Category Archives: Student

Train2Game Interview: Cheat Mode author and QA veteren Dan Jacobs – all three parts in one place

Posted on by
Reply

Cheat Mode by Dan Jacobs is a recently released book about getting into and surviving the games industry. Written by an industry veteran, this book contains interviews with industry professionals who make games every day. From programmers to designers, journalists to community Managers, it offers advice from staff working at companies including BioWare, Codemasters, Rockstar and more.

The Train2Game Blog recently caught up with Cheat Mode author and experienced QA Tester Dan Jacobs to discuss his book, getting into the industry, what makes a good QA Tester and more in a huge interview which is spread out over three parts.

For the sake of convince, all three parts of our interview with Dan Jacobs can now see accessed in one place thanks to this blog post.  Be sure to read the whole thing for an excellent insight into the games industry.

Interview Part 1 – Inspiration for writing Cheat Mode, his involvement on the Train2Game forum, and how he broke into the games industry.

Interview Part 2 – Researching Cheat Mode, the importance of QA and its place in development.

Interview Part 3 – mistakes when QA testing, advice on becoming a tester, and the importance of networking.

Cheat Mode The definitive guide to getting into and surviving the games industry is out now and costs £10.99.

As usual, leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game Interview: DayZ creator Dean “Rocket” Hall on getting into the industry

Posted on by
Reply

DayZ is the hugely popular zombie survival mod for Arma II. Produced by Arma II game designer Dean “Rocket” Hall in his spare time around full-time work at Bohemia Interactive, DayZ has demonstrated the huge potential of modding.

The Train2Game Blog sat down with the DayZ creator at Rezzed to discuss the advantages of modding, his unconventional path into the games industry and advice for those looking to get into game development. 

Tell us how you get started in the games industry. You haven’t taken a conventional route through it.

Yeah, it’s sort of a bit bizarre really. I left the New Zealand air force and did some odd project jobs, and then I decided that, as I was doing a lot of modding, that I wanted to get into the industry and I landed a job as an associate producer, working on console development for movie licensed games. Did that for a couple of years, didn’t really like the industry that much, particularly the console development style, and particularly for movie license stuff, so I quit and joined the army. After awhile, I decided I’d go back and have a look at Arma III.

Landing that first games job as associate producer, modding was a big part of it, they saw the community website I’d been running and the mods I’d been doing, and it was obviously a way to prove I was passionate and that I have a basic understanding of the technology. So I think that was a real benefit, approaching the industry from that angle.

So modding is a great way for aspiring game designers to show off their skills to potential employers?

Yeah, absolutely, definitely, and I think you can show your passion, that you can understand someone else’s code and stuff like that and get good familiarity.

Which toolsets do you use when modding?

3D Max. I guess when I was working as a producer I had the advantage of the project going well and having a lot of downtime. So I used that downtime to learn how to do art and how to do programming and all those kinds of aspects from my team leads, so that meant I ended up with a really good overview, I think if you want to be a good game designer, if you want to work in design, that’s the best way to approach it. Just learn as much as you can about all disciplines.

What other advice would you give to anyone looking to break into the games industry?

You need to be passionate and persistent, and I guess you need to have an idea of what you want to do, what are the areas of game development you really want to focus on? I think the best thing, particularly if you want to get into design, is understand how games are made. That means production, that means how much it costs to make games, that means the different aspects of it; how do you make 3D models? How are those rendered in games? What do programmers need to consider?

And I think the most important thing, even more than raw skills is social skills, you need to have social skills, you can’t just be good. If you’re very good it probably doesn’t matter, but if you’ve got social skills than you can be a real asset to the team.

Thanks for your time, Dean. 

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for more on coverage from Rezzed, modding and advice from the pros on getting into the industry. 

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game student Diaries of Jonny Robinson with some advice

Posted on by

Jonny Robinson

After many hours of game development and laughter making My Sea Park, it’s now live on the app store. I’m just blown away with how fast it has shot up the UK app charts and it is getting nothing but praise on the reviews section.

It really has opened my eyes to a monetisation model as a whole, which is vital for me to know as a designer since as the gaming economy is changing exponentially.

