I just had an interview with Naughty Dog and I wanted to share my experience |
- I just had an interview with Naughty Dog and I wanted to share my experience
- Around 50-60 of my original music compositions and songs in the metal genre with elements of retro electronic music and chiptune over the past 8 years. All of them are available for free under Creative Commons, and free to use for any purpose, including commercial. Enjoy listening and using.
- The different engines used for GMTK Game Jam: Unity 61.6%, Godot 13.1%, game Maker 8.9%, Unreal 4.2%
- A Definitive Guide to Completing Your First Game Jam
- Be on the lookout for shady people stealing your free game and putting it behind ads.
- What is the best approach to implementing recruitable characters?
- This is the UE Water Material Making Tutorial we made. Please take a look and leave feedback!!
- (part 1) Blender & Unity - Playful, Simple & Clean 3D Game Art
- I need help choosing between these three languages
- Bad Ideas: Can't Code for Real, so Build Game with Excel Backend?
- Made a list of some of the most common gameplay abilities :)
- Should I worry about getting my game copied if I stream while I'm coding?
- Looking for graduate jobs? Hear from companies with open positions!
- Is there a place I could buy art from?
- Game environment art? Where does the theme come from?
- PC Dev, do I need a Privacy Policy?
- I am curious about developing a new concept to co-op or infuse with gaming by using a mobile companion app.... I have some questions if anyone has time...
- Easy To Implement Visual Accessibility Features. (My first blog post worth sharing, feedback is welcome.)
- What is the best game engine to use for 2d pixel are games?
- Party Jam is June 21 - July 1st! Register now!
- Is there a way to create cartoon/anime textures from photos?
- confused new dev
- Dynamic music in the game. To make dynamic musical transitions during combat, we first used wwise.
- What to do after writing the story?
| I just had an interview with Naughty Dog and I wanted to share my experience Posted: 14 Jun 2021 06:22 AM PDT Hello everyone! Last week I finally had my interview with Naughty Dog and I would like to share my experience, maybe it can be helpful to other candidates. Naughty Dog periodically publishes job offers both on their website and on LinkedIn. I applied directly on their website but I advise you to have a LinkedIn account because you can see who visits your profile, and that can be very useful especially if you are applying to different game studios. In December 2020 I applied for three positions, game designer, level designer and UI designer. I have to say my game experience is the experience of an Indie developer with only one commercial game published on Steam and Apple Store. Despite that I felt confident enough because I know how much I can contribute. I have 4 years of experience making games and 3D, and 20 years of experience in graphic design and web design, I wanted to give some context to better understand where I'm coming from. Of the three positions I applied for, they only answered for the User Interface position, and it made a lot of sense because it is the one that best fits my previous professional experience outside game development. First response Their response came only two weeks after I applied, this put us already in January. To be honest I was very surprised to hear back as normally one of the requirements is to have previous experience at another AAA studio, and with the amount of people applying, I imagine that's a filter that leaves a lot of people out. So I was very pleased to see that the recruiters are looking more in depth, perhaps looking more for potential, which is much appreciated. In the email they sent me there was an NDA that I had to sign in order to proceed, so I can't go into specific details but I will try to be as explicit as I can. The Test In many studios when you apply for any position they already tell you that part of the process is to take a test, so I was not surprised that Naughty Dog was no different in that aspect. The test is specifically designed for the position you are applying for and you have a limited time to submit it once they send you the files. In my case they sent me two screenshots of one of their games and asked me to redesign them. I was super motivated and took it very seriously, as if I was already working with them. Their instructions were quite generic and open but clear, you have total freedom to do what you think is the best. You can invest as much time as you think it is necessary. I want to make very clear that was no obligation to spend any specific amount of time, that's up to the candidate, you can spend 30 minutes if you want. I chose to spend approximately 40 hours because I had no previous experience in AAA and I wanted to show off my skills. In that time I designed the two screens I was asked for, created a document (10 pages) explaining my whole process from the analysis to the decisions taken to design, and created an interactive prototype in Unity showing how my design would work using a PS4 game controller. After fifteen days, that was already February, I received another email telling me I had passed the test and they wanted to interview me. They asked me to give my availability for the next two weeks to see when we could do the interview. The