Surviving a Game Development Job Interview

December 30, 2008 · Filed under Hacks

The recent demise downfall of Free Radical brought back some fond memories of when i was trying to get a real programmer job in the Game Development industry. Sad to say, i didn’t make it – but then again after second thoughts, i kind of figured it wasn’t the best career path for me anyway.

Still, i learnt quite a lot about what is expected from a game development job interview. And i thought i’d list my top 3 points here, which are general enough to apply to any game development profession:

1) Bring a laptop to show off how good you are

This is perhaps the most important point. You cannot rely on thumb drives, cd’s, or the internet.

There is a high probability that your demos will not load properly on your interviewers systems. So be sure to show them on one that you know does work – yours.

In addition, the very fact that your demos are on your own hardware gives that extra inclination that you made them yourself.

2) Brush up on common knowledge pertaining to your profession.

Chances are that you will be given some form of test, either on paper or through meticulous quizzing. The aim of this is to weed out clueless candidates. Make sure you are not clueless.

3) Have something to say, questions to ask.

If you find that the interviewer is talking more than you are, then chances are they are more interested in themselves rather than who they should be interested in – you.

Have something well-formed to talk about. Don’t let the interviewer get carried away talking about some obscure technical concept.

The focus should be on you.

So after waffling on with the usual interview talk, your interviewer will usually ask “Any more questions?“. At this point, if you answer “No” then chances are you will fail the interview.

Why? Well, remember that there are two parties being interviewed. You and your interviewer. They are giving the reins over to you, in a sense.

So now is your last chance to stand out from the crowd (if you haven’t done so already). If you do not take it, then there will be little to distinguish yourself from the rest of the candidates.

To conclude

Anyone else have any more suggestions? Feel free to comment below!

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Open Question: What should i write about?

December 27, 2008 · Filed under Miscellaneous

Really, i don’t know what i should be writing about.

Over the past couple of years, i have written a handful of posts on this blog, most of which have been written on-the-fly and without any long-term considerations taken into account.

As a result the blog lacks consistency, leaving the reader with little clue what to expect. And much worse, it leaves me wondering what the hell to write about.

Looking at the analytics, the top 5 content is:

• “Running your own iPhone applications without paying the developer fee”
• The front page
• “Flash plays SCUMM, take two”
• “C to ActionScript via Adobe Alchemy”
• “The Horror of Native GNUCash on Mac OS X”

So maybe i should write about developing iPhone applications? After all, it would nicely tie in with what i am doing now… writing an iPhone application. Then again…

What about making a nice page instead. Does this really have to be a blog? Perhaps i could have a single page blended with cuppalicious content! Then again…

Perhaps i should write more about silly programming projects. Forget about SCUMM, why not compile VIM or Emacs for Adobe Flash? Or taking it to the extreme, what about compiling the Linux kernel to run in Flash? 

Or maybe i should rant. Everybody loves a good internet rant!

All i know is the current iteration of this blog is no more. It is just plain unworkable.

So what next?

I’d really like to keep the general development theme, but invigorate it with something a bit more interesting. The only problem is… i’m not sure what that “interesting” element should be.

Any ideas? I’d love to have some input on this.

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