Clive Robert (CEO of DR Studios) very kindly took out all the member of staff for a meal which was a great laugh. We were like kids at Christmas, just wondering how many downloads we would get and continuously hoping it will make it to the top. Well it’s in the top 25 downloads at the moment and it is still climbing just like the smile on my face.

I need to take my hat off to development DR team and Fuse for doing such a great job!

As a little bonus, this will look great on my portfolio! 😉

Until next time peace!

www.train2game.com

 Jonny Robinson 48

Another week another gigantic lesson learned. Doing what I do, I have to keep a lot of things close to my chest as I don’t want to be legally done by NDA or anything else of that matter. All I can say is that I went for a job interview for a position in the game industry. The person who interviewed me passed on some fantastic advice that I want to share with you as he is very experienced in what he does.

Anonymous game industry advice:

1) When you first walk into an interview; make sure you always introduce yourself, pass your CV to the interviewer (just in case) and tell them what position you are applying for.

2) Make sure before the interview you email the interviewer a link to your portfolio and CV; so they can do a little homework on you before the interview. This is so the interviewers are not focusing on the portfolio so much and instead are paying more attention to you, the interviewee.

3) Show passion if you are new to the industry, this will go a long way if you are less experienced as this will state that you are willing to go the whole nine yards and back to get the job done.

4) This last one is my own advice, if this is your first interview for a game industry position, say so. This may make you look less professional but it will give you some leeway as the interviewer knows you new to this whole experience.

This is just a snippet of information I’m willing to share with you, as we Train2Game members need to stick together and plus, I’m nice like that.

So how did my interview go? It went as well as it could have done, to be honest, but I have been asked to come back for another interview which is fantastic news.

So I hope this information helps you as much as it helped me.

There is so much more that I could talk about, but I will leave that one for my next diary, so stay tuned.

Until then… peace!

www.train2game.com

Train2Game student Diaries of Ben Stoneman May to June

Posted on by

18/05/12
This week the game had changed quite a bit in regards to movement and controls, at the moment we are not near getting a build done and there are still many design issues to consider. I have been finding that a lot of design issues are hard to understand by other team members. They find it hard to see how some of my requests make the game better for the player in terms of gameplay and control. We also needed to begin work on the enemy, however the artist had no idea where to start and frankly came across as not being very excited about learning. I worried this would take too long, so i decided to begin learning how to model, rig and animate in 3ds Max.

25/05/12
This week I have been working on the developer diary for the Asset bundles project. I have been happy to hear feedback from others in regards to the diary, It has given me insight into how they understand the document and has allowed me to make changes that ensure that all can understand and enjoy reading it. One thing that I have found hard whilst doing the developer diary is understanding the problems the coder has faced when working on the game mechanics, also why they decided to program a mechanic a certain way and a lot of other things concerning the programming side of the development.

01/06/12
This week we have tried to get as much of the important art assets for the game finished before our artist goes on holiday for two weeks. The artist had been on cases all day most days, however on the Friday i pushed him to get the essential art assets completed. The art assets had been modelled and UV unwrapped, however the textures still needed to be made and the models need to be imported into the project. the rest of the week has been basically getting the support cases done and giving a personal touch to each of the 9 rooms in the game, including lighting and scenery.

08/06/12
This week was quite short, however I did volunteer to work the Monday and Tuesday, which were bank holidays. I came into an empty office on Monday and got straight onto the cases there were a lot of cases and they were all for me to complete. I did not find it daunting at all, in fact i knew exactly how I was going to go about getting it done. so I began to plough through all of the simple activation cases. On the Tuesday I decided to work from home, I was now past the activation cases and onto the asset store related content. Usually I do not get many asset store cases when working with Rob and James so i did find it quite difficult to answer certain issues. I was advised to say to the customers with issues i needed help solving, that we have limited staff due to the diamond jubilee weekend and the issue will be dealt with asap. the rest of the week was recovering from the hardcore case work over the two bank holidays, however i found i had learnt alot about the asset store cases and how to solve them.

