Wildermyth is an  tactical RPG currently in development by indie company Worldwalker Games. The two visiting speakers, Nate and Annie, are the lead programmer and lead art director, respectively. They have built the game from the ground up, down to the physics engine, because Unity just wasn’t cutting it. I learned a lot from their insights on how to get in the industry, and how challenging, yet rewarding creating a game from nothing is.

This semester has been both interesting and stressful. I helped create games for an actual company, who sought out the university’s Senior Production class to develop minigames for the educational mobile app they are in the midst of creating. As a Senior,  I did not quite think that this class would help me very much, but I did have a few insightful moments with the visits from the guest speakers, especially those in the games industry. It was good to meet with them and speak to someone face to face had experience in the industry, and had tips about how one could go about getting a job in the market. This class was relaxing  and it was great to see works and hear the processes of real people in the workforce, and how they succeeded after graduation, and it was even more useful with the interaction with these people.

Developed by indie company Playdead, Limbo is a 2-D puzzle-platform game. In this game an unnamed young child must navigate a hostile environment rigged with traps, and teeming with monsters in order to find his sister. The game is a well thought out minimalist style, including everything from the art to the controls. A black and white world confronts the boy, and the player has to navigate the eerie, dangerous world without any tutorial text or voice, only able to jump, grab, and run. It accomplishes the goal set by game director Arnt Jensen, who wanted to move away from the corporate style of AAA games,  and create something much more artistic and subjective. Playing through the game evoke many emotions, and a great empathy for the boy struggling and clawing to find his missing sister.

Five Year Plan

INTERNSHIPS

Software Engineer Internship (Blizzard)

https://www.themuse.com/jobs/blizzardentertainment/software-engineer-intern-web-mobile-austin-cb79b6

SXSW Emergent Tech Intern

Emergent Technologies Intern

Intern Gameplay Engineer (SubVRsive)

http://subvrsive.applytojob.com/apply/job_20170828225539_UUCGN24ZDQHNFRFE/Intern-Gameplay-Engineer?source=INDE

This degree plan was created my freshman year to help keep my credits in  order. I have learned many skills including coding, working in Unity and Gamemaker, and sound editing. I hope these skills learned may help land me a spot on a game audio production team, either as a voice over director or lead audio designer. I do not have a minor, but I have thought that if I ever did not want to continue on the gaming path that I chose, I would pursue a Pre-Med degree or something similar.

1. My greatest strengths in __Playwriting______________ include:

Creativity, natural sounding dialogue.

1. For greater success in this course, I need to:

Procrastinate less and organize story arches better

1. My greatest strengths in __Advanced Game Production__________ include:

Working well in team, communication skills, knowledge and experience in audio production of games.

1. For greater success in this course, I need to:

Brush up on implementation of sounds in Unity.

1. My greatest strengths in ___Mexican American Women’s Lit.___________ include:

Keeping up with the readings, understanding the subject matter.

1. For greater success in this course, I need to:

Analyze the texts more thoroughly.

1. My greatest strengths in ___Project Management___________ include:

Communicating well with project group, excellent time management.

1. For greater success in this course, I need to:

Read chapters more thoroughly.

Computer skills:

1. My computer skills include:
   1. Programming in java and python
   2. Adobe Audition
   3. Adobe Illustrator
   4. Making games in Unity and Gamemaker
2. I still need to learn:
   1. Photoshop
   2. Premiere pro
   3. Unreal Engine

Research & writing skills:

1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include:

Clear theses, good structure to papers.

1. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing:

Formulating clear and solid conclusions.

1. I learn best & accomplish most when:

I can get hands on or visual experience when being talked through a process.

ACTION PLAN

Choose one class that you are struggling with or are not doing as well as you could.
Now make a list of 10 ways you could improve your performance in this class.

Playwriting

1. Stop procrastinating so much, start plays a few days more in advance.
2. Flesh characters out to a deeper level.
3. Plan scenes better.
4. Have more definite endings without leaving too many unanswered questions.
5. Stop doing daily assignments last minute.
6. Communicate with the professor more.
7. Participate in class discussions more often.
8. Be more open to critiques.
9. Go back and revise works and assignments.
10. Analyze other student works better.

These are two images from a project I had in principals of art and design. The purpose of the project was to take a random object of the student’s choosing  (I chose a Scarecrow figurine) and take pictures of the object in 100 unique situations.

The strongest aspect of the work is the use of angles to make the four inch figurine look like a normal sized person. The weakest is that after about 50 – 60 pictures with the figurine, I started to run out of ideas of what to do, so they get more and more random. The project could be strengthened conceptually by going back through and recreating some of the better images with more context, and listing out possible actions the figurine might take. Using a DSLR camera instead of a phone camera could greatly improve the image quality.

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds is quickly becoming one of the most popular games in the world.  It has already surpassed long standing giants of the game industry in terms of concurrent players online at once, viewers of live streams, and has sold over 10 million copies of the game since it was first released in March of this year. The game has had over 1.5 million concurrent players online at once, breaking its own records again and again after surpassing the next giant, Dota 2 (over 1.2 million,) and the legend that is Counter Strike: Global Offensive (over 850 thousand.) PUBG (pub-jee as the players lovingly refer to it,) started out as a mod for the tactical mil-sim (military simulation) Arma III under the name Playerunknown’s Battle Royale, and then developer Bluehole Studio approached creator Brendan “Playerunknown” Greene to create the standalone bloodbath we see today. From the moment you choose to drop out of the cargo plane holding 99 other lunatics, it is an adventure of looting, sprinting to keep yourself in the ever shrinking playzone, intense firefights, and if you’re lucky, after a final heart-pounding shootout with your final opponent you’ll be the winner winner with the chicken dinner. This game has inspired me to work ever harder on  projects that I currently have going, as it shows that even something as small as a mod for another existing game can turn into something really special.

After recording my going’s on for a week, I realize I have a busy schedule. I have a lot of work to do throughout, while also trying to maintain a healthy social life and body. I may have problems with time management every once in a while, but the last few years of college have taught me how to succeed under pressure.

This is the title screen on the game I helped build last year called Shakespeare Dog, featuring a dog that learns English by reading Shakespeare, and the dog eventually goes off to become the champion of Shakespeare. I did much of the in game artwork found, including enemies, and a level’s play field artwork.

The main point of these two articles is to draw the similarities between artists and entrepreneurs to light, and how each can learn from each other. Artists should be able to learn from the business and organizational skills of entrepreneurs, who can also learn better flexibility from the artists. I do not believe all artists are entrepreneurs, they do have similar qualities; however, a good entrepreneur also shares qualities with athletes and soldiers, including tenacity and the ability to work well on a team. I agree that artists are “neophiles” mist of the artists I know are continually trying new things. I would add that artists and entrepreneurs both need technical skills.

I apparently have grit, I scored a 4.38 overall, but there is still room for improvement. I could start by organizing thoughts, ideas and projects better into smaller, more manageable pieces.