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new trailer : burning crusades
bad quality some chick with a camera, supposedly it will be released on Wednesday at Spike TV 2006 Video Game Awards.
but for now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0WxrEmZlvE
Too late.
Rosco2006-12-11 21:25:15
Wii!
I can't belive that noone has said anything yet, who got one? I know I did!
Haven't posted anything because I've been too busy playing!!
It's awesome - most fun I've had playing games in years. The remote takes a little while to get used to, but works brilliantly and feels very natural. You can sure work up a bit of a sweat though :)
Have been playing Rayman & Wii Sports mostly - both are heaps of fun. Wii Play is OK, but you need two people to make the most of it.
Anyways, off to try and finish Rayman!
Picked mine up on the night of the 7th - which is pretty damn lucky, considering I hadn't preordered. :)
I must say, I couldn't be happier. Best console I've ever purchased. I introduced it to my family, and they've been playing the thing more than I have. The wii-sports are great for a group - especially with a couple of drinks in you.
Had a go of Zelda last night, too, and can vouch that the praising reviews out there aren't wrong. The game, visually, looks great, and the control mechanism by the wii-mote is smooth and - surprisingly - really natural. And swinging your wii-mote around to do different attacks against monsters is just awesome. ;)
I'm looking forward to trying out some more games. Red Steel and Call of Duty 3 are both on my list - I can't wait to see how the wii-mote performs in an FPS environment.
And, for nostalgia's sake, Columns. ;)
Wii got one at Blue Tounge [hahaha the puns will never end!!]
Wii sports is great for Multiplayer. Zelda is as good as you can expect a Zelda game to be and I advicing NOT getting Red steel.. it's a unpolised turd of a game. But if you wanna see for yourself buy it at EB as they have a 7 day return policy.
I've heard a lot of mixed reviews about Red Steel. Apparently it takes a while to see the real 'beauty' of the game, due to the steep learning curve and basically 'uncovering and coming to terms with the game's flaws'. The first review of it steered me right off, then the second review rekindled my interest.
Might have to hire it, though, just in case I'm not as forgiving. :)
Power does make a difference. I can admit I've gotten a majority of my strikes by literally tossin' the ball down there. ;)
But, again, for precision and such, a 'slight' gesture works well. Too soft, and you're bound to drift and curve quite a lot. Too hard, and the curve may only be slight. But to answer your question - yep! Like all the Wii sports, there's certainly an 'art' to it. :)
I'm in the same situation as Tempest - my family has played 10x more than I have :( Though I'm affraid Zelda will eat up many an hour in front of the TV...
With bowling, it's harder to spin a slow ball (and it loses it's spin quickly) so it's the most accurate way to get the ball where you want it. Though some may consider it cheating... :P
You know what's funny? I search for "wii" and "buy" on Google, select pages from Australia, and the third result on that page is...
this thread.
Wii purchase mission part 2: *failed*
I called up Gameswizard, and one of the stores said they had a few left. So I said I will be in there within half an hour (it was pretty close to where I live) to pick one up. When I got there, the same guy who answered the phone got some guy to check the back, and there were none left. "Sorry!".
I asked another guy there if I could get the phone numbers of other stores so I can ring to see if they have any Wii's. He looked up his computer and saw that none had any. So, this store I went to happened to have 4 Wii's when I called up (and remember, none of the other stores had any), and they sold all of them within half an hour since I called... uh huh.
Wii purchase mission part 3:
On the way home from Gameswizard, I was feeling a bit hungry so I thought I'd go to Liverpool Westfields again. Just for laughs, I thought I'd go to Big W again to see if they happened to have any new stock since the morning.
And holy crap, they did. There were two left, and I nabbed one. They didn't even have any peripherals left, so I had to go get an extra wii-mote and nunchuka somewhere else. Anyway, I finally got one. The end. Souri2006-12-22 02:03:43
I got home yesterday and played Wii sports and Wii Play.. and then when I went to open Rayman, I noticed the cover wasn't sealed... and then the horror of it being empty. And then slapping my forehead when I realized that when I bought the wii-mote, nunchuka, and Rayman from Toys 'R Us, I only picked up the peripherals from the counter, and not the game.
Anyway, I returned to Toys 'R Us and they replaced the display cover with a proper copy of the game.
So I've been playing with my Wii, and I just kept thinking how awesome homebrew games and whatnot would be on this with the new controller. And then I read that there are websites out there such as www.wiicade.com which you can open up in your browser on your Wii console and play.
So Wii homebrew could simply mean making something with Flash. And Flash has become pretty sophisticated over the years (MMORPG's), so the tools are out there and possibilities for making great stuff for other Wii players are great. On the plus side, you don't need a development kit, there's no need physically distribute your game. Just host it up on a website (or a site like Wiicade or others that will take up the task of hosting flash games for Wii), and you're done! The minus side - games that are limited to pointing to the screen (and not off screen).
In fact, having a browser for the Wii will be very darn useful. I'm still waiting on some wireless hardware to be sent in and my new internet connection happening, but I'm sure I'll be using the Wii to watch youTube and Google video instead of my PC.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing some of the possibilities of the Wii realized, and I hope to see big online games released. I love single player games, but I see more value in purchasing an online game. If there was something that had a simple / hard to master mechnic like Gunbound, and it also had Gunbounds scoring / avatar purchasing / rewards, I'll definitely be in on that! Souri2006-12-23 01:40:26
If anyone is interested, EA are making The Sims for the Wii, and it actually looks pretty cool! Check out the screenshots here.
I remember watching some 1up show where some guy working in Japan was commenting on some of the art styles in Western games which the Japanese wouldn't find appealing whatsoever, and I was surprised to hear that even the art from The Sims wasn't something they'd like. If you check out the pics for The Sims on the Wii, they've gone a totally cutesy route with the art style, and I'm sure Japanese gamers will dig it, since the game was developed by EA Japan.
I've been reading some other forums here and there, and it's quite interesting to read that people are still having huge difficulties in securing a Wii console.
RIOT ON! Documentary
Holy crap, is anyone watching this documentary on SBS *right* now? It's bloody hilarious!!!
HOT DOCS: RIOT ON!
Broadcast Date: Tuesday 5 December 2006
Channel: Free to Air / SBS
Broadcast Time: 10.00 pm
Classifications: Other, MA (L,S,N) (R) (CC) WS
Timeslot Duration: 80 mins
Official title / weblink if available: HOT DOCS: RIOT ON!
This documentary exposes what happened when a group of young Finnish hopefuls attempted to become rich by creating a mobile phone entertainment company that would attract millions of dollars in investment from corporate giants worldwide.
The film also focuses on two people, Jan Wellmann - the charismatic messiah and main man behind the smoke and mirrors of the short-lived Riot Entertainment Ltd, and John Hakalax - his passionate disciple turned betrayer.
Interviews with the founders, former Riot employees, clients and former investors reveals how multi-million dollar mistakes, corporate con tricks and their over-the-top spending lead to the company's downfall. (From Finland, in English and Finnish, English subtitles)
It was unbelievable. I think this user comment on IMDb summarizes it pretty well:
[quote]Riot Entertainment (RIOT-E) was a Finnish mobile game company set to produce mobile games based on famous brands from movies like Lords of the Rings, Marvel Universe (X-men, Spiderman etc.), Bridget Jones Diary etc. What made their story unique that RIOT-E originally had just 6 Finnish guys with a Powerpoint show. They didn't have any products, technology etc., but they managed to get $21 million venture capital. All this money was spent on years 2000-2002, when the firm finally went bankrupt.[/quote]
Some funny things were: they had to ramp up employee numbers from a few to over 100 in around 5 months, so friends of employees were just hired.
Their mobile games were based on the simple the paper, scissor, and rock idea. They had to dump over half a years worth of infrastructure development when they realized that it had a serious design flaw which no one noticed. It simply wouldn't work (I think this was for their online game strategy which was some silly sms game).
During the end, they managed to get the Lord of the Rings license for $4 million (the way they did it was hilarious - they had a meeting with a representative and basically insulted the hell out of him ). But the company folded and the license reverted back to the ip holders. It was estimated to be worth $50 million though!
Oh, and they blew their money in all sorts of unbelievable ways (they had a sauna and fountain in the building, latest hardware technology and things for their employees which they didn't even need, expensive concord flights etc). There were some pretty crazy parties and other social activities as well.
If you see it around in a video store, I highly recommend picking it up . It's in a similar vein to that "Dot Com" documentary where some hopefuls start a website service company called Govworks where you can pay fines and things online. They secured millions in venture capital, and then things went bad to worse with all the internal political crap, launch delays and parts of the web application that wouldn't work, competition looming, and then the dot com bubble burst and eventually they ran out of money.
Killzone 2 budget - over $20 million
Things have certainly been quiet with news relating to Killzone 2. The last E3 was a surprising non-show for the game, whereas the previous Killzone 2 E3 showing caused a bit of a media sensation with many questioning the footage that the developers showed off.
Anyway, the silence around the game has been lifted somewhat, with Gamespot nabbing some new details on the game.
Killzone 2 will cost over $20 million (US) to develop, with a team over 120 (three times the size of the original Killzone team). "We're working on the biggest multimedia project in Dutch history." says the Killzone Director.
That's some serious moola.
Aesthetically the first one was great as well, especially for the PS2, so there's no doubt they'll get the visuals going. But for 20+ mil I'm kinda hoping they fix the gameplay a bit because I really was not that impressed overal with the layout of the first. The design and code seemed to be catering more for the graphics and lost out because of it and I'm wondering if that's the team culture. Perhaps the same will happen with this one.
http://www.guerrilla-games.com/--> Looks like their hiring a boot load of new staff.
KILLA DEE2006-11-29 03:37:52
yeah they'll take a hit with the critics, but with the market anticapation being so high, they'll more than likely still pull a profit and thats what they're after. It's business afteral so they're probably doing the right thing ecconomically by hyping the crap out of it, most people who buy a PS3 will buy that game I'd say
Looking @ the ps3 titles Gran Turismo 5 and Metal Gear Solid 4 are the only 2 that are ringing the buy a ps3 alarm bell 4 me.
Medieval 2
Just a shout out to the guys at The Creative Assembly, I bought Medieval 2 Total War last week, and I have to say that game kicks some serious ass.