15/06/12
We had our latest build done today, after we tested the build and saw it was working like a basic beta version, we began setting up a presentation. Unfortunately we were unable to link the iPad to the projector, so therefore we decided to go around the office allowing others to test the game and give us their feed back. All my life i have valued feedback, ever since my primary school teacher said “ask your friends what they think”. The feedback we got for those who tested it brought up good points and most gave us a solution. The rest of the week has been mostly cases and polishing the game
ready for the Friday build.

www.train2game.com

Train2Game student Diaries James Bouckley week 15 and 16

Posted on by

Week 15

This week we discussed targets for the game.  When should it be finished by and when would we have a demo ready.  We tried to have a demo ready by Friday but unfortunately we failed.  Despite the game being interesting and very fun to develop, the support cases have to come first and a surprising abundance of them this week and Rob still being on holiday meant we just didn’t have enough time to work on it.  It came as a bit of surprise to me this week when I discovered we needed desktop controls because the game was going to be multi-platform and the dual-joystick imitation controls for keyboard I had made (purely for testing purposes), weren’t going to cut it.  After a bit of stressful week, I have to admit that being told this didn’t find me well.  Ben spent some time going around the office with the iOS version of the game, which was finished, getting as many opinions as possible so we could polish the demo.  Meanwhile I struggled to finish the PC controls and failed.  Not a great week in all, but still a fair margin better than any week I’ve ever had in any other job… ever.

Week 16

Unity 4.0 has been announced!  It was announced this Monday and boy does that make for a lot of support cases!  Rob is now back with us and good job too because I think without him Ben and I would have struggled.  This again meant another week with not as much work done on the game as I would have liked.  The desktop controls are finished now, but buggy and I’m not happy with them.  Also, one of the major things that people noted about the game when Ben showed them last Friday was that they didn’t like the linear mapping between finger-joystick position and player speed.  What that means is that there is linear dependence between the distance of your finger and the centre of the joystick and the speed the player moves at.  People would have preferred a relationship that meant when you’re near the centre you move slower but then you accelerate faster as you move further away.  When I heard this my reaction was “Okay, that’s doable but it’s going to be expensive.  We’ll have to do a square-root operation every frame.”  God bless Unity though because they have already thought about it.  Mark showed me how to sample a curve and apply it to a script and the iOS controls are now far more user-friendly.  Another thing that came up is what happens when the player moves behind something.  Currently we have a shader that highlights the player so you can still see him.  This however sometimes makes it look like the player is on top of the object instead of behind it.  So instead I have started to implement a script that will make the objects see-through instead of the player being highlighted.  I was having some difficulty with this and with some help from Cat, we nearly got their.  I’m confident I can finish this myself early next week.

www.train2game.com

Train2game Student Diary Craig Moore – What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

Posted on by

Craig Moore – What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

Student Diary , Week 30

Unleashed on to the world like a penguin in a paddling pool! My Sea Park hit the unsuspecting world head on yesterday and it’s been an incredible experience, and this was only day one!

We had already seen the beginnings of the social media pushes, by our publishers, earlier in the day but it wasn’t until we got word of My Sea Park creeping in to the charts that things really got exciting. There was the hope it was doing well but the visibility wasn’t really available.

That was until around 5pm, while we were in the meeting with the publisher we heard word it had crept in to the top 50! Of course everyone became very excited, but by the end of the meeting it had already, again, crept in to around 37!

Of course this continued throughout the day, admittedly it wasn’t the most productive of days but it was a really lovely reward for all the hard work.  Of course, being a free title, there is now the hope it will actually monetise well.

That was pretty much the key moment of the week, the rest of my week has been spent illustrating and working on the concept document for the next title, which is going incredibly well. I am waiting on feedback from a few of the other guys here, but fingers crossed it will get some approval; It’s a really exciting project!

-Craig

www.train2game.com

Craig Moore

Student Diary – Week 31

What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

Suffice to say, with My Sea Park being released, the entire office were glued to iTunes watching our brand new game slowly work its way around the charts.

It was great watching it go up and down, and really muscling with the big boys, I got in to the habit of checking it with a stupid regularity, but seeing it in the same space as games like Angry Birds, Infinity Blade and Temple Run was such an amazing feat I can’t help but feel proud.

