20 rule I keep talking about. ;) I'm sure my planning will be very helpful in my chosen career path, but for now I have to be careful that it doesn't burn me right out.
Anyway, I *did* manage to keep my scope down this time around—it's a four-person map, and it is straight-forward in its design. I wanted something that would be fast-paced and accessible to multiple play styles. And, of course, I wanted the players to feel like they were in a set of crumbling jungle ruins.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
The Role of Producers
This topic has been on my mind a lot lately.
Some of you know that my long-term goal in the videogame industry is to run my own development studio—I really crave that creative control and I can't exaggerate how satisfying it is for me to see talented people working towards the same goal (especially talents I don't really share, like real artistry). I want to influence the industry, reach out to new markets, and tell amazing interactive stories.
I've had this vague daydream these past few weeks of me running from team to team throughout the day and pitching in, solving problems, discussing others, escalating when necessary, and generally just being a go-to person when you want things done. It may not be entirely accurate to the industry, but it's very satisfying, and it all fits in with my goals.
Getting there won't be easy, of course. I need to fully understand every job in the studio, even if I'm only a novice in some of them. I need strong project management skills and an unfailing vision throughout the course of a project. Harder still, I need to communicate that vision to everyone else I want to work with—they need to love the idea almost as much as I do for it to succeed.
So, with these goals in mind, I think my best bet is to focus on becoming a Producer when I graduate. Producer roles vary from company to company, but I can expect to have some creative input, lots of control over projects without being the final say on any one thing (the leads on the core team will make those calls), and a broad understanding of the project as a whole. I love making plans and solving problems, and I'm results-focused without (usually) being too hard on people. Again, I think it fits.
What this means as I move through this year is that I need to focus on taking that role—it won't come to me. Our specialization streams are Art, Level Design, Coding, and Story (I'll probably be taking Design and Story to play to my strengths). Clearly, this lacks a dedicated project management/producer stream, so I will have to create those opportunities for myself if I want to practise those skills. Taking the lead on projects, (hopefully without squahing anyone else's ambition or ideas), being a class rep, and even putting on the Street Fighter Tournament (and hopefully other events) will help me practise these skills and teach me what I don't know.
Ideally, I would find a large studio where I could act as a producer on the story or level design side of things, marrying my "old" strengths with the "new" and pursuing my focus to its fullest.
Also? Leelee Scaldaferri (an artist who is also in the GD program a term ahead of me) just acted as the guest artist for one of my favourite things on the internet, Extra Credits (she also draws the Name Game webcomic for The Escapist). Her episode is about (surprise) the role of Producers in the industry.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the challenges. Class time.
Some of you know that my long-term goal in the videogame industry is to run my own development studio—I really crave that creative control and I can't exaggerate how satisfying it is for me to see talented people working towards the same goal (especially talents I don't really share, like real artistry). I want to influence the industry, reach out to new markets, and tell amazing interactive stories.
I've had this vague daydream these past few weeks of me running from team to team throughout the day and pitching in, solving problems, discussing others, escalating when necessary, and generally just being a go-to person when you want things done. It may not be entirely accurate to the industry, but it's very satisfying, and it all fits in with my goals.
Getting there won't be easy, of course. I need to fully understand every job in the studio, even if I'm only a novice in some of them. I need strong project management skills and an unfailing vision throughout the course of a project. Harder still, I need to communicate that vision to everyone else I want to work with—they need to love the idea almost as much as I do for it to succeed.
So, with these goals in mind, I think my best bet is to focus on becoming a Producer when I graduate. Producer roles vary from company to company, but I can expect to have some creative input, lots of control over projects without being the final say on any one thing (the leads on the core team will make those calls), and a broad understanding of the project as a whole. I love making plans and solving problems, and I'm results-focused without (usually) being too hard on people. Again, I think it fits.
What this means as I move through this year is that I need to focus on taking that role—it won't come to me. Our specialization streams are Art, Level Design, Coding, and Story (I'll probably be taking Design and Story to play to my strengths). Clearly, this lacks a dedicated project management/producer stream, so I will have to create those opportunities for myself if I want to practise those skills. Taking the lead on projects, (hopefully without squahing anyone else's ambition or ideas), being a class rep, and even putting on the Street Fighter Tournament (and hopefully other events) will help me practise these skills and teach me what I don't know.
Ideally, I would find a large studio where I could act as a producer on the story or level design side of things, marrying my "old" strengths with the "new" and pursuing my focus to its fullest.
Also? Leelee Scaldaferri (an artist who is also in the GD program a term ahead of me) just acted as the guest artist for one of my favourite things on the internet, Extra Credits (she also draws the Name Game webcomic for The Escapist). Her episode is about (surprise) the role of Producers in the industry.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the challenges. Class time.
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