The last game to capture my entire weekend away like that was funnily enough Rome TW, then Shogun TW, and the only others were Kotor, Mechwarrior2 and Sid Meier's Colonisation.
Till now the first Medieval was my least fave of the TW series, but the issues with that one have been ironed out completely and its awesome. The way you guys have spread out the events like the Mongols and Black Plague and all that kind of thing really rocks and keeps you interested, and the whole heretic thing is a great addition though the Inquisitors piss me off cause they keep burning all my family and assassins are generally pretty useless.
You guys seriously have it down pat and I cannot wait to see what your doing next, I hope its a remake of Shogun or some kind of WW1 TW though after this I'll play whatever you give me.
.... seriously..... nice
Yah, this game kicks ass, I upgraded specially so I could run it at insane resolutions. Looks sooo good.
I was relieved honestly, Rome was unfortunately a bit of a plasticine-man-fest. The character art has improved a lot.
Few niggles.
-Forest battles are a mess.
-Artillery knocks walls down far too quickly.
-cavalry charges are a bit fiddly.
Yeah I agree, there are still a few path finding issues when you get into the castles and things but they were nothing like the problems in Rome. Shogun with the Mongol Invasion expansion is actually still my fave but that's just because I'm a Samurai nut. (I know its the least likely to be made but pllleeaaase remake it, I will literally, LITERALLY, be your best friend)
Yeah I gotta get a new vid card now, I have to see this mutha at top deck.
Do so Pete! It's a very satisfying game.
Jack - Shogun was fun, but I really liked the original Medieval. I still feel its risk style map is superior strategically to the one in the new version.
It was however, quite a frustrating game, until you could work out the main 'hook'. If you could secure provinces with two or more trade resources (flanders, constantinople, venice etc), you could make vast amounts of money simply by developing trade routes. This wasn't a documented feature, you needed to have a string of ships on as many coastal zones as you could. This information is probably very unhelpful to you now :)
Well you can do similar thing in this one, another thing is that when you blockade ports it makes quite a difference as well where I didnt really notice in the previous games. I really emphasize on navies now and shutting down enemy ports and keeping my own open. You just use one or two small ships to lock down each one and keep a massive primary fleet nearby to contend with any fleets that come along, it really hammers their money and civil order.
I absolutely loved Shogun, and still play it now. Did you play with the Mongol Invasion expansion? That's where the beauty was, its got all these kick ass units like Naginata cavaly that just steamroll everything, battlefield ninja who disappear when not moving and run as fast as cavalry, you get them to hide nearby and wait till the army passes then use them to take out their General. But the best unit of any TW game ever, is the Kensai sword saint, he's basically straight out of Japanese legend. He's one single guy counting as a whole unit, and you can just send him in to take on 120 guys with no probs.
What these guys are great for is the fear factor rather than the kill count. I had 16 of these guys once with honour through the roof, and I had a battle against over 2000 Ashigaru, Yari, and archers and sh*t. Basically I set them on a hill, waited for ages as the enemy sorted their sh*t out and came to me, then as soon as they started climbing the hill I ran my guys down and decimated one unit in like seconds and the entire army just piss bolted, it was fantastic. I remember the visual of these 16 guys calmly walking after thousands of fleeing soldiers, one of the best game moments of my life :)
My first two weeks:
The first two weeks of work.
Well I thought I would be nice and courteous and give everyone an update on how things are going for me at the first two weeks at work.
I can?t say a huge amount of stuff as it's really just been two weeks but I?ll give everyone an update.
Disclaimer: Members of Blue Tongue and THQ need not worry; the game I?m working on will be referred, as ?project? and nothing more will be disclosed.
I was greeted in a casual and friendly manner when I entered Blue Tongue. I meet up with my new lead designer and we talked about the project I was to work on. Just spent some time chatting and getting a feel for what the idea and goals of the game I?m working on is.
The first day was really just meeting everyone and taking my new environment in.
Soon enough though I would get the studios level design tool. It's a lot to get used to and I?m still learning the editor for all it's functions and tricks.
I gotta say I?m quite excited about the game I?m making. I can?t really give any more detail then that other then I think it's gonna be loads of fun.
The people at blue tongue are nice. To my surprise however I?m now the youngest kid on the block. At 20 years old the previously younger employee is 22. There's a diverse range of ages and nationalities and the place has a very multicultural feel while still being casual and a friendly place to work.
I guess my only complaints are things that can?t be helped. One being the 3 hours a day total travel time I take to get to work. That's a bit of a downer and I don?t have an mp3 player to pass any time on the train. Defiantly an investment for my first paycheck. When it comes on December 15th.
The other would be the cost of food in the city. It's absolutely ridiculous. The only places you can get value is your typical and more popular outlets like subway and McDonalds. Most independent restaurants charge minimum $12 upwards for a lunch that ?might? be able to fill you. It's defiantly advised to bring in your own lunch.
While being so early in production and being so new I can?t be productive 100% of the time I?m trying hard to impress and become part of the team. Been trying to make some friends as well.
Anyway. Just wanted to update you guys. Cheers.
Yeah the price of food in Melb has been my number one gripe, but after a while you'll find a few cheaper places here and there. You still get swayed to spend a lot though, I live on lygon st right dead center of all the Italian resturants, and work is like 10mins walk away, I'll go out to lunch with monetary preservation in mind, but 8/10 times I'll just go "hmm I could go pasta" $15-$20 gone. Spend that every day and you start feeling the hit.
Buuut, in Carlton and in the city the the eating's great and the women look good so you can't stay mad.
I'm sure with time you will sniff out the cheapie snack bars and value for money asian take-aways... and maybe even learn to make your own lunch ;)
Good to hear you are settling okay. It is always an anxious time starting a new job with new people, takes months the really settle in, but that is all part of the fun of a new job.
...how many times have I made lunch for work over the last 6 years? ummmm approximately zero
When I was working in the city (Sydney), I thought I'd try something different for once. So I bought a sandwich, without looking at the price list.
And it cost me $15 freaken dollars. Yeh, that's two slices of bread, some meat inbetween some lettuce, and that was it. Nothing really fancy at all. I haven't bought another sandwich since
I did try to pack lunch to save money, but just couldn't be bothered after a while. There was this really nice sushi place right at the bottom of the building I worked (they somehow managed to fit their shop in some tiny gap in the building ), so I had that everyday.
I've had a few drinks with a few Blue Tonguarian's and they're really cool.
For cheap places to eat in Melbourne if you can't be assed preparing anthing at home....
Don Don, japanese - you can get a good serving of rice and teriyaki chicken for about $5.50, it's a poor students haven! On swantson street, between lonsdale and la trobe streets.
Further down swanston street, (between bourke and Lonsdale) is Mekong Delta where you can pick up a bowl of Pho (rice noodle soup) for about $6-$7.
There's Vic Market open Thurs - Sunday, go for the $2.50 boreks!
Or you can slip into RMIT cafeteria for some cheap food. I was living off $2 fried rice for a long time.
Hope this helps mate, Good luck in you new position!
AustralianGamer.com Recruitment
It's come to the point where we have once again realised that there are not enough people involved in AustralianGamer.com to handle all the things we want to do with it. We have big plans, and bigger imaginations, and only a tenth of the time to make things happen.
Attending the game expos has increased the awareness of our humble site to such a degree that we are looking to expand our group of 5 to the much cooler looking number 8.
We are looking for 3 more people to become characters on the site. We don't believe in faceless reviewers, you need to have a personality to you.
All things considered, it is a fairly thankless job, hard work on tough deadlines, and no pay.
On the upsite, you will receive free games to review, you will have a cartoon character drawn up of yourself, and you will participate in making AustralianGamer better then the shamble of a site it currently is :)
Interested? Email yug@australiangamer.com with your details, a bit of a speil about yourself, where your from, your gaming history, what systems you own, and what you think you can bring to AustralianGamer.com. You must live in Australia by the way ... I'd say duh, but we received applications from everywhere from America to Fiji last time.
MOST important of all though, the 3 people who are selected must be able to write. And I don't just mean put basic words together, I mean they must have a certain flair and be capable of at least the most basic writing skills.
Look forward to hearing from you, any questions please don't hesitate to email me.
Beer + Drink + Souri + Melbourne
Hello everyone, I *might* be coming down to Melbourne on Wednesday, the 13th of December to attend a presentation at the ACMI building. It goes from 6-pm to 8pm, but I was wondering if anyone would be interested in coming along for some drinks after?
It would be great to catch up with everyone I've met previously, and also to meet up with anyone else. Anyway, let me know!
Ok, I just had a check at flight plans and it looks like drinks may be out of the question if I have to fly out at 9pm Souri2006-11-23 02:11:07
Network Game Wanted for Performance
Hi Everyone,
My name is Que Nguyen, and I'm a sound designer who's currently in the midst of devising a performance for an upcoming festival.
Having worked in many shows that are tightly scripted, I'm wanting to create a performance where a level of spontaneity is created via sound, light, projection and action. This freed up style of movement can occur due to all the above parameters being controlled by the actions of a particular game.
AND THIS IS WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR!
Whether the game is in development or it has been released, I need a game that is net worked, and able to be played on line with two players playing at one time. The players need to be playing with one another *not aginst one another*, so there is a supportive element between the two, without the other, the other one may as well be dead kinda scenario.
There will be live sound design in the performance to reflect the environment of the game and its actions, so its important for that to be okay. The game also must not put limitations on the sound design.. ie: a medieval environment would not match anything else other than medieval style influenced music.
My sound background involves taking a lot of recordings from the environment than processing to a desired effect, so you can say there is a blur between accoustic and digital,... but i think this would not match some game genres.
Please express your interest by emailing me at queisaway@yahoo.com.au
Please pass this message onto anyone you know who'd be interested or knows anyone that may have a lead.
And are there any other forums I could contact regarding this project? Anything helps. Much appreciated!
Cheers XX
Que
offtake2006-11-22 21:46:00
Left 4 Dead sounds awesome
Ok, there's not a lot of much excitement for a PC FPS fan like myself at the moment. Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament is coming next year, and there's little else to look forward to in the meantime. That is, until now
I'm looking forward to this title, which is coming out via Steam. I'm still pretty bummed that I won't be able to play Dead Rising since I don't have an XBox 360, but I'll get my fill of zombie killing with the recently announced "Left 4 Dead". It's always interesting to read about new ways or variations of gameplay to spruce up the well worn FPS genre, but it's good to hear that they're going for some kind of co-op teamwork survival horror thing. I think Capcom tried something similar with the Resident Evil franchise like this, but this sounds much more interesting.