I think everyone in the office is pleased with how it has done, but the fun isn’t even over yet! With version 1.2 of My Sea Park put into submission last week we are hoping for the first update to drop either today or Monday. With that we should hopefully see a load more faces in the door, as well as hopefully some of the older ones who perhaps didn’t get chance to play as much as they would like or simply didn’t give it a good enough try.

I think it does highlight how competitive the market is at the moment, particularly for My Sea Park’s genre. We have to simply keep working on it, while also working on the next project, to ensure it stays fresh for customers both new and old.

This week I have been getting deep with Unity, finding my way around it and putting time into learning the way the UI systems work, it’s been a great learning experience and so far and I’m finding Unity incredibly pleasing to work with.

-Craig

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diary Matty Wyett Simmonds Very exciting news for us all

Posted on by

Matty Wyett Simmonds Very exciting news for us all

My Sea Park has come out this week! Very exciting news for us all, we’ve all been glued to the ratings and comments on the App store. So far the feedback we’ve had is great with mostly 5 stars!

Currently as I type this Diary My Sea Park is #19 in the Top Free Games in the App store! This is the kind of good news people need to hear, without Train2game Craig and myself wouldn’t have been in the situation that we are now.

We were given such control and flexibility over the games development and thankfully it’s doing well so far beating apps like Facebook and Twitter! Everyone has been working hard up to the release of the game and I am still working on it at the moment for updates and more downloadable content so it’s far from over just yet.

I’m glad everyone thus far likes the game and we’ve had a lot of comments on the art work, which for me is great to see (seeing as I lead the art for My Sea Park), and everyone is finding the Game fun and intuitive which is good for Craig too! Great week and more to come!

Matty Wyett Simmonds

OK so My Sea Park has been out for a week or so now and it’s doing extremely well! It managed to get to number 16 in the Top Free Apps chart on iOS which is amazing for the first day of release too! It got to number 1 in role playing games somehow and managed to get into the 70’s for top grossing apps which means people are enjoying the game enough to invest time and money into it. We’ve had some great reviews from all over the internet and on iOS devices and it’s just generally managing to get a name for itself. I’m very pleased with the outcome of my first published game; it’s amazing for my CV right now.

Thank you to everyone who actually downloaded played and sometimes bought in app items in the game! It has made a massive difference to the success and every download counts, even if it is free. We are working now on updates and more to come for the future!

 www.train2game.com

Train2Game News: “The most important thing, even more than raw skills, is social skills” – Day Z creator

Posted on by
Reply

Good social skills are a real bonus for those aspiring to work in the games industry and are perhaps more important than being good at a particular discipline.  That’s according to creator of incredibly popular Arma II mod Day Z, Dean “Rocket” Hall

“I think the most important thing, even more than raw skills is social skills, you need to have social skills, you can’t just be good. If you’re very good it probably doesn’t matter, but if you’ve got social skills than you can be a real asset to the team.” Hall told The Train2Game Blog at PC and indie gaming show Rezzed.

The full interview, exploring the unconventional way the Day Z creator broke into the industry and his other pieces of advice for aspiring game developers will be published soon.  During the interview, Hall reassert’s his view that modding is a great way to explore new ideas and gain experience.

There’s more advice from games industry professionals on getting your foot in the door here on The Train2Game Blog. Meanwhile, be sure to keep reading for further interviews and updates from our time at Rezzed.

What are your thoughts on Hall’s advice?

Leave your comments on The Train2Game Blog, or here on The Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: “This is the most exciting time in this industry” says Peter Molyneux

Posted on by
Reply

Peter Molyneux believes we’re currently going through the most exciting time there’s been in the games industry. The veteran game designer made the comments during his hugely popular developer session at PC and indie gaming show Rezzed.

Molyneux told the packed room at The Brighton Centre, suggesting that while AAA titles like Call of Duty provide a feature film experience, the most exciting, innovative games are released for PC or mobile phones.

Indeed, Molyneux is extremely enthusiastic about the rise of mobile apps allowing almost anyone to produce a hit, multimillion selling game.

“You could go home and work on a game that could reach one hundred million people. How f**king cool is that?” he said.

Molyneux also spoke about how his enthusiasm for developing video games as he did when he started making them almost 30 years ago.

“I truly love what I do as much as I do when I wrote my first game.” he said.

