PDA

View Full Version : 6 months of trying to break into the games industry and what I've learnt



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 :)

The_Furry_Cat
01-04-2009, 12:09 PM
Wow, interesting. Thanks.

dislekcia
01-04-2009, 02:01 PM
So what sort of preparation did you do for this before you started the interviewing process? Do you have a computer science degree? Those problems sound pretty simple for most people that have been through a university course or two.

What sort of portfolio do you have at the moment? Building a good portfolio relevant to the area of game development that you're applying for is step 1 of getting a job. You're right, that can take blood, sweat and tears, but if you're enjoying doing it because it's fun, then it's not much of a problem ;) Most of the regular contributors here are busy building up very nice portfolios without even being aware of it.

The second part of getting a job is taking your skills and portfolio and tailoring those to the company you're applying at. Taking one look at the Jagex site it's obvious that they would be more interested in 2D than 3D programming, they're building web games in Java. The latest shader stuff is not going to be as important to them as knowing they're hiring someone that can figure out pixel-perfect collision detection without creating loads of garbage.

Ironically, I think your admonition of frameworks is a big mistake: The best thing to do if you want to get into the industry is get experience and build a portfolio. Frameworks are an excellent way to do that, not to mention they're a great way to understand the basics behind games and gameplay before you have to start coding everything yourself. Simply starting to code an engine from scratch is a really terrible idea. Even though you do eventually learn all about low level code, you don't know what to implement where, nor do you understand common game patterns. Getting to know a bunch of frameworks (and more importantly, building a couple of games or prototypes with them) is a much better investment of your time. After you're up to speed on the basics, you can then start working on your own custom engines for whatever it is you're trying to build, that's when you learn the low-level stuff. Chances are you'll already have picked up a lot of logic from the frameworks along the way too ;)

I heartily recommend these links if you're serious about getting into the games industry, they should hopefully help you out a lot:
http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html
http://www.igda.org/breakingin

The_Furry_Cat
01-04-2009, 02:24 PM
Thanks for the links! :D It helps alot.

My dream is to work for one of the UK companies and be a C++ game programmer >_< I'm currently in the process of getting a degree in BSc CS (UNISA).

Fruzz
01-04-2009, 02:36 PM
Fantastic, thanks dislekcia.

Yup, I have the BSc IT along with a many years of programming experience, the thing I'm lacking is a portfolio really. That wasn't a problem in this case though.

The thing that got me in the interview was the physics to make a bomb bounce around. I haven't done any work on physics programming at all. They said they wanted it to ideally be able to bounce off of different surfaces and be affected by gravity etc. It may be something simple to do but I just haven't done it yet.

Yes, you are totally right about the frameworks. Reading over my post, what I meant to say is keep in mind the low level stuff. My natural progression of learning has been learning lower level stuff alongside learning stuff within a framework. The higher level concepts are much easier to learn with a framework. They're incredibly useful for that.

Again, you're right about Jagex wanting a specific type of programming knowledge because they are a java games company. Their stuff is mostly 3D though. All the games the people were working on when I went in there were 3D. Which made me think that maybe at a sort of entry level position, games companies are looking for a solid low level 2D understanding and capability without necessarily being too fussed about a nice flashy game done in XNA. This is my impression from one company though.

I could easily be wrong on that, I decided to make the thread based on the fact that I think I've been focusing too much on using a framework like XNA and neglecting the lower level stuff.

I guess the best learning is a harmony between the two.

Fruzz
01-04-2009, 02:39 PM
Go for it Furry Cat, if anything I've learnt that anyone who loves this stuff and works hard at it can get in there eventually :)

The_Furry_Cat
01-04-2009, 02:48 PM
Thanks :) After reading your posts, I just got my motivation back xD I hope this time it won't wander off again. Boredom is evil! lol.

Hey wish you all the best for your future.

Cheers.