The last time I played anything co-op was Bruce Lee on the C64, and a mate would jump in to play the green sumo, so if "Left 4 Dead" is at least equally as fun as that, then I'll be happy. For me, it's a welcomed change from the large scale warfare battle kind of games that I tend to play, and it does beg the question why something like this hasn't been made already (for the PC)!
Here's the press release:
[quote]Co-operative Multiplayer Action From the Makers of Counter-Strike
November 20, 2006 - Turtle Rock Studios and Valve today announce Left 4 Dead, a co-operative multiplayer action game from the makers of Counter-Strike.
"By leveraging its industry-leading AI technology and years of Counter-Strike development experience, Turtle Rock is building upon the elements that make Counter-Strike successful and applying them to Left 4 Dead," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "What Counter-Strike did for multiplayer action games, Left 4 Dead will do for co-op games."
Left 4 Dead is built atop the most advanced version of the Source Engine and introduces version 2 of Turtle Rock's artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology.
Left 4 Dead will debut on the PC in 2007[/quote]
I sorta sound like a shill for this game, but I'm pretty excited. They have some interesting AI happening, team work focussed, replay ability, and.. loads of zombies!Souri2006-11-21 03:17:15
You get to actually play as the zombies in a multiplater setting? thats pretty darn neat. To be honest when im playing my multiplayer online games though i dont want bots involved. So aslong as it supports filling up the entire roster with human players provide enough people connect to the server it sounds like a winner.MoonUnit2006-11-21 05:52:58
It'll be very interesting to see how they approach the idea of players as zombies. Quite a game design challenge, I would think. As a zombie player, I don't think many people would enjoy playing a slow moving weak target who's only real purpose is to provide fodder for the main players, and on the other hand, making them too powerful would be frustrating for the main players. It would be great if the zombie players could choose to play a more strategic role in impeding the progress of the main players as well. In any case, I can imagine it requiring a lot of play testing to balance it all right.
Oh, and please, please, please, make the levels interesting, and offer numerous objectives and even a dynamically generated story to go with it, just to make it more interesting than a simple dash from point A to point B. I can see some incredible potential in this game, and I hope the developers realise it and run with it.
If anyone is interested, IGN has a preview for Left 4 Dead. It's sounding very cool. Also, now that Steam has accepted Paypal as a way to purchase Steam games, I'm planning to get this.
EGE
Has anyone been to EGE yet? I'm interested in hearing what people think of it.
I'll be there tomorrow for the mod awards, but just wondering if it's worth setting aside the entire day to look around.
Dale
I quite enjoyed it but i kept myself busy doing filming for a project im involved in. As for just walking through i dunno how long it could entertain you. But assuming you wanted to get your hands on as much wii as possible (like 90% of the people there) you could spend many a hour waiting in lines. Some of the presentations were quite good as well!
Well, the eGames & Entertainment Expo has now come and gone, and it's taken a bit longer than I thought to put the pieces back together. To be honest the whole thing was alot bigger than I expected, and our involvement was more then we could have possibly imagined.
To start off with, you can check out my photos (along with captions) that I took during the trip here. There's ALOT of photos there, so if you're on dialup, you might want to take a break from the computer screen after you click on that link :)
You can also check out the videos we took on our YouTube page here. Of special note is the 8 Minute Tour which will give anyone who missed the event a good indication of what was there.
The most exciting part for us, apart from having our own booth with the same retro setup again, was to be able to MC the main stage on the Saturday and Sunday.
We also got the chance to do our podcast live from the main stage with an audience, you can listen to the latest episode here.
I thought that for a first event, it was really quite impressive. There was something for everyone, with strong showings from Nintendo and Microsoft, and Sony giving a keynote saying nothing quite new.
Playable versions of Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas, Viva Pinata, and of course all the Wii games, were a highlight. The PC and Xbox 360 Tournaments were a big attraction, and some people won some awesome prizes out of it.
Alot of the other booths were dedicated to universities with gaming degrees, hardware or software manufacturors, gaming websites, or local LANs. I think EA, Activision and Rockstar not being there hurt it a bit, but no doubt they will be there in force next year.
Here are a few quick photos from the event. Look forward to hearing the thoughts of everyone else who attended as well.
The lineups outside initially were pretty long actually
Daaaaaaaaaaaaytooooooooonnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Hell yeah
Our booth
The 'winner stays on' bits were a great idea. There was one for the Wii, 360, PS2 and an Intel PC
The 'bouncing castle' where they were showing playable Gears of War
Quite a turnout
Auran had their upcoming game Fury setup for people to play
We got sonic into our booth to play with himself ... as in, play Sonic 2 on the Megadrive ... oh cmon, thats funny
A fantastic industry panel line up: Michael Ephraim, (Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Australia and NZ), Rose Lappin, (National Sales & Marketing Director Nintendo Australia) and David McLean, (Regional Director Microsoft Home and Entertainment Division Australia) talk about the gaming market and their respective companies involvementsYug2006-11-22 17:23:58
Matt and myself up on stage doing our MC duties throughout the event
The Wii section had a constant line, and Link kept a watchful eye to make sure no-one pusehd in
Sonic Wii ......
As you can see, this guy dressed in a shiney purple wizard outfit drew HUGE crowds
Myself and Matt during our live podcast up on stage
The eSports Zone of course had CS 1.6 running most of the time, but it also featured such games as the locally developed War World
Myself and Matt with Vispi from Nintendo of Australia
The semi-final Fight Night 3 competition in the Xbox 360 Zone
Myself and Matt doing the Charity Auction as the last event on the Sunday.
Overall alot of fun, but very tiring (especially the nights). Looking forward to the next one already though :)Yug2006-11-22 17:24:48
[quote]We got sonic into our booth to play with himself ... as in, play Sonic 2 on the Megadrive ... oh cmon, thats funny[/quote]
How could you let sonic do that? a kitten dies every time sonic plays with himself!!!
If you have the budget for next time, a few lava lamps would enhance your booth nicely. Thanks for the quick write up and photos, I was curious to see what was there too.
[QUOTE=JohnN]
If you have the budget for next time, a few lava lamps would enhance your booth nicely. Thanks for the quick write up and photos, I was curious to see what was there too.[/QUOTE]
We were going to get some plants in there, and some other things you'd find in a typical loungeroom ... more stuff to make you feel 'at home' the better I thought :)
But what style of lounge room is the question? This year it looks like a student share house with a TV table made out of milk crates, beanbags and cosoles on the floor. Lava lamps and the likes would enhance that feel.
edit... Oh! your mean plants ;) yeah now I get it. That would also add to a uni student lounge feel a lot.JohnN2006-11-23 16:56:14
the bean bags are good, although I suspect for the punter walking past a couch would be more a inviting option.
Did you have any other direct competitors there? (no need to name them if you did)... I know this is 'diry pool' but next time you could employ the 'shiney purple wizard' to stand outside their booth ...man, I gotta stop giving these gold ideas away for free!
Egg stuck to the roof Jacky? what sort of animal are you?
Dammit, if only our booth had a ceiling, I could use the egg on the roof idea!
I don't really think we HAVE any direct competition John, unless there's other australian game / comic / review websites out there ... I know there are other gaming websites out there, and PALGN and tehw00tshow had their own booths too, but most of the online game website community get along really well.
I was there with anything interactive (wow we really should have gotten shots of our booth, someone might have) and the purple wizard dude was in the booth next to us with the similar dressed woman. I avoided them for so long before the lady nabbed me on my way back to the booth once to try to sell me file protection that apparently makes me run faster in games... they weirded us all out.
Wii marathon at Gamespot
If you have broadband and have some free time on your hands, check out the Wii marathon at Gamespot.
Click on the click here link in the third paragraph on the left.
Seems to be an interesting weekend for consoles with the Playstation 3 launching in Japan as well. There are some youTube videos already online with people disassembling their PS3's which have been interesting to watch.
Official Nintendo DS Devkit
How much? What kind of requirements do you have to meet to get your hands on one?
I tried googling but all the hits related to the unofficial devkits.
[QUOTE=boron boy] How much? What kind of requirements do you have to meet to get your hands on one?
I tried googling but all the hits related to the unofficial devkits.[/QUOTE]
I have heard rumours that there will be a general public version comming out late next year, and it will be around the AU$2000 mark. i've no idea as to the credibility of this claim tho. and I can't seem to remember where i got this info from. I'm hoping it's true tho.
ok, need your help
Hi, my name is Michael Withers. I have a few questions that hope you help me with.
I'm 18 (19 in December) and currently living in the UK but at the end of November i shall be going back to Australia. In the UK near me we have a collage course going on for games developers, but sadly i cannot join it because it is a 2-3 year course and i shall be gone end of this month. I shall be moving to Adelaide but i don't know what collage is near where I'm moving, or how to get sponsored for doing the course or even if you can get sponsored for doing a course. Also i don't know if my current qualifications will effect if i can get on the course or not, seeing as the school system is different in Australia (in the UK we goto school for 5years. not alot of time to learn i assure you, so we finish around 16/17 years old) and i don't know weather or not i have to re-take the tests to get Australian results or if my GCSE's would do.
My other question is that i don't know what program i should use to make game characters. Weather its Maya, Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max, Z-Brush or whatever. i play over 90hrs of game-play a week. i create art in adobe photoshop but i know that wont help in the games developing industry
so can someone please help me out?
Hi Michael,
I take it that you're looking at getting into art/modelling in the games industry?
I'm afraid I can't help you with courses or uni's, but I thought I'd just chime in with my advice, which is to build up a portfolio of the kind of work you want to do in the industry, as i've said in previous posts, demonstrable experience counts for more than the bit of paper you get out of uni's. If you've already got some decent stuff to show (see the forums for examples), start applying now.
If it's 3D stuff you're interested in, make some characters or a level for an existing 3D engine (pick your favourite FPS or RPG), be able to show your development process from 2D concept art to 3D and implementation in the game. In the companies I've worked for (Torus, Codemasters) Maya or 3DS MAX are the two most used, personally i'd swing towards Maya.
Even better if you can join a programmer who's also trying to get into the industry to make a demo to enhance both your portfolios.