interview After a few days I received another email saying they had to stop the interviews until April, I imagined that due to Covid-19 many companies that wanted to hire people were a bit helpless with governments changing the laws continuously. In April I spoke to them again and they told me they did not know anything at the moment and the process was still at a standstill. During all this time I could see how people from Naughty Dog visited my profile on LinkedIn so I was happy to see that I was awakening some interest in the studio. In the middle of May I finally received another email and they asked me again for my availability for the next two weeks. The interview was finally scheduled for the end of May. In the email they told me who would be in the interview, there would be a total of five people and some big names, some appear among the first in the credits of Last of Us II. There was my recruiter, a Game Designer, an Art Director, a UI Programmer and a Product Designer. Obviously the interview was going to be done virtually, each one at home. I prepared for the interview as much as I could, researched about the people I would be interviewing with, about the company, etc. Thanks to the fact that Naughty Dog is such a well-known studio, it wasn't very difficult for me to find a lot of information. Despite that, I guess you are never 100% prepared for an interview like this. Finally the day came, almost 6 months later. I won't deny it, I was quite nervous and in my head I couldn't stop thinking about possible questions and answers. The interview itself was basically based on technical and very specific questions, there was only one question about me professionally, there were no personal questions of any kind. The interview was straight to the point with questions about specific and concrete cases, from which I imagine they expected answers with concrete solutions. As you can imagine added to the nervousness when in seconds you have to give practical solutions to concrete problems the interview can become quite intense. The interview lasted about 40 minutes, to be honest I was not very satisfied with my answers, but I gave my best given the circumstances. I could see again my LinkedIn profile was receiving visits from Naughty Dog so I was still hopeful. A week later I received an automated email saying that unfortunately they were not going to continue the process with me. Evidently I was very upset because getting so far in the process had awakened a lot of hopes. In short, it has been a great opportunity that I am very grateful to Naughty Dog for thinking of me as a candidate, from which I have learned and I could even say it has made me grow a little more professionally. What's next? In this case, I would like to think life is not so different from a video game, you just have to press the "play again" button, acquire more level with some side quests, and when you are ready, try again. For this reason I'm going to concentrate on improving my portfolio, get more experience with freelance work or with Indie/AA studios and reapply when I've improved as a professional and have more experience in game development. I think it is important to have the tenacity to learn from our failures to improve and keep trying, in the end the most important thing is to pursue our dreams. If I have learned anything from this whole experience is that it is important to try, even if you don't meet all the requirements, applying to positions that may seem out of your possibilities show your motivation, willingness to learn and spirit of self-improvement, qualities that sometimes are better than having a diploma or a degree. You may not get the job of your dreams the first time you apply, but the journey can show you the path to fulfilling your dreams, maybe sooner than you think. I hope my experience can be helpful, thank you so much for reading. I wish you all the best! You can find me on: [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 14 Jun 2021 03:51 AM PDT
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| The different engines used for GMTK Game Jam: Unity 61.6%, Godot 13.1%, game Maker 8.9%, Unreal 4.2% Posted: 14 Jun 2021 05:01 AM PDT
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| A Definitive Guide to Completing Your First Game Jam Posted: 14 Jun 2021 12:33 AM PDT
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| Be on the lookout for shady people stealing your free game and putting it behind ads. Posted: 14 Jun 2021 10:41 AM PDT So awhile back UpToDown.com took my free game and they uploaded it to their website behind advertisements. At the time I had no ads on my own website at all. I submitted 2 dmcas within a couple months and they never took it down. You know what it took, I had to post the person in charge of that's linked in on twitter pinging a bunch of other larger indie devs, exposing uptodown for this unethical behavior, before they took it down, finally. And then they had the gall to ask me to take down my posts about them, which I refused to do. They never bothered me again. After this they finally took it down. The moral of the story, make sure you know some larger indie devs, so they can help you out in these situations. I dont know what i would have done if i didnt have that help in exposure. Also dont use UpToDown, they are uploading games without the dev's permission. And warn interested people to only download from your official links. [link] [comments]  | ||
