sharan | Entries tagged with games

Well, I've been insanely busy but I wanted to at least do a quick post of the big news. Over the past 2 weeks my job search literally exploded. At one point I had as many as 3 serious possibilities at once, and a few that never materialized in the end. I almost was able to say I got a job from here on LiveJournal because I was contacted by a company through an anonymous post here and they made a great offer that would probably have worked out well for me. However at the last minute another offer came through from a game company that's only a few blocks from my apartment, so I'll be able to WALK to work every day. Given the fact that the other offer was in Van Nuys, 17+ miles away each way, and the fact that I'd have a 3-way commute when USC is thrown into the mix, being able to walk to work was too good an opportunity to pass on. It's also a great opportunity doing games. Most of it will be Flash but they also do C++ games, depending on the project. And it seems to be a very cool company! So I accepted their offer on Thursday, and I start next week.

I also had another company interested that brought me in to do some contract Flex work for a few days, and although that would also have been a great opportunity the commute to Calabasas just wasn't going to work out with my 3-way commute.

It's interesting that the combination of games and the Flash/Actionscript experience I have seems to have made me seriously in demand suddenly.

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Whitesnake - Good to be Bad (Bonus CD)

Well, I'm sitting here at GDC and things are just about over now and I have a little time so I figured I'd post from here. It's been a nice past few days. The classic pass wasn't cheap, but it is really nice to walk into panels without worrying about what badge I have;). I think I'll do this again next year, or maybe try for a press pass if I can find time to start writing for Game Developer/Gamasutra.

It was HUGE this year, with over 13,000 people, 2 expo halls, and a separate, very big, career pavilion. I think I wound up with 8-9 free t-shirts and assorted other goodies. If I had been looking for work this would have been a great year for it!

It was so huge that it was tough to run into people, so people I knew were here I either never found or ran into only once or twice the entire time. We did see a couple of people from work and had dinner with them the past couple of nights.

There were some interesting panels, including a couple of really good ones by people from Harmonix (it really is a shame they're in Boston, and I'd never consider moving back to the northeast. The past 3 days here in San Francisco has been too close to winter for me as it is;). I'm actually glad I decided NOT to go to NY next week for spring break, since I suspect it's even colder there.)

I'm glad next week is spring break, since we just found out we have to go into work tomorrow. Oh, well. The money will help!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: GDC

Well, I just told people here at work so it's safe to announce here. For the next 4 months I'm going to be working through my roommate's company Infinite Monkey Factory on site at a game company working on a port from XBox 360 to PC of a game for a major movie license that needs to be released at the end of April to be timed with the movie! I'm not sure if it's O.K. yet to mention the movie publicly, but you'll definitely have heard of this one. And I'll be working part time while still in school, and after I graduate I'll have a published AAA title where I was an actual programmer and NOT an intern, and that will help me get into a game company at a higher level, so I'll be able to bypass the whole Junior Programmer thing!

This is a great opportunity, and they understood here why I'd want to take it! So I'm going to continue to work here full time until classes start and then cut my hours back, so I'll still be able to put in a little time at home and on weekends to help them out here and stay in the system, and then after the project ends I'd be able to just increase my hours here again (assuming of course nothing else comes up).

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Work

So why is it that I've been coming up with so many really good game ideas lately (I have at least 4 I actually want to make), yet I've come up with maybe 2 SF story ideas in the past 6-7 years. Obviously the idea well isn't dry, it's just not working for everything I want it to work for! It is pretty frustrating.

I guess maybe it's because I'm making games and not writing stories, but it's hard to write without ideas, so it's kind of a catch 22.

BTW, maybe it'll help if I can actually fit a fiction writing class into my schedule one of these semesters at USC. I really want to, since T.C. Boyle teaches some of the more advanced fiction writing classes there.

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: Work

I really wish I had time to check in here more than about once a week. It takes a while to catch up this way! Well, only 4 more weeks of classes left before finals at least. I can't believe how fast this semester's going! I just registered for next semester today, although I have to get some requirements waived so I can register for other classes, so my final schedule is still very up in the air.