Oh, and if you've got time for 90 hours of gameplay a week, then take at least 40 of those and get cracking on developing your skills as an artist and generating a portfolio of work.
One last thing, and I don't want to annoy anyone from Adelaide, but if you've got a choice of state, go for Victoria or Brisbane, there's more opportunity and positions available in the industry there, or at least factor them in in your applications.
Hey Reusol
Sumea has a great education page that lists all the 3D schools through out Australia which you can find here http://www.sumea.com.au/seducation.asp
Ill also direct another forum member Savarn this way as he is currently enrolled at the school located in south Australia and I?m sure he?d love to tell you about it. Neffy2006-11-11 08:09:35
[QUOTE=chameleon] Hi Michael,
I take it that you're looking at getting into art/modelling in the games industry?
I'm afraid I can't help you with courses or uni's, but I thought I'd just chime in with my advice, which is to build up a portfolio of the kind of work you want to do in the industry, as i've said in previous posts, demonstrable experience counts for more than the bit of paper you get out of uni's. If you've already got some decent stuff to show (see the forums for examples), start applying now.
If it's 3D stuff you're interested in, make some characters or a level for an existing 3D engine (pick your favourite FPS or RPG), be able to show your development process from 2D concept art to 3D and implementation in the game. In the companies I've worked for (Torus, Codemasters) Maya or 3DS MAX are the two most used, personally i'd swing towards Maya.
Even better if you can join a programmer who's also trying to get into the industry to make a demo to enhance both your portfolios.
Oh, and if you've got time for 90 hours of gameplay a week, then take at least 40 of those and get cracking on developing your skills as an artist and generating a portfolio of work.
One last thing, and I don't want to annoy anyone from Adelaide, but if you've got a choice of state, go for Victoria or Brisbane, there's more opportunity and positions available in the industry there, or at least factor them in in your applications.[/QUOTE] wow, thanks alot there man. well, i have to goto adelaide tho coz thats where my mom is. so err, yeah. ok, so if i get started on some tutorials for maya ((ive heard its VERY good for game character designs)). os you say make something..IE pixel's - full 3D chracters?
[QUOTE=Neffy] Hey Reusol
Sumea has a great education page that lists all the 3D schools through out Australia which you can find here http://www.sumea.com.au/seducation.asp
Ill also direct another forum member Savarn this way as he is currently enrolled at the school located in south Australia and I?m sure he?d love to tell you about it. [/QUOTE] yeah man, that'll be a great help, thx
Ok, yes I can help you a bit. I'm currently doing a TAFE SA course at the Tea Tree Gully campus here in South Australia. I can really recommend this course as I've enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot. It's two years full time for an Advanced Diploma and all you really need to get in is a reasonable art portfolio and completed your equivilent of high school. If you have some 3D in your portfolio already, it's a bonus but not neccisary as they said to us, that they're here to teach you that. So just show that you are creative and really have a passion to get into the industry (not that you just play games, more so that you want to make them, some people in the course are finding that they'd prefer to play games too much on the weekends instead of work on their showreels in their spare time). Show that you would do things off your own back rather than have people push you and you're a shoe-in to not just the course, but he industry as well.
I might talk to the head lecturer there on Tuesday to make sure but I think your qualifications should be fine, the only thing is that if you wish to apply for next year you'd have to apply very soon to get your chance as our system for getting into the course sometimes requires some kind of sit down test and interview through SATAC. I'll see if I can dig you up some links for you to browse. The course covers the basics of drawing through to concept art, takes you through proposals and research for the industy, and of course the 3D aspects. When I started it was all 3DS Max but this years first year students are starting with a bit of Maya first and hopefully getting more into Max next year. I believe even though there are quite a few places around which do use Maya for making games, most still use just Max for games.
And yes Adelaide is pretty small for the industry, there are only a few small studios around here and our big one (Krome Adelaide) is pretty well chock-a-block filled with guys who were with Midway Australia (used to be RatBag Games and got bought out and shutdown by Midway). But the course helps you by letting you know where to look for work (or at least points you in the right direction so you can look yourself).
[QUOTE=Savarn] Ok, yes I can help you a bit. I'm currently doing a TAFE SA course at the Tea Tree Gully campus here in South Australia. I can really recommend this course as I've enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot. It's two years full time for an Advanced Diploma and all you really need to get in is a reasonable art portfolio and completed your equivilent of high school. If you have some 3D in your portfolio already, it's a bonus but not neccisary as they said to us, that they're here to teach you that. So just show that you are creative and really have a passion to get into the industry (not that you just play games, more so that you want to make them, some people in the course are finding that they'd prefer to play games too much on the weekends instead of work on their showreels in their spare time). Show that you would do things off your own back rather than have people push you and you're a shoe-in to not just the course, but he industry as well.
I might talk to the head lecturer there on Tuesday to make sure but I think your qualifications should be fine, the only thing is that if you wish to apply for next year you'd have to apply very soon to get your chance as our system for getting into the course sometimes requires some kind of sit down test and interview through SATAC. I'll see if I can dig you up some links for you to browse. The course covers the basics of drawing through to concept art, takes you through proposals and research for the industy, and of course the 3D aspects. When I started it was all 3DS Max but this years first year students are starting with a bit of Maya first and hopefully getting more into Max next year. I believe even though there are quite a few places around which do use Maya for making games, most still use just Max for games.
And yes Adelaide is pretty small for the industry, there are only a few small studios around here and our big one (Krome Adelaide) is pretty well chock-a-block filled with guys who were with Midway Australia (used to be RatBag Games and got bought out and shutdown by Midway). But the course helps you by letting you know where to look for work (or at least points you in the right direction so you can look yourself).[/QUOTE] add me to msn please man. reusol@hotmail.co.uk i cant get more info then and you can help me out alot, if its ok
the list that Neffy has a link to doesn't look very complete!
I don't know if the universities here offer game specific courses but it might be worth checking their sites. The unis in Adelaide are:
University of South Australia
Flinders University
Adelaide University
also do a search for 'TAFE +adelaide' and you should quickly be able to find info on the course Savarn is doing and if there are any others that TAFE offers (TAFE stands for Technical And Further Education)
there are courses run by private colleges, like 'Mad Academy', but I don't know where there is a definitive list or what quality their courses are.
...and bring some shorts and sunscreen, it is going to be a hot summer in Adelaide!
I went and did a short course at Mad Academy in Adelaide, FAR too expensive for them to just run you through several tutorials in a few days.
I don't think any of the Uni's here in Adelaide are doing any kind of games course, there are several multimedia courses but they're really not specific enough. I believe they go through everything from Screen (movies & TV), Web Design, Animation and such. That's if they're anything like the multimedia courses at tafe which are in the next room down from the course I'm doing.
There's the Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center(ETC) which you can also look in to.
The education page on Sumea isn't complete - you can look at the forum thread which has a bigger list, however, the list on Sumea's education page have direct links to the game related courses.
The main criteria for inclusion in our education listings page is that there is a link to the game course, rather than a general link to the uni or institution website (which really isn't very useful).
Some places just show you tutorials and DVD?s that are already on the net or special store for purchase...some places will just lead you through the program manual and charge you 12 grand a year. Please research for yourself before committing time and money on a course that may not even give you better chances at getting a job that is so variable and changing. If it?s medicine I?ll tell you uni, but art/3d modeling there are alternatives that are as cheap as a library card + monthly internet connection...make friends with some nice artists and get tips and stuff.
Most important thing is to learn what the employable standard is and aim for that; not the passing standard for uni...that doesn't cut it to be honest.
btw some of the best artists in the 3d field are self taught.
There are many reasonable magazines out there that have feature tutorials of top industry people that can be more helpful than college...just my opinion though.
I like http://www.imaginefx.com
[QUOTE=Frostblade] There are many reasonable magazines out there that have feature tutorials of top industry people that can be more helpful than college...just my opinion though.[/QUOTE]
Students that attend these 3d training institutions will have the edge over self taught 3d artists who get their training though magazines the library and DVD's.
[QUOTE=Makk] bullocks! With the amount of resources out there today on the net, how far you want to go (in terms of development) is completly up to you.... self-taught vs formal training? doesnt matter.[/QUOTE] but while doing a course, you can still look at online tuts. so...it a bit of both. in your spare time, do alot of tuts, and while at the course, also learning. learn double quick :| self taught people are just those who did tuts and found a way round stuff themselves. course people just do it at the course. like me, you can do both
I see where this is going....
Uni wont guarantee you a job, far from it. It wont automatically make you super awesome at what you do, it wont matter much to employers in this industry, and you need to be prepared to work on other projects in your own time to fill a portfolio.
But it can open up a whole lot of resources, peers, and industry links you can take advantage of (I dont mean taking advantage in a bad way). As well as experience working in teams, dealing with task management, deadlines & clients. And very importantly: working on projects you dont like. You have to find the right institution, and you have to be proactive. It's not enough to just pass. It's expensive though!
2c (PS: I do have a degree)nexx2006-11-15 22:24:40
Hi to all
My name is Bob Mahorela and I have been working in architectural visualisation for some years now but at some stage I would love to make the jump into environment art for games. I'm a pretty useful modeller and lighting artist. Just wanted to say hello and if anyone has any advice for me on how I could make the transition please don't hesitate to let me know. Are there alot of professionals browsing this site? Will work posted get some exposure? Are there any "must reads" for the aspiring environment artist?
thanks
Hit the Developer listings on this site, find those in your local state and just send your folio out to places. Posting on places like this is never a bad idea, there are a number of industry people on here, also go to other forums and indsutry sites as well, the more exposure the better. You've got fantastic work, the lighting's great, though if your going for games then you have to make sure you can show that in a more restricted delivery like a game engine, catering to the limits of the platform at hand.
Try exporting your scenes into engines, i found out at school a few days back that some employers after environmental artists want them to have experience using the new unreal editor.
Also some objects in your scene look fairly high poly and would never be able to run nicely in a game engine, you would have to show that you can make as stunning low poly assets as well. With the ability to normal map the high detail onto the low poly models
really nice renders you got there tho.
First PC Unreal Engine 3 Game Released
And you can buy it of Steam for $14.95(US) which is like $19 Australian.
It's RoboBlitz, and from various reports, the Unreal Engine 3 editor is included, as well as Kismet (the scripting tool which allows you to create complex games. Mark Rein said that you could make a Tetris game with it, for example).