FuzzYspo0N
01-04-2009, 03:25 PM
i think dis hit the nail rather hard on the head. interesting info on the interviews as well , thanks

Kensei
01-04-2009, 04:15 PM
Your words frighten me slightly, G@m3r_G33K :( Times like these I question why the hell I do programming in the first place, I am not a maths or physics genius... I make games though - so I will likely keep plugging away at my prototypes


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.

:/ They really need to put their profile up on GamesIndustry.biz then.

Anyways thank you for the feedback.

dislekcia
01-04-2009, 05:05 PM
Which made me think that maybe at a sort of entry level position, games companies are looking for a solid low level 2D understanding and capability without necessarily being too fussed about a nice flashy game done in XNA. This is my impression from one company though.

Nope. That depends entirely on the company and what they're looking for to do the work they've got right now. I also wouldn't say that 2D work is "lower level" than 3D from a programming perspective. Most 2D stuff these days you can lean heavily on your processor and the increases in sheer RAM size. Nobody cares about 7-cycle pixel puts and flipping across memory pages in VESA modes anymore. The real hardware-level knowledge comes in with developing shaders and using your 3D hardware effectively... To a degree. You can copy-paste a bunch of effects and get something running, or you could build a uniquely complex AI system that nobody's built before. There's a spectrum of developers, just like there's a spectrum of work, it's very difficult to generalise across that.

That said, your best bet is still having a bunch of finished things in your portfolio. Best advertisement ever.

Fruzz
01-04-2009, 07:43 PM
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense dis. I really do need to work on a portfolio properly now.

Nooooooo Kensei the whole point of my post was to explain that you don't have to be a genius :) I'm in exactly the same place, I'm not a maths or physics genius. I do find it very interesting in the context of games programming and for that reason I enjoy learning it. What I've realised is that its not only maths and physics geniuses who get in there, its the people with a genuine interest in games programming and passion to get through some of the tougher stuff to learn :)

Its more about passion and time spent learning than a brain only suited to mathematical calculations, well thats my experience anyway :)

RS-ShadowBlade
08-04-2009, 11:25 PM
it does seem hard to get into the industry, yes.

Me and my bros have been working at games for years, and it's finally paying off, with us winning at the Make Something Unreal contest for UT3. So far we've won 5 prizes! Our own work is getting us notices by a few people, but we're working on our own game. We'll be working on a demo which can be sent to publishers, etc.

We taught ourselves everything as well. We stared modding back in the late 90's, Doom getting us started. Since then we've been working flat out on our own projects. I guess the first hard part of getting in, is learning everything, then finding a company or just going it on your own. A portfolio is something that would halp alot i'd imagine. :)

dislekcia
09-04-2009, 12:44 AM
Me and my bros have been working at games for years, and it's finally paying off, with us winning at the Make Something Unreal contest for UT3. So far we've won 5 prizes! Our own work is getting us notices by a few people, but we're working on our own game. We'll be working on a demo which can be sent to publishers, etc.

Don't aim at pubs, go indie! With your team's skills you could make a really cool game and get that out on the net or Steam. Do that instead of trying to hook a publisher as an inexperienced (to them) team. Much better idea ;)

Ramperkash
09-04-2009, 05:47 PM
(I'm a bit inexperienced, so maybe just ignore me but...)
@RS-ShadowBlade
Maybe hold out that game as a big project that you could get a publisher for... one day, but till then bring out other games indie, so you'll look more experienced once you do need a publisher for your big one.

That is, if this game you're working on is really "The Big Deal".

Good luck though.

PS. In my limited experience I've also found that when working on a single project, and getting stuck, it sometimes helps to be busy with other things, 1: to keep yourself busy, and 2: to keep building experience so you can one day get that "Oh! That's the problem with proj1" moment.

RS-ShadowBlade
09-04-2009, 10:07 PM
Steam is a very good idea. We just need to market ourselves quite heavily. It helps with things like the MSU and popular mods. :)

We'd still need the demo for acquiring the engine license however, that is until we can make our own engine :P

What we're working on now, is something that only requires a few people to make, but has alot of replayability and would also be an excellent platform to add onto. Time will tell i guess :) Til then, Phase 3 looms.