It looks like I will survive with 17 credits this semester, and next semester should be another interesting one. I even managed to save our XBox 360 game from turning into a straight PC game by faking realistic swimming in the Torque Shader Engine with a flying vehicle.

Oh, and I came up with a REALLY cool game idea in my Game Design Workshop class that I actually want to do, but I'd need to talk to someone over at a company I know a couple of people on here have worked for in the past and I think one of them still does consulting work for them. Maybe I can talk to them about it at Loscon, since at this rate I don't know if we'll actually make it to LASFS or the Coral Cafe anytime before then.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: Work

Well, I made it back from NY and spent 2 days in L.A. before I headed up here to San Jose, where I'm sitting right now in the Women's Group gathering at the IGDA booth at the Game Developer's Conference. It's mostly just a bunch of people standing around talking, so I thought I'd post here:). Before I went to a roundtable on how to attract women into the games industry. They talk about that a lot, but I think they can really look at science fiction fandom as an example. It'll probably be a gradual process (you really can't force something like that), and it really does take the right types of women.

Yesterday there was a really fascinating keynote address by Ron Moore about Battlestar Galactica and how he took the old series and adapted it for the new one. He obviously put a LOT of thought into what elements he kept and what he changed and why. And it worked, too, since it's a pretty damn good show! I still have to watch the last couple of episodes of this season. They actually showed one scene I haven't seen yet, but it was something I pretty much saw coming anyway.

It really seems to be womens day here, since tonight Microsoft have its annual "women in games" party. Now if only they wouldn't keep turning me down for their scholarship! Not that I really want to have to do an internship with them up in Washington, but USC is damn expensive so if they'd pay a full year's tuition it would seriously help!

Last night I went to the Independent Games Festival/Game Developers Choice awards, which was cool, but I have to say, Guitar Hero was robbed of Game of the Year;). Shadow of the Colossus won. Guitar Hero did win an innovation award, best audio, and the company won the Maverick award. Nintendogs won Best Technology (and another innovation award). And it was cool to see the 2 creators of the original Adventure win a "First Penguin" awards, and Richard Garriott (Lord British), creator of the Ultima games, won a Lifetime Achievement award.

NY was fun, BTW. The second John Wetton show was also great, although he was in a rush to leave at the end so I didn't really get a chance to talk to him. I also got to see an old friend Beth (she goes by Liz now), which was great! I knew her from high school (one of the few people from there I actually want to stay in touch with). She started bringing me to Rocky Horror every week during my senior year.

Well, I'm going to go back and see if I can actually get into any of these conversations:). If nothing else,

costikyan is here.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: conversation

For homework, I have to play The Sims 2 and get my characters to have a baby. What an incredible hardship;). Don't you just feel sooooo sorry for me?;)

The only problem is I had to uninstall University. I need to get my desktop stable again so I can put that on there. We all got free copies of the game, so I can use my dvd version on that machine.

Current Mood: amused

I just got an e-mail about yet another game class at USC. It's an intermediate game design class (with pre-requisites but they're willing to waive them for qualified students) and it's sponsored by EA and they'll be working on actual Sims 2 modules. Apparently EA are using it to find interns for next summer (not that I can afford to do that unless I have nothing else at that point, since it wouldn't pay enough) AND it will actually fit my schedule if I'm willing to move my Calculus discussion section up by 1 hour. Or do the other thing I was considering and switch to a Calculus class with a discussion section early in the morning, which may actually give me MORE time to work now that I think about it. Getting up earlier wouldn't be fun, but I guess I'll be getting up early for work anyway, so it probably won't make much of a difference, to be honest.

The one catch? It brings me up to 18 credits, and I don't really see anything else I could drop. That would not be fun. I'm definitely going to have to think about this one!

Of course classes start Monday (and I STILL don't know if I got past Calculus 2! I e-mailed the teacher again this morning so hopefully he'll get back to me!).

Anyone have any thoughts about whether I should be that suicidal?;) I had enough trouble with 16 credits last semester!

(Update: I forgot to mention the 2 day intensive workshop in Redwood City EA are flying the entire class to;).)