Anyway, Unreal Tournament 2007 hasn't been given an official release date yet but I'm assuming that it's still a while off yet, so this is a really nice and relatively inexpensive way to get accustomed to the Unreal Engine 3 in the meantime. The RoboBlitz developers are putting up a modding wiki soon which will be very handy indeed. More details in their forum.
I downloaded the demo, and then... found out that it won't work with my gfx card. I was hoping it would fall back and support it, but oh well. Time to upgrade Maybe when Quake Wars gets released though!
I think the developers of RoboBlitz are going to get a lot more sales of their game due to a lot of people wanting to try out the UE3 editor. I'm not sure if that was part of the plan, but it's one I think Epic should have considered doing themselves. Release the tools and a smaller scaled game (something really cool like Team Fortress or Portal for example) at a reasonable price ($20 is very reasonable!) and prepare the modding community while the main game (UT2K7) is still underway.
Having said that, I've read elsewhere that the tools were still a very work in progress, with some features still very unstable. There was some developer complaints I've read elsewhere, most responding to an unofficial complaint from the developers of some UE3 based game which I have forgotten the name of.
Hey can some1 point me towards good reference/links for Kismet and the new Ued? Or is it all hidden at UDN for engine licensees only?
RoboBlitzEditorWiki
KILLA DEE2006-11-09 17:40:19
Had a bit of a play around with it today, made a basic map and added some dynamic lights. The interface is similar but almost all the underlying systems have changed compred to UE2. It will take a lot of learning...but it'll also be quite enjoyable :D
I'll have to use it more to get a proper impression.
The RoboBlitz devs are answering questions and giving tips on the BeyondUnreal forums.nexx2006-11-11 01:18:02
Advice on climate change game idea?
Hi people,
Here's a challenge for you all!
I am a climate change / renewable energy campaigner and have come up with an idea (more properly, two ideas) for communicating through digital gaming that we can tackle climate change with renewable energy and not touch the 'nuclear option'. It sounds esoteric and weird, and it probably is, but I am convinced it could work really well as a campaign tool!
I have heaps of contacts in the energy world who like the concept and believe it would be possible to model. However, I have no contacts on the IT tech side.
I am very much in need of an interested party to bounce ideas off and help me refine the concept to the point where I can seek funding and then, hopefully, turn it into reality - involving recruiting on of you to do it.
In the short term, I am seeking someone / various people off this forum who could help me in the development stage simply by answering questions, offering advice, etc.
Anyone out there willing / able to help me out?
Very much hoping to hear from you.
Many thanks,
Tim
My advice is that you must have the required concept and design documents done, and some concept art won't go astray, if you want anyone in the games industry to look over your idea.
Developers get hundreds of "I've got a great idea" proposals from people, and to avoid the auto-delete button, you need these docs. Otherwise, you'll never get into the boardroom.
Dale
Hey Tim,
I'll give you a hand if you want.
I have very little experience in the gaming world(apart from playing of course) as I just started trying to get in, but I am an experienced commercial programmer and can probably give you hand as far as general tech stuff and programming go.
If you want my help just email me at s d smart @ gmail . com just remove the spaces.
Simon
GAME1 Melbourne roundup
Just wondering if anyone here visited GAME1 in Melbourne the weekend just gone? (except for Moon, I know you were there :) )
For anyone who missed out, check out this video for probably the best idea of what it was like to be there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjwGerpwcNg
Have to say it was a very loud and entertaining event, much more of a publisher event rather then technical or developer based. Lots of half naked women and loud dance music :)
Hands on with the Wii though was a highlight, as was meeting and talking to the people at the AIE booth and Ambit booth (the later who were showing off Bioshock ... looks fantastic).
Hey, that was cool video You should have made some commentary while you were doing it though! The expo looked pretty active with lots of stuff to look at.
I also saw the video with Moonunit interviewing you as well
Seriously, AustralianGamer should do more videocasts or whatever hip term they call that stuff now. You can't do any worse than that GameLife show!
Totally missed this post on account of losing my new fnalged password i cant change and not being bothered to dig it up for a while. Glad to hear you liked the interview! That sorta weirds me out because the stuff we do at TWS is still relatively low key (were prepping for a big launch of sorts later) and when people meet me at EGE and tell me they enjoyed our content or something is kinda weird. But cool ofcourse.
And as much as were trying to put our stake in the video cast market as it were at TWS, you guys from AG work so well together i imagine youd probably nail it :P
It took a year to do - Post Mortem
It took a year to do ? Post mortem from the start of my studies to the acquiring of my first industry job.
This isn?t written to toot my own horn or to fulfill my ego. What is written below are the truthful accounts of some of the events that occurred while I spent almost a year studying to get a design related job in the industry, the good and the bad.
The first step ? The completion of school and the choice to self teach.
I finished my high school education late 2005 and to much relief. The stress of cluttered exams and essentially tests that dictate your ongoing availability to study at universities and tafe is always very high.
But I guess I wasn?t as stressed as some people. I had a very fixed and direct idea of what I wanted to move into after high school. I wanted to become a game designer.
[For those still in high school who read this. Take my advice: If you plan to go into education straight after completing high school. For gods sake find a job that you believe you can enjoy and find out what you need to acquire that job. Don?t make the common mistake of so many of ?I?ll think about that later.? As a rule of thumb? have a basic idea by halfway through year 12 and a researched understanding by the end of your exams. If you decide to take a year or a few months off you have some more time.]
So I wanted to get into the game industry in Melbourne. I made it a task to research while in high school what schools were available to me in terms of game design. At that time there where 6 different educational courses on offer ranging from $6000 over two years, too almost $20,000 for two years.
I?ll be honest right now, Money was one of the prime reasons I didn?t delve into these courses or apply to them. Another was that I felt these courses where? to put it politely, diverting from the more practical tools a designer in this industry might need. Family had a lot to do with it as well at the time. My parents where going through some real tight financial issues. And asking them to even assist in paying for my further education was in impossibility. And I?m glad I didn?t ask because it only got worse from there and if I did ask for assistance. I would be curtain it would?ve broken the family economically.
So I opted to teach myself. At the time I told my teachers and I can still remember the insincere comments they made? oh they said I could do it, but in such a fake and dodgy way that I knew they thought this endeavor would lead to nothing.
I?m not a bitter man. But I enjoyed visiting my school this week and making them eat their assumptions.
Starting the study ? A long warm-up
I won?t lie, when it comes to teaching yourself, the start is always the hardest. You tend to procrastinate and muck around and THEN you start to do some work.
For me this translated to a 3 month...or shall we say ?holiday? between November to the end of January, Spending most of my time playing World of Warcraft and generally wasting time.
But, I ordered three books off Amazon.dot.com. One based on teaching you the unreal engine, one based on teaching you scripting and one purely theoretical. My objective now was simple.
I had become obvious due to previous efforts that getting a ?game design? position straight off the bat was an almost impossibility. So rather then mope about that I looked at the next best thing that I could start in and that was level design.
So I got to work on that. Making it an official project and calling it ?Before20? as I was 19 at the time, a little pun I made.
The first month was dedicated to learning the editor. The book I got for it ?Mastering Unreal Technology? was around 700 pages and had about 500 of them dedicated to the editor while another 200 went to learning Maya. I didn?t complete all the chapters in a month but I did learn all the necessities to make a good start [and wrote down 40 pages of condensed notes.]
I recommend this book because from it I essentially learned unreal ED in deep detail and Maya in enough detail to be understandable and useful.
So after a month of study I would spend the next few ongoing months making my level. Not just designing it but creating the meshes and textures for it. On the side of this if I got tired of making so many meshes in Maya I would write some more theoretical documents like ?What is fun?? and ?My favorite game?
As always I uploaded my work to the sumea website to showcase people my progression and passion.
Ups and Downs ?
In the last 12 months I?ve had some highs and lows. Usually the big high followed by a deep low. This is mainly due to applications and unsuccessful interviews with studios.
People tell you not to bet your hopes on something. And usually the case is that you don?t or at least try your best not to. But none the less even when you bet nothing on an interview you still feel very low with that knowledge that regardless of how much you put in and how much you tried, that you?re not good enough.
These downs do lead to bursts of depression. People who tell you they automatically bounce back, after being rejected from an interview and more so not being told why, are possibility one of the world?s biggest lairs.
I?ve yet to find someone who feels no sadness over failing something. It?s part of our nature to strive and succeed.
However; while it would take time, it never took me more then a week to bounce back and start working on my folio and self teaching once more. One time it even took me just one day to go from disappointed depression to striving once more.
Failure is hard on us, but it?s hardly a long term thing in this context.
Near the end, the last few months ?
I learned an important thing from making that level that encompassed my own textures and meshes. There is a very good reason why large-scale games are made up of 70-150 people working on them. Trying to take on to many different development aspects was a foolish choice on my behalf. But it gave me a valuable lesion, which I don?t think all will learn. I now know the appreciation of just how much time the most simple of art assets can take.
Which this in mind and my birthday a few days passed I decided it was time to change my direction. I started to focus on purely the design and assembly of levels. This was demonstrated in the Unreal2004 level ?Two Miners?, also taking the time to create a ?level design document? to the best of my abilities.
It was these two assets that I showcased to Blue Tongue at my job interview. The job I was successful in obtaining.
Moving onwards ?
While it is true that I now have that job that I have been for so long working for. It must be reminded that the hardest is yet to come.
I may have gotten the job. But that doesn?t mean by any means that it?s securely mine. Now I must retain it.
I?m not totally sure what to expect when I walk in on the 20th, whether it?s going to be easy or a difficult challenge. This I guess we?ll just have to wait and see.
I?m trying to take steps to prepare myself best for the day. Been given 2 weeks between now and coming in I?m taking that time to learn up on the basic principles of programming. Using a book on Python, My objective is simply to cover as much as I can to make me a more rounded designer.
I want to keep this job through providing excellent service and maintaining a friendly and positive attitude. I don?t intend to suck up or weasel my way around the joint; that is not how I operate and conduct myself.
So, it has been a very long year, filled with a lot of challenges, obstacles and even some very depressing moments. But I?m happy to say that I got what I wanted by doing it the way I wanted to. It took a lot of will power.
So, all cylinders on high and full speed ahead!