| What is the best approach to implementing recruitable characters? Posted: 13 Jun 2021 09:26 PM PDT Option A: Procedurally generated charactera. Every character is unique and varied, with their own traits and a small backstory blurb to flesh out their personality. Examples: Battle Brothers, Rimworld, Xcom, Darkest Dungeon. Option B: Unique but developer-created characters. Every character will be truly unique and can have specific interactions with other characters to faciliate more interconnected storytelling. Examples: Fire Emblem, Valkyria Chronicles. Which approach do you believe works best for which types of game? [link] [comments]  | ||
| This is the UE Water Material Making Tutorial we made. Please take a look and leave feedback!! Posted: 13 Jun 2021 08:09 PM PDT
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| (part 1) Blender & Unity - Playful, Simple & Clean 3D Game Art Posted: 14 Jun 2021 03:27 AM PDT
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| I need help choosing between these three languages Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:54 AM PDT Hello, so when i first started with C++ i wanted to 3D game dev, got fustrated switched to many languages to try 2D/3D but i come back to C++ because "C++ is the industry standard for game dev and if you don't know memory management you are a bad programmer ?". So i have three choices i either:
I'm only 17 doing this for a hobby for now, and since i have summer break i want to take advantage of it and learn something out from it, apologies if i sound immature. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  | ||
| Bad Ideas: Can't Code for Real, so Build Game with Excel Backend? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:06 AM PDT For clarity, the curiosity here is: Please tell me exactly, in as much detail as possible, with similes and metaphorical comparisons, how bad an idea this is. Most eloquent response gets my undying appreciation. [link] [comments]  | ||
| Made a list of some of the most common gameplay abilities :) Posted: 14 Jun 2021 03:26 AM PDT I'm sure there's many abilities that are missing so your input would be very valuable in making this list complete! You can find the list here! (At the top is the variable that can be changed, and below it is how it's changed) [link] [comments]  | ||
| Should I worry about getting my game copied if I stream while I'm coding? Posted: 13 Jun 2021 03:58 PM PDT So I've been thinking about streaming the development of my game in twitch. The only thing I'm worried about is that someone could easily get the source of the game through screenshots... I mean... I know there is no much people that will like to do that, its just that I've been working so hard on this that I will fear someone copies the code and releases a game like mine before I finish. It's not very rational and I believe in open source and sharing, also I want to try the experience of streaming the development and maybe get help or teach others about gamedev. What do you think about this? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Looking for graduate jobs? Hear from companies with open positions! Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:47 AM PDT Recently graduated and looking for your first job in the games industry? Join us to hear directly from games developers around the UK with active graduate vacancies; who they are, what they've done, and most importantly, who they're desperately looking for. This is a livestream event lasting 60-90 minutes. Each studio will have their own dedicated chat channel so you can follow up with any questions to them, and if you like what you hear, just apply directly. Studios include: Creative Assembly (Total War, Alien:Isolation), 4J Studios (Minecraft), Outplay Entertainment (Gordon Ramsey Chef Blast, Alien Creeps), Blazing Griffin (The Ship, Murderous Pursuits) and Huey Games (Hyper Sentinel, Mystery of Woolley Mountain). Sign up for free at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grad-jobs-live-tickets-153209653197 [link] [comments]  | ||
| Is there a place I could buy art from? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 07:31 AM PDT Hi, I noticed there are a lot of asset stores for 3d and 2d art that you could use in-game but is there a place to pay for "painted" art to be used for things like loading screen, in-game wiki etc. I know that I could hire an freelance artist for custom art like that, but is there any place on internet I could browse and pay for the license of existing art like that? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Game environment art? Where does the theme come from? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:21 AM PDT How do you decide what you want your environment to be like? i.e. if it's a castle, or an industrial space? Who actually decides what it' going to be? Is there a website that has the portfolios of a whole bunch of environment artists that I can look through? I am not a gamer. But i've become fascinated by the environment art in video games. I'd like to use a piece of environment art for an album cover of mine. Is there a way that I could get in touch with a great video game enivronment artist and have them come up with some ideas with me? They could listen to the music and tell me what sort of visuals they think would fit. Is this sort of thing possible? [link] [comments]  | ||
