I just got an email from Blitz Games telling me that I am being considered for a chance to look around their offices (and from then on maybe the chance of a job), but first they want to see some evidence of work by the 9th. With that is an email address to send work to and details of what they want to see from the different professions they are interested in.
I certainly cannot for-fill the 2D Art, 3D Art, Audio or Animation requirements, but under the Programmer requirement they want to see a simple arcade game with a special effect. Although I could probably produce something brilliant by the end of the month after conducting some serious study, I do not believe this is doable by the 9th. No, not even with the power of .Net as 3D is completely new to me, although I will be looking at 3D now that uni is over, I just want expecting this to be on the cards so soon.
Under the Designer requirement they want level designs. I have designed many games in my little black design books and a few games that run on my final year project. My lecturers where even visibly impressed when I told them of the improvements I had made in my games as I had progressed from one to another, but I haven't ever produced such a document before. Although considering the sheer number of games that I have played over the years and my knowledge and ideas of gametheory I could probably bang something out by then.
So tomorrow I am either going to be designing a level for Barbie's Horse Adventure or going to crack-open the 3D programming stuff again and give it a fair old go. It doesn't however seem like Blitz they are interested in hiring a diversity of people and this makes me question if they are the kind of company I want to work for as their hiring strategy seems more about fitting pegs into wholes. They have probably ended up highering like this both because of the number of applications they recieve and the fact that most people are only in the industry for five years. Still this identifies two cultural issues with the company. They struggle to keep people and don't look to higher people with other skills that they could use.
Need texture, you draw? Draw now. Hmmm good texture.