Yeah, heh, now comes the hard part :)
Good for you man, I know how long you've been trying for this and its greatly deserved. Yeah the worst thing you can do now is suck up or weasel around, because once you start, you'll never stop, if you become merely a "Yes Man" then you'll never become anything more. That being said though, humility is one of the best attributes. I'd say over the last four years about 80% of my work and maybe 98% of my ideas have been thrown out, and thats just normal. Don't get cut or lose your enthusiasm if in these initial stages none of your suggestions get picked up or you waste a day writing. The fact is, is that its Design, and the more ideas and deliveries that are covered, explored, and cut, the better the Design will be, and just because that idea doesn't suit the project at hand, does not mean you wont find a place for it in another context.
You said yourself you've had your eyes opened to how long an art asset takes to create, well thats the tip of the iceberg, and you're only at the very beginning. The most important thing for a Designer to learn I think in the initial stages of their career, and its something I'm still doing, is to get a full grasp on whats feasable, what's not, and where you can afford to push the boundaries. Make friends with as many in the company as you can (that will come anyway) so that if you want to find out the best way to do something in Art or Code you can ask them.
And if you find you don't know something or you need help, even if it is something rather embarassing like simple comp operation that any normal PC user would know, just look at them and say so, because thats the way you'll learn. I didn't do uni either, I taught myself, and because of this there are a lot of little tediums here and there that I've missed out on. I've spoken a few times on this forum about my opinions on certain personality types you find in the industry, and although I may have exaggerated and the general concensus was against me, I still hold by thoes thoughts. There will be some people that will just will not give you the time of day solely because you didn't go to uni or you don't know this or that. They'll condascend, they'll talk over your ideas and just flat out insult you in front of anyone and everyone. But I'll tell you what, these people are just as much an asset to your development as the positive people, and you should acknowledge them just as much.
If there are any staff members that piss you off, don't get depressed or angry or butt heads, even if they put you down in front of others (happened to me plenty of times). The fact is, they're just Pratts, and most people in the office will know that already. Their actions make no difference to your's so just sit back, take the hit, and get one back by analysing their actions, refining what it is they're doing wrong, and learn that as a way not to do it.
It wont stop there either, when it comes the time to leave the first job you'll get the same crap again in the next but you'll be far more ready for it, and you'll be well aware of the fact that Games Industry people are just people, no more, no less.
More than likely, you're gonna have an awesome time there man, THQ is probably the best if any place for an entry level to begin, you'll probably learn more in the first year than I've been able to teach myself in the last four. But if there are times where you do feel down and you're not enjoying it, that's okay too, because I know that with my own life my greatest moments have been my failures and my worst decisions, because they have made me the guy I am proud to be.
If you need any help with anything in your initil stages, let me know.
Well done mate. Don't be too worried about the first day, or your first couple of months. I was and still am questioning myself and wondering what I can do to prove I'm worth this position - but if you don't ask those questions then you're likely to become someone who'll end up getting the boot for thinking they're god al'mighty.
You'll learn a lot, this is where it starts to become a lot of fun :)
Hey Caroo,
Taking a year to get in isn't too bad. I took over 2 years, from when I finally decided to seriously get into the industry as a programmer at the end of my 3 year uni degree.
Gettin' a job
-------------
Worse for me was that my family could afford to support me going to uni, but chose not too and said I could go to uni if I could afford to. Which meant getting a job. Luckily there's HECS available or it just wouldn't have been an option (3 year CS/Management degree). So between work (bottleshop, tutoring, exam supervision, admin work) and uni there were only a few hours a week I had to myself... which I used to play games =0).
Where's your demo's?
---------------------
When I got out I thought, foolishly, that I could get into the games industry with just my uni demo's and marks. Turns out all the companies wanted experience or game demo's. With pressure from my parents to move out, and my girlfriend already living out of home and wanting me to move in, I had to find work and get on with it. Luckily I managed to get a job developing simulation software for the defence force where I managed to get some programming experience, but still couldn't get an interview with a games company. I even took a massive paycut during this and worked part time in defence and part time as a tester at Torus to try and get a foot in.
Time for demos?
---------------
When the testing work started to dry up I went back to simulation full time and used my meagre 2-3 hours a night to start making some 3D OpenGL demo's and working on a 2D point n click adventure game. I managed to get a few interviews with Blue Tongue and Torus, but wasn't successful. However I kept applying and working on demo's to the point where my girlfriend began giving me signals that her patience was wearing thin (due to the fact that I never had any time).
Alright already! Just stop bugging us, you're in.
------------------------------------------------
Then finally, over 2 years after I started trying, at 24, Torus gave me a shot as a junior game programmer, where I was starting at the same level as guys in their early 20's and late teens, who had been programming game demos since their early teens (wish I'd started then!). Just quietly, I think Torus were taking a bit of a chance on me, due to my previous tester work, and constant pestering.
Drop in pay, jump in job satisfaction.
--------------------------------------
It was a large drop in pay from simulation, which took a bit of getting used to. You really have to leave your ego at the door, but after a few weeks I knew I had made the right decision. Since then I've had the chance to travel to UK to work for Codemasters, and now I'm coming back to work for Tantalus, and am finally going to be on slightly more than I was earning in simulation. Over 2 years after joining the games industry.
Time is precious
-----------------
My advice to anyone still at school wanting to get into the industry is to take advantage of the time you have there (oh yes, you have free time than you think) and work towards the area you want to get into with as many demo's as you can, and skip uni if you can, good demonstrable experience counts for more than a bit of paper (and it's cheaper too!). If you don't have the luxury of supportive parents and have to work then it's going to be quite difficult. Managing your time is going to be the most important thing of all so you don't become a burnt out hermit trying to make your demo's. Another alternative is to save up for a year, then work on demo's solid for 3 months, if you don't have anything good by then, take a real look at yourself and decide whether this is the right career for you. Of course if you don't have partner or any friends then you should have plenty of time =0).
And now...
----------
Unfortunately after a couple of years of programming I'm looking at maybe getting into design. Polishing my existing designs, more demo work and another paycut perhaps? Oh and also convincing the company to lose an experienced programmer for an unexperienced designer (why not promote someone from QA instead?) Don't know if I'll be able to pull it off a second time, should probably just be happy where I am, for once.chameleon2006-11-10 07:23:57
Jackydablunt:
As always mate your advice is honest and solid.
I?ve kind of come to expect the fact that there will be personally crashes. But that doesn?t mean I?ll go looking for it. Social wise my number one priority is to make friends. Not find and suss who will be a problem. They come later if at all.
I?m gonna ask questions when I need to but probably not for every little minite detail.
As believe as a ?freshmen? in this industry my goals should be to not only strive to attain my employed studios level of quality and even further. But to also be a friendly and approachable mate.
I don?t consider myself anti-social. There are some types of people that really annoy me. But I doubt I?ll be seeing any of them in a game studio.
Kris:
Thanks for the supporting advice mate. And I totally agree. We should never stop striving to try and be the best we can be. Sure we have some lazy days and get emotional lows just like anyone else. But we should always bounce back and pick up where we left off.
Chameleon:
Thanks mate for taking the time to write out your experiences. I did read it through and it?s always interesting to see how others have gone about the industry. You sound like you?ve had a tough battle as well. But hey. Look at you now. You?re in a small industry being something you consider enjoyable.
My advice to you is if you wanna be a designer. Be a designer. It might take you a while to get that position. But work towards it and who knows. And besides a designer with programming knowledge is always highly regarded I believe.
Good luck with your future endeavors mate.
Just wanted to say thanks for sharing, its allways great to hear of another persons experiences. Im amazed at your dedication. Im coming into the second year of my games based uni course and fully aware of how its allmost entirely unesecary, but i like having deadlines and being in this kind of enviroment (well, most of the time). I taught myself a lot of software applications throughout highschool and still seem to self teach more then any lecturer is actually pushing me forward (but that might be my course). I had to chuckle at the bit about the dissatisfaction from highschool teachers, my god i understand. "You want to do what? oh..." You certainly dont find this profession in any of the recommended course guide books.
Best of luck with the new job.
I hope everything's going well there Chris, I'm sure it is, let us know sometime.
Moonunit, don't think for a second the course you're doing is a waste of time. Even if only for the little crap things like learning Project and Excel, and Project planning, game engine restrictions, when to create and when to work, and things like that, courses are very helpful. You said yourself you like the deadlines and things, well learning that alone is gold.
The most important thing I think however is the contacts you make in courses. You're in there with a group of people all sharing the same goal, and potentially achieving it. You never know when in two years time some guy's gonna know a guy who knows a guy, and so on. Others may disagree but in such a tighly knit industry I think the contacts are the key.
Yeah games are creative things, and I don't know what field your focus is, but of the creative industries it'd have to be one of the more restrictive. It's dead easy to come up with "a great idea for a game" but it doesn't make it feasable, and you may need to redeliver aspects of that idea in a round about way. Courses (I at least assume) will teach you the templates and restrictions, they'll teach you the rules, and the single best way in my op to bend the rules is to learn them first.
Play Wii!
Pesonally i cant wait to just damn get my hands on it and actually see what its like for myself, its just one of those things. So i thought people would be keen to see the dates and locations of when they could get their greasy mits on the wii around australia. Rather then copy paste, credit where credits due. I found it on the aussie nintendo forums:
http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6246
bonus points for finding the sumea poster on that page :P
Ill probably be at Game1 tommorow myself, its a sorta offbranch of the auto show if you didnt know, i personally couldnt care less for the auto show but if you feel like hitting Game1 print this out first: http://www.australiangamer.com/images/stuff/game1_discount_voucher.jpg
courtesy of the guys at australian gamer, thanks guys! I lurk ;)
sick of local industry hype on sumea...
I regularly come to this site for local australian game dev news and have begun to get sick of the local praise of guys like John Passfield, Steve Stamatiadis.. etc.. granted these guys have done well but how about other Australians overseas and their achievements? I also know some veterans in Australia who never get interviewed and they get little praise... Am I alone on this?
Well it's a valid point mate. It would probably be safe to say there are a few aussies here and overseas who deserve some kind of public recognition.
But for the two examples you provided, John and Steve. These two are so commonly spoken of because they ADVERTISE themselves.
One of the keys to becoming a known industry name in my eyes.. Is that the fame wont come to you. You have to take the time to explain and show people what you're up to and what your current project is.
It comes at a cost.. Some will see you as having a big ego. But if you find a nice medium between showing your high quality work and peddling it to the public you should be getting that recognition you so mostly deserve.
