Filming promotional content is kind of disruptive during the development process. Early in development, there’s actually very little of the game to actually show beyond maybe some grey box environments, crashy prototypes with low frame rates and placeh…
How closely related, if at all, are a player side character creator and the tools/pieces used by the developers and artists?
When it comes to developer tools, there are two major elements involved — the user interface that allows the user to interact with the data, and the functionality of what the tool does (e.g. generate a data set that will recreate a specific character l…
A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 5: How to Senior
Continued from [A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, Part 4: Compensation]A lot of career advancement comes from expanding one’s skillset into a senior role. Many newcomers to the industry lack the necessary context to understand just what [kind of res…
Why don’t we see as many desert levels in video games compared to say… forests and sewers? What’s so challenging in implementing a desert level compared to the other environments?
Deserts have a number of things going against them as environments in video games. Here are two major challenges that must be addressed for a desert level off the top of my head:Deserts Lack LandmarksThe prototypical desert in your mind is often just l…
A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 4: Compensation
Continuing from [A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 3: When to Change Jobs]Negotiating SalaryLet’s first discuss negotiating your salary when you receive an offer. It is always worth negotiating at least a little. The process of finding and vett…
Why some fighting games have a timer in select screen?
Originally, it is because fighting games were arcade games and the machines literally only earned money whenever somebody started a new game. In-game time limits set an upper bound on how long a single play session can last, thus freeing the machine up…
A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, Part 3: When to Change Jobs?
Continuing from [A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Change Meta, Part 2: Why Change Jobs?]Unlike the binary yes/no decision of whether you should change jobs, the related question with more nuanced answers is always “when should I change jobs?” Obviously…
A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, part 2: Why Change Jobs?
Continuing from [A Gamer’s Primer to the Career Meta, Part 1]…A lot of people I’ve worked with don’t like changing jobs. The process is stressful, secretive, and often feels like a betrayal of the team — especially if you’re considering leaving …
A Gamer’s Primer to Optimizing the Career Meta, Part 1: Introduction
This blog is approaching its ninth anniversary this year. One of the things about it that I have been very proud of over the past several years is how this blog has helped young hopefuls land their first jobs and enter the game industry. I’ve receive…
Lightning Mailbag: The “I’m Really Tired Again” Edition
Questions with short answers, go!
Where does getting the age rating from rating boards like the ESRB fit into the timeline of a project?
The targeted age range is usually decided upon very early in the game’s preproduction phase but the actua…