| PC Dev, do I need a Privacy Policy? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:19 AM PDT So, I am a PC Dev. Do I need a privacy policy? As far as I am aware, I have turned off every piece of standard data collection in Unity (I will check again before releasing, of course) and I, myself am not collecting data either. I will be publishing my game as a downloadable on itch and it will only be on PC. Do I need to have a privacy policy? TLDR: Turned off every standard data collection in unity, not collecting data myself either. Game just downloadable on itch for PC. Do I need a privacy policy? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 14 Jun 2021 09:08 AM PDT Let me start by saying that I am not a developer of any kind though I am attempting to get a foothold with Python. That said, I have an idea, but I am afraid that the time for the idea to become reality is now and I am nowhere near the developer level to even attempt contemplating building what I need. I would like to believe the code could be patent and would almost immediately be used my many other companies. My questions are: Is there a way to reach someone to get this going without losing the entire idea? Is this something that I need large capital in order to get a startup going Is there an existing company or conglomerate that would not just dismiss me immediately or worse dismiss me immediately and then use the idea in some fashion or another? Is there other information I don't know that could help or avenues I don't know about? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 14 Jun 2021 01:29 AM PDT
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| What is the best game engine to use for 2d pixel are games? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 11:37 AM PDT Hello everyone, So I want to start making games, I watched a lot of things on youtube to see what game engine I should use and nobody gave a straight up answer. So I chose to come here and ask you, what is the best game engine to use if I want to make a 2d pixel art game? I don't care how hard it is, I just want to know what is the best one. [link] [comments]  | ||
| Party Jam is June 21 - July 1st! Register now! Posted: 14 Jun 2021 11:35 AM PDT Party Jam by Game Jolt, Amazon Web Services and Beamable is a 10 day game jam starting on June 21st where participants will make a social, multiplayer party game (think Among Us, Fall Guys, etc.). In addition to a cash prize, 3 winners will get a chance to play their creations with Dan Gheesling on the home page of Twitch.tv! But that's not all, they'll also have the opportunity to pitch their game to a panel of publishers and investors made up of 505 Games, Xsolla, Griffin Gaming Partners, and Amazon Games! There will be coaching sessions for the winners prior to the pitch with the creative director of Riot! Register here: Form.jotform.com Game Jolt Community: Gamejolt.com [link] [comments]  | ||
| Is there a way to create cartoon/anime textures from photos? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 11:10 AM PDT I'm going to start creating textures for my game soon, and I've learned how to create seamless textures from photos I take, but is there a way to take those images and make them look more cartoon-like? I've seen some videos that turn photos of people into cartoons, but I'm not able to check if the same process would work for creating textures as well. Any advice on how to go about this? [link] [comments]  | ||
| Posted: 14 Jun 2021 07:16 AM PDT Hello! so i decided to read the faq, and i am a bit confused on where to go. so while it recommends visual coding, from my experience i don't enjoy it and would rather just start learning text coding. What language should i learn? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  | ||
| Dynamic music in the game. To make dynamic musical transitions during combat, we first used wwise. Posted: 14 Jun 2021 07:03 AM PDT It is very important for us that there are no separate tracks, but only one with many options, which itself adjusts to the situation in the game. We did it beautifully. But then (when we started working with the publisher) we learned that Switch does not support Wwise. Therefore, we ourselves have made a program in the UE4 engine for the dynamic transition of musical instruments. Has anyone had similar situations? How does your music switch in the game? [link] [comments]  | ||
| What to do after writing the story? Posted: 14 Jun 2021 10:38 AM PDT So I chose the genre (Horror-Action-Adventure Linear Story-based game) much like Hellblade style. I wrote the major story with the characters and everything. There is still much work to do on the story but I finished the basis on which the story is gonna take off from. But what should I do after I finish? I am an iOS Developer and I have no experience at all in 3D Modeling or designing. Is there a way to collaborate with a team to turn this story into a game or something? Or even sell it? Because I don't think one developer can make something like Hellblade with free assets or paying shitton of money on assets and courses and it's gonna take a lot of time and work. [link] [comments]  |
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