What do others think?
I'd never considered it an issue before -- I dont want to invalidate your opinion because you obviously feel this way for a reason, but yeah... can't say I'd ever thought about it as an issue before.
The people you talk about have achieved a lot in their lives and therefore get exposure which then gets reported on here. If you've got any candidates, name them names, or write an article, or suggest interviewing a person I guess.
To be fair, I (and the news team) report on what we find around relating to the local game development. If there is an article related to those people you've mentioned, I don't have a problem reporting on it. I don't think their names pop up in Sumea news as often as you think though, and I can only recall articles on, say, John Passfield or Steve Stamatiadis, only a handful of times this year. Someone can google sumea and check if you like, but I'm sure they don't appear that much at all per year.
But I do understand what you're saying, and you're right, there's plenty of individuals in the industry worth interviewing or writing a feature about. I know of a few Aussie developers working overseas that would be great to have something written up about. Thankfully, Sumea now has a great news team that can do this, so we can expect some of those articles sooner or later.
If you have any other suggestions on individuals that should be interviewed, by all means, let our news team know or post their names in this thread.
thanks for your replies.. I totally understand that sumea basically grab what they can find on the web regarding any interviews of australian developers.
What is the email address of the news team to send names and details too.. ? I remember on a forum someone saying that an aussie guy was working on the game project offset? that game is looking great.
Yep, that's Rod Green. He used to work for Tantalus, Atari Melbourne House, BioWare, and he's now at Project Offset. He's actually one of the judges for the current Sumea modeller challenge as well.
You'd be surprised at the amount of Aussies working overseas. I know of a fair few (many are visitors/members on this site). Unit is working at Funcom, Kris (you'll see his Rainbow Six pics in his gallery, currently on the front page), Me109, Rod etc. I have a friend working at Shiny, but I've lost his email address.
Actually, I've been meaning to conduct an interview with the 4 or so Australians working on Quake Wars at Splash Damage. Maybe that's something the Sumea news team can think about conducting. That would be immensely cool.
The team has some interviews planned already with some industry people from smaller game companies (with people you haven't heard too often in the news) which I'm definitely looking forward to.
[QUOTE=Souri] Yep, that's Rod Green. He used to work for Tantalus, Atari Melbourne House, BioWare, and he's now at Project Offset. He's actually one of the judges for the current Sumea modeller challenge as well.
[/QUOTE]
Ah cool, I haven't heard from Rod since he left Atari... good to know he's doing well, nice guy and a great artist :)
Looking for a favour from an indie developer
At the moment I'm working on an article for Hyper about the games industry. I want to touch on the indie games scene - mainly from the pov of someone who wants one or two indie titles on their resume when they go for a job at this or that studio.
I want to speak to an indie developer - doesn't have to be one who's gone into the industry, but if they have that'd be pretty neat. They'd be quoted. I can't say there would be much attention given to your actual project, but there would obviously be maybe a couple of little details and, of course, a link to the site of the team or project itself.
Hello
Hey fellas!
I'm new here, I've been browsing for a while, so I thought I'd join and post Well, I suppose I'll tell you a little about myself.. I'm 17 years old, I live close to Adelaide, and I like games! I'm currently doing level design for Insurgency a Half-Life 2 mod. If you'd like to see some of my work, I have a little portfolio up.. here, please excuse the bareness..
Not sure what else to say.. Hi!
Requesting Australian/NZ game websites RSS feeds
As part of the plan for the Sumea game section, I'll be needing as many Australian / NZ game websites that have news feeds. If you have any bookmarked, or recommend any, I'd be most grateful if you could post them in this thread Thanks.
This could be it!
I guess I?m writing this up in boredom. Or maybe because as the last few days I?ve been thinking deeply about a lot of things related to this year. The bellow I guess you could say is the result of all my work this year.
*Disclaimer: The Company I?ve applied for will not be mentioned nor will the names of people I?ve been in contact with. As the outcome of my application is still unclear I feel it would be too unfair to disclose those things.
So. Let me bring you all up to date with the latest news. I applied to a studio in my state a while back for a level design position. I sent this application out as a ?Well. They will probably never reply.. But I gotta give it a go.?
Well I was proven wrong. They did reply. I got an interview.
That took a while to come around?3 weeks of waiting. 3 weeks of preparing and 3 weeks of biting my nails. Would I do well? Did I prepare my materials as well as I could? I even had dreams of the interview screwing up badly.
In those 3 weeks. I made sure to sort myself out. My previous interviews to other companies, while composed well where ultimately for one reason or another total failures. There were reasons for this. One of them was lack of polished material taken to the interview and this was something I really worked on.
3 weeks work and just under $45 of printing and mailing costs. I had 2 fully polished level design documents and an 11-page full colour sampling of my level design work as well as a flash key they could transfer all my work to their hard-drives. I had a mission, and that was to go in and sell myself. Making sure that when I left that studio and walked back into the elevator they had no doubts or concerns about my abilities.
I walked in 30mins early and sat down. Reading magazines until the design director and another nice bloke approached and showed me to a meeting room.
They started the usual way. Pen and paper in hand and ready to analyze me. And from the reaction I got when I laid out my materials, they seemed surprised.
They asked questions and I answered directly. No deception of my skills. What I did know I showed them in my materials and what I didn?t know I explained that I hadn?t learnt that yet but reinforced that I was quick to learn and that it wouldn?t be a large problem.
Using a scripting engine and using in-house tools where two things I didn?t know. The later is impossible for me to know before hand though so that didn?t work against me. The first one did I felt. But this is one skill of many.
They put the paper down if I remember. Started asking more casual questions. What's you?re favorite game? What do you think of next gen? I relaxed and told them the truth. I maintain my integrity that I do not oversell my abilities or myself. They did ask more in-depth questions. What did I expect to be paid? When I could start work? Questions hinting at interest but of course nothing that stated directly that I had a job at this studio.
People say that to stand out you need your own selling point. I believed I offered these guys something they might not get often in an interview for a junior.
Design.
My level called the ?Two Miners? for Unreal 2004 isn?t the prettiest junior designed level. It doesn?t have the best placement of items or the most ingenious lighting methods. But it has something else. It had game play design.
From what I can gather, the standard norm for a junior level design level is a death match level. 1vs1 to 4vs4 size. Something quite small but being so small you can really refine the visuals in it.
My map was a tactical 16vs16 map. Having pre-design documents and refinement to the playability of the map. Two teams battling for points of interest to destroy each others power core.
Add that with something else they might of not seen from a junior level designer, a detailed level designed document.
As far as that interview was concerned. I succeeded in my mission. I gave it my all and left told I would get a contact next week.
They where right, but not in the way I expected.
Usually in most studios the interview was proof enough of skills and personality shown. And it's ether a ring up saying come in for work, or a one paragraph 'sorry, you weren?t quite successful? e-mail. And if anything else were in question provided references/contacts would be accessed. This studio decided to take another approach. I was given an online test.
?The next step for you application is for you to complete some psychometric testing for us.?
For those who like me have no idea what psychometric testing is, It's essentially a series of simple choices you make to determine what kind of worker you are in the workplace. It's pretty legit as a real phychologist signs it.
But, this might mean that they have found applicants of equal skill. And if that's the case and the test is used to sort who gets hired and who doesn?t then this job might not be mine to have. I feel somewhat uneasy that a statistical test could mean the difference between a job in this industry or to continue my horrid weekend works at Coles as a shelve packer. I think any applicant would really. Personality tests are things often used by fast food franchises like KFC.
So I did the test and I?m now currently waiting. Eager to hear what this studio wants. Nervous as there is nothing more I can do to sway their decision. The position will go to who they believe will fit it best. And I guess you could call this the blank time. The time in waiting.
I?m not sure when they will come to a consensus. But I hope it's soon.
And I feel that I did as well as I possibly could. And while I have a lot of positive indicators, and many people inside and outside the industry believe this job is in the bag. I?ve learnt that assuming often leads to pain, I?ve assumed before and been burnt. Also you have to remind yourself that there are factors you just can?t control. Like other applicants, if someone comes in and offers three years prior experience it's hard if not impossible to compete with.
Until I read or hear the words from a representative of this studio ?You have the job? I will not assume so.
But I really hope so. I?ve worked damm hard and I believe I?ve proven myself a worthwhile investment.
But I promise you all this.
Yes or No, you guys will know.
Caroo2006-10-15 03:05:41
By the sounds of it, you put in an awesome effort, and I definitely wish you all the best.
And I guess you could call this the blank time. The time in waiting.
Spend that time doing more design stuff. It'll distract your head a bit, and you'll have improved more from when they last saw you. G'luck champ! @:-D
oh, psychometric testing - fun... not. In theory if you answered the questions truthfully, the test should reinforce whether your are, or are not, suitable for the job. Although even that is assuming the purpose of the test - it might not even be related to the job directly. ie the test could be used to determine if you are prone to exaggerating/misrepresenting your skills and could indicate if you portfolio is 100% legit... or it might indicate your mental health status and if you pose an 'angel of death' disposition if exposed to violent games all day, every day.
So if you don't get the job based on the test you probably would have been miserable/psychotic doing it anyway. I am quite surprised that they would do such a test for a junior position (I assume that it is a junior position from what you said). It has to be a good sign that they gave you the test at any rate. They must think that the time and resources to test you are worth it.
and let's hope a psychologist checked the test and not a physiologist ;)
good luck.
[QUOTE=JohnN]
and let's hope a psychologist checked the test and not a physiologist ;)
good luck.
[/QUOTE]
GAH!.. yeah thanks for pointing that error out. It?s been corrected.
Yeah, a good deal of people tell me not to worry about the test to much. But this is the furthest I?ve ever gone and I?d like to see it go all the way!
I wish you the best luck in scoring this job Caroo, sounds as though you've done all the right things up till this point.
Without the intention of trying to discourage you, I've seen some amazingly talented applicants denied jobs in game studios due to the management concluding that they just won't "fit in" working in a team environment ...in fact I believe this is probably the most important criteria to an employer.
However never underestimate the power of perseverance... this is the key IMO.
I generally have more faith in applicants who go the extra mile, the one's who don't take no for an answer (so to speak)... the one's who offer to do a test and then keep me up to date with their progress.
Food for thought :)
Good luck!
