Fruzz
01-04-2009, 11:56 AM
I recently got my second no at a final round interview for a games company called Jagex in the UK.
Despite not cracking it yet I have learnt an enormous amount of information about the games industry and what it takes to crack it. I thought I'd put my experience on the forums because I know that I wanted to know the cold hard facts when I was in SA and unable to try my luck at a big games company.
First off, it is everything you've dreamed of to walk into a big games company with various teams working on different games, as well as secret projects that you have to sign documents to say nothing about :)
That in itself is almost all the reward I needed for my last few months of hard work.
Having said that, the two interviews I've had at Jagex have given me the biggest confidence knocks of my life. Its tough to put your ability on display to be scrutinised and told you basically aren't good enough to do your dream job. Best advice I can give is to be ready for that and take it not as a personal insult but more as: this is where you are lacking and this is where you need to improve.
Down to the cold hard facts
The guys doing these jobs are not only very talented but have got there by sheer blood sweat and tears. They've built games from the ground up, which I know I've avoided doing. They've taught themselves a lot of low level optimisation code and they know many of the tricks to get game mechanics working smoothly with as little overhead as possible.
I had the misconception that only geniuses get these jobs. Thats the wrong idea, only people who love making games and work damn hard at learning how to do it well get these jobs.
Things I've realised I need to learn
The big thing I failed at in my last interview was a an update function to animate a bouncing bomb. I haven't taught myself any physics programming. Not even the simple stuff. I've realised that this is a very important area of games programming to learn. It seems more important to those guys than learning how to make flashy 3D graphics which is what I thought might get me a games job.
They seemed more concerned about me knowing solid 2D lower level programming than using a framework and doing higher level 3D stuff. For example, the entry test is three questions on 2D path finding. It can be found here (http://www.jagex.com/corporate/Jobs/Games_Development/Funorb_Games_Developer.ws) on their site.
Another aspect they tested was my ability to paint a 2D map of blocks for a game level and then find ceilings, floors and walls. The painting involved a function with the x,y postion and the width and height of the block in pixels. Again, this is all quite low level 2D game knowledge.
I'm not saying there is no value in XNA or any other frameworks we're all learning, I'm just saying that if, like me, you're trying to crack a games programming job it might be worth focusing on the low level 2D stuff and building your own 2D games engine from the ground up. I've found this more in line with what Jagex were looking for in a candidate.
I know a lot of people on the forums use XNA and game maker to prototype games, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying theres anything wrong with that. I'm talking strictly in terms of my experience with trying to get a games programming job with one company :)
I know there are some people on the forums who are in the UK, if you haven't heard of Jagex yet they're definately worth looking into.
Hope this helps you all and gives some people a goal to work towards :)
Despite not cracking it yet I have learnt an enormous amount of information about the games industry and what it takes to crack it. I thought I'd put my experience on the forums because I know that I wanted to know the cold hard facts when I was in SA and unable to try my luck at a big games company.
First off, it is everything you've dreamed of to walk into a big games company with various teams working on different games, as well as secret projects that you have to sign documents to say nothing about :)
That in itself is almost all the reward I needed for my last few months of hard work.
Having said that, the two interviews I've had at Jagex have given me the biggest confidence knocks of my life. Its tough to put your ability on display to be scrutinised and told you basically aren't good enough to do your dream job. Best advice I can give is to be ready for that and take it not as a personal insult but more as: this is where you are lacking and this is where you need to improve.
Down to the cold hard facts
The guys doing these jobs are not only very talented but have got there by sheer blood sweat and tears. They've built games from the ground up, which I know I've avoided doing. They've taught themselves a lot of low level optimisation code and they know many of the tricks to get game mechanics working smoothly with as little overhead as possible.
I had the misconception that only geniuses get these jobs. Thats the wrong idea, only people who love making games and work damn hard at learning how to do it well get these jobs.
Things I've realised I need to learn
The big thing I failed at in my last interview was a an update function to animate a bouncing bomb. I haven't taught myself any physics programming. Not even the simple stuff. I've realised that this is a very important area of games programming to learn. It seems more important to those guys than learning how to make flashy 3D graphics which is what I thought might get me a games job.
They seemed more concerned about me knowing solid 2D lower level programming than using a framework and doing higher level 3D stuff. For example, the entry test is three questions on 2D path finding. It can be found here (http://www.jagex.com/corporate/Jobs/Games_Development/Funorb_Games_Developer.ws) on their site.
Another aspect they tested was my ability to paint a 2D map of blocks for a game level and then find ceilings, floors and walls. The painting involved a function with the x,y postion and the width and height of the block in pixels. Again, this is all quite low level 2D game knowledge.
I'm not saying there is no value in XNA or any other frameworks we're all learning, I'm just saying that if, like me, you're trying to crack a games programming job it might be worth focusing on the low level 2D stuff and building your own 2D games engine from the ground up. I've found this more in line with what Jagex were looking for in a candidate.
I know a lot of people on the forums use XNA and game maker to prototype games, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying theres anything wrong with that. I'm talking strictly in terms of my experience with trying to get a games programming job with one company :)
I know there are some people on the forums who are in the UK, if you haven't heard of Jagex yet they're definately worth looking into.
Hope this helps you all and gives some people a goal to work towards :)