Peter Molyneux is currently working on Curiosity, the first game from his new 22 Cans Studio. It’ll be released for free on iPhone and Androud on 22nd August, with the option to buy items including a $50,000 diamond chisel, which Molyneux says he’ll be shocked if anyone actually buys.

There’s more Peter Molyneux news here on The Train2Game Blog.

Do you agree that this is the most exciting time for the games industry? And what are your thoughts on Molyneux’s continued enthusiasm for development?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game Interview: Veteren QA Tester and Cheat Mode author Dan Jacobs – Part 3

Posted on by

Cheat Mode by Dan Jacobs is a recently released book about getting into and surviving the games industry. Written by an industry veteran, this book contains interviews with industry professionals who make games every day. From programmers to designers, journalists to community Managers, it offers advice from staff working at companies including BioWare, Codemasters, Rockstar and more.

The Train2Game Blog recently caught up with Cheat Mode author and experienced QA Tester Dan Jacobs to discuss his book, getting into the industry, what makes a good QA Tester and more.

In the final instalment of our huge three part interview, Jacobs discusses mistakes when QA testing, advice on becoming a tester, and the importance of networking.  The previous instalment of our interview is here.

Cheat Mode The definitive guide to getting into and surviving the games industry is out now and costs £10.99.

 What are the biggest mistakes that can be made in QA Testing?

Biggest mistake number one is saying “I play games for a living.” No, you’re here for a job, you either work or you leave.  I assure you that very quickly in every new batch of testers, there are some who will go because they believed it was a joke, a mess around, a laugh. They weren’t prepared to do 12 hour days or endlessly test the same thing day out. It’s a job, if you want to keep that job, you have to do that.

Going back to Cheat Mode, your book, what’s the greatest piece of advice you can give to someone looking to break into the industry?

There is a prevailing factor in the book, almost everyone I spoke to, at some point, got a bit of luck. Luck is not something you can aim for, but it’s certainly something you can increase the chances of. If you’re applying to the companies near your house, well, good luck with that. But personally, I’ve moved for almost every job I’ve had, just to be able to take on that job and do it, expand my CV, get more experience then move on.

Once you have that break, a lot of people take you a lot more seriously because you’ve already worked. But getting that first break is very hard, and ultimately you have to be prepared to do whatever it takes. But you have an applicant in this industry need to be prepared to meet those challenges.

Would you recommend going to industry events such as Rezzed, Develop Conference and Eurogamer to help get your face out there?

Networking certainly features highly in Cheat Mode. In fact, I’m beginning to see my Facebook page for the book as a good source of networking.  There are a lot of games industry veterans who’ve liked that page because they know me or they’ve been interviewed by me for the book. But networking is an absolutely great place to start. You may not get a job from networking in any way shape, or form, but you will meet those people again in the industry.

Basically, you’ve got to work really hard to get into this industry.

Yeah, definitely. In a way, it’s a bit of a thankless industry, but the reward of your name in the credits is phenomenal.

So, you’re book, Cheat Mode, where can people buy it from?

Well, I’m sure everyone has seen my Train2Game forum post and the Facebook page. You can pick the book up from completelynovel.com. It’s an interesting book, I was chatting to one of the interviewees, Pete, an artist I worked with in Scotland, and he told me “I would’ve killed for this book when I was younger” and so would I! And the shocking thing is there’s no one book on this subject at all, that I could find anyway.

There are books on how to design games, how to animate games, how to do specific disciplines, but there’s nothing says ‘Here’s a guy, he codes, let’s talk to him about his day-to-day life. Here’s a game designer, let’s talk about what he actually does, as opposed to the image of sitting in a chair inventing storylines which is such fiction.

So, what I’m hoping for is for Cheat Mode to do a couple of things; it’ll give people a more realistic idea of what they’re getting themselves in for,  hopefully give them some tips on creating a good CV, and getting out ahead of the crowd. And hopefully there’s some resources in there that they may not have heard of, and perhaps they can use the FAQ when they start at a company.

Thanks for your time

As usual, leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum. Part 1 and 2 of our interview are here.  

Cheat Mode The definitive guide to getting into and surviving the games industry is out now and costs £10.99.