Well I do have to admit as much material as I?ve shown, team work is something I haven?t been able to demonstrate. For obvious reasons. I'm not in the industry and I study at home.
And personally I find counting school and uni group assignments as tangible values of teamwork to be vague and unreliable.
The reason for this is simple. In an environment where you have all groups of people. from the richest to the poorest, laziest to most self motivated, I sometimes see a Patten occur. One or two people in a team will take the bulk of the work. The other two-four will sit back and do squat and from the two hard workers something really good comes out of that team.
And the lazys get high marks for doing nothing because teamwork is usually scored as a total whole, not on individual merits.
This doesn?t always happen.. But it did happen quite a lot in school and from my friends accounts from studying at uni [a industrial design degree believe it or not] He agrees this is more often the case then not.
I got nothing against our education system; I guess it's doing the best it can. I just have a problem with people who don't pull their weight around XD
I think. For junior positions like the one I?m going to teamwork might be something your really just gonna have to take a chance on. And besides, with all these probation periods in place you can kick him out with less then a weeks notice.
It's not like these studios are making iron clad commitments. I know they always wanna get things right the first time, we all do. I just hope their not gonna see my home schooling as a ?lone-wolf? act against the world.
Cheers.
I hear ya on the 'team excercises' at school and uni. If you have colaborated on any personal projects that could be a good source of material to focus on if you are ever asked interview questions on that topic in the future - ie if you have designed a level and passed on responsibility to some one else to make part of it, and yet another person to do textures for it that would not only demonstrate team experience but also delegation skills!
also, questions on team experience may refer to the ability to recieve and act on criticism, so if you can recite samlpes of that (such as positive actions you have underdaken as a response to comments posted about your work in a forum) that would also be fine material to bring up at interview time.
so time for you to start a project with some friends and take positive action from crits people have given you!
Well, sounds like you've been really putting in the effort Caroo. All the best, hope you get it. But the pessimist in me won't be surprised if you don't get it. But that's just me, and your shouldn't listen to such negativity :)
I don't recall whether you've been bothering yet, but have you tried applying for jobs interstate yet?
I know that Vic has a lot of studios, and ideally if you can get a job there, you should be able to keep much of your career their. Or at least in theory, as it usually doesn't work out that way ? especially if you are starting your career. It is also a good way of filling the time-in-between productively, instead of stressing out about one job application ? though, if you are dying to hear feedback so as to make your other applications better, then perhaps doing something else is a better option while you wait.
I know that MF are looking for level designers for their Canberra Studio. And though I am not exactly their biggest fan, they are still a pretty good studio to work with when starting out. Especially considering that at least on the surface, they seem to be doing reasonably well at the moment.
I'm sure you can find other junior designer positions in other states as well ? apparently there is supposed to be this shortage of talent or something, though it could just be a lack of vision as far as the local industry is concerned.
Anyway, best of luck ;).
Yeah the big problem with sending out more resumes is that I did that about 2 months ago.
Actually if I remember MF was one of the studios I sent a big ass and expensive hardcopy resume and work samples too. And I never got a reply.
I guess why I'm kinda hopeful on this because the studio I went to is what I consider to be a very good one. Even if this is just an outside view. I've gone to a few interviews and looked around the building and gone. "Oh dear"
But I liked this place. The guys? where nice and the building was to. So I really hope I get it.
But yeah. I've been trying hard not to pin my hopes on it. I tell you though, That is easer said then done.
So yeah. It's not a point of I?m not applying.. I think this year so far total applications would be around the two dozen with 6 replies.
I hope this one will be the last for a long long while.
Yeah, welcome to the world of trying to be a designer in the local industry ;). I won't bother to bore anyone with how well I have gone in the past with the local industry, but rest assured, after my first gig in Australia, my next one was overseas ? and I haven't managed to get work here in Oz as designer since.
It's probably just me or something, and hopefully not the norm.
Only thing that I can suggest Caroo if you don't get this job, other than keep at it and even reapply to companies you have already applied to before ? with newer and hopefully better apps. Is to try your hand at scripting, or try at least to learn more of it. And I don't mean scripting with tools in a level editor. I mean learning a scripting language like: Python, Lua, Ruby, TCL, etc.
Python and Lua have been fairly popular choices in the past by game developers, though I think most studios for next-gen are moving to their own in-house developed scripting languages specific to their needs ? usually based on an existing language like Lua, which has a small footprint.
I think the easiest for someone to pick up who is not a programmer already, would be Python, as there is plenty of material out their to help you, and there are also a lot of user made dlls and such specifically for games. Something else you could try is something like Gamemaker, but, try not to just use the predefined elements but also move into actually writing code / scripts with its language.
I believe someone else suggested doing something like this to you in the past. I believe his suggestion was to write up a small and simple innovative game. Python or even Gamemaker should be ideal for this I would imagine ? I think Gamemaker should really be ideal for this, but, it may be seen as the easy way out rather than if you had used Python to force you to of coded more of it yourself.
That was a big part I think in me getting my first gig, that and the fact that out of the 3 people who applied for a level design position, 2 people got a job ? I was one of those 2, and the other guy ended up getting a senior job as an artist, but quite quickly got a better job at a better studio.
I used director to make a few games, and I think that this was more interesting to the development team than my level design work ? it shows that you can really handle the ?details? and complexity of scripting gameplay I think.
You'd think that being able to show that you can design and use scripting tools would be enough. But it doesn't seem to be so for most studios. And it is my experience ? or at least impression ? that most design roles go to those that can show strong programming skills, next is to those who show strong technical artistic skills, then to those that actually show strong design but don't have either of the other two ? even if they have the aptitude for both, but have preferred to focus on design foremost.
I might add that it doesn't matter whether the other two can show strong design skills or not, as I think most studios find it hard to measure design anyway ? the code and art is much easier.
Anyway, something to think about.
I certainly agree with Cynic on the scripting side of things. You have this spare time, and although you should put a side a good proportion of it to just chilling out and refreshing your mind after this effort, maybe you could start dabbling in scripting here and there in a casual sense.
I've entered the industry (sort of) also without any educational or code background, and in these 4 years I've managed to drum up a certain level of common sense and practicality. But seriously if there was anything which has stood in my way in the past of finding a design job it would be my lack of code and scripting ability. I'm the only Designer I know who can draw, and contrary to what others may think that skill does help a lot, but I still wouldn't class it as a skill to base your application on.
I've found a lot of coders will simply not respect or listen to a Designer without code exp until he/she has proven they can think logically and with common sense. You can only prove that though by working in the field, and some exp in code and script will help you get there.
If I had the time to learn scripting and code I would do it, but I've got other priorities at the moment which take up that time. I have looked into it in the past and really from what I've seen it wouldn't be too hard to get a grasp on it, essentially you just need memory and logic , time and patience, which you have. In comparrison I actually think skills in art and communication are harder to learn than scripting and a basics in code, and you seem to have thoes already. So while you have the time, give it a look.
And good work so far man, you've done more to get in than a lot of other applicants I've seen, and seriously the reasons you've not landed a position yet is more to do with the companies themselves, not your efforts.
Well. Between Jacky and Cynical how could I refuse the advice? I guess since i have the level design and design itself to the acceptable junior levels under my belt, it's time to make a start on getting my head around real scripting.
So if i get this job I?ll at least of made a start.. And if I don?t get it. I have something to work on until the next available job presents itself.
Still. Fingers crossed on the current situation.
The hard part about learning programming is getting started. As most people that haven't been exposed to it before, find they have a psychological hurdle to overcome first.
Once you get past the syntax and start getting a grasp of the concepts ? which will only occur once you start putting what you read into practise, so do the exercises. You'll find that the ?mystery? of programming melts away, as you realise that it is not as hard as you thought it was, and that you do have the aptitude for it after all.
If you haven't been exposed to programming before, when I did some research previously I came across this book at the bookstore:
Python Programming - for the absolute beginner Link
The reason I mention it is that it is for beginners, and it uses games for examples. So as you go along you are making a bunch of games as well ? though simple ones. Might help motivate anyone who is put off by other programming books, though I might add, I have never used the book but instead have another python book collecting dust on my desk ? I really should get around to finishing that one in particular ;). So I can't be sure how great the book is, all I can say based on reading the reviews, is that if you have some programming experience already, then another book may be better suited to you as this is a book for beginners.
If there is any advice that I can give to aspiring designers, then it is to learn a scripting language at the very least ? it will help secure your career for the long-term, not just short-term.CynicalFan2006-10-17 03:43:16
Thank you for the book link. It looks good and it's pretty cheep so I?ll more then likely order it and take a good look through it.
I think the problem with most programming books is that the book itself is a mental hurdle.
I brought a book about 9 months ago called. game scripting mastery which supposably goes from the most simple definitions of what programming and scripting is and builds your knowledge to "professional" standards.
Until just today. I haven?t approached the book with the intent to learn it. Sure I?ve looked through it. But it suffers from two big problems in my eyes.
Problem one: Too Big! The total page count minus the index in this book is 1200 pages.. 1200 PAGES OF TINY LETTERS AND MINIMAL PICTURES!
I mean. The first thing I think when I look through this book is "f**k..where do I start?"
Problem number two is even worse. This book provides plenty of samples. But no practical exercises. So I?m really learning through reading. Which is far less effective then learning through doing. For at least to what I?ve seen so far of the book.
The book you linked to seemed to have done its job better at being user friendly. Having practical examples and being just under 500 pages which is small enough to tackle and big enough to get a good few lessons into.
I'll keep reading and studying game scripting mastery until this other book arrives in my hands. Then I?ll determine which one to follow through with.
GOOD NEWS!!!!
While I?m not to sure if I should state the studio. So I?ll leave that to your imaginations until I know I can state which one.
I HAVE THE JOB!
Got the ring up around 2:30 Tuesday. I've been offered a contract and if I sign it I?ll be starting work sometime in November.
So dudes. I'm totally ecstatic! My hard work has finally paid off.
I do however want to thank you guys. The members of the sumea forum who took the time to assist in teaching and looking at my work that I posted on the designer section. The blokes who supported me.
Thanks a bunch.
Now.. I'm gonna go celebrate in the way most suited. I?m gonna do something I?ve been wanting to do for 3 years. QUIT COLES!
No more shelve facing for me!
I saw that as well. I can't wait till they release the trailer. There's some really sweet CGI in there, which Blizzard is renowned for of course.