Alix Games

THIS is how you should apply for a job in a creative field!

stevenyau — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:25:01 +0000

THIS is how you should apply for a job in a creative field!:

To the graduates that looking for jobs in the games industry: this is how you stand out and this is what you could be up against.

Photographers Well Presented Promo Material

stevenyau — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:47:00 +0000

Photographers Well Presented Promo Material:

Learning From The Masters: Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda

stevenyau — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:43:08 +0000

Learning From The Masters: Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda:

Great analysis of dungeon design from The Legend of Zelda on the NES.

Fixing my iPad 1 after updating to iOS5

stevenyau — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:33:54 +0000

After upgrading my iPad Gen1 to iOS5, I found it be extremely sluggish when typing and apps (especially Safari) were crashing constantly. I originally thought it was it was like when the iPhone 3G got the iOS4 upgrade which basically made it almost unusable and frustrating sluggish.

However, after a quick search, I found a thread in the Apple forums where a couple of people have replied with a ‘fix’ for this:

HR’s message on page 12

rick1972’s message on page 11

Hope it works out for everyone else.

Great 10 minute summary in how SCRUM works. Worth watching if...

stevenyau — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 18:51:38 +0000

Great 10 minute summary in how SCRUM works. Worth watching if you need an introduction, overview or refresher in SCRUM practises.

Awesome Amendment in Early Day Motion for Modern Warfare 3

stevenyau — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:39:24 +0000

Awesome Amendment in Early Day Motion for Modern Warfare 3 :

Tom Watson sounds awesome!

Automated Testing: Building A Flexible Game Solver

stevenyau — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:09:20 +0100

Automated Testing: Building A Flexible Game Solver:

Interesting article on using an AI script to ‘solve’ complete a game and be used for automated testing. I have been looking into this type of thing myself and researching if it would be possible to write one for the games I am working on at Playfish using something like Sikuli as the player.

However, for it to be useful as an automated tester, it would need to be able to pick up on crashes and where the player would be stuck and report to a server/email the developers on where and how it happened.

EA proposes Harry Potter dev closure

stevenyau — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:49:00 +0100

EA proposes Harry Potter dev closure:

This is a really big shame. There are a lot of good people and is where I learned my craft when I started out in the industry. Hope everyone comes out of this okay.

Earlier in the week, I was reading a newspaper article on how...

stevenyau — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:18:26 +0100

Earlier in the week, I was reading a newspaper article on how the writer managed to end up in around £20k of debt from consumer spending over a period of 20 years. This alone bugs the hell out of me as I can’t believe that she doesn’t understand the basics of managing money, ‘Don’t spend what you don’t have’.

If this was a cause of getting into debt due to basic necessities like food and rent, then I can understand and sympathise but this was from purchases such as a $400 spending spree in Ralph Lauren and going out in bars.

The image above is her monthly budget to start paying back this debt where she is earning £2800 after tax (equivalent of about £46k a year so she is pretty well off) and ending up with only £73 wiggle room.

She is already using £530 to pay off loans which is good but I don’t see why she still has £300 budget for ‘Going out’ and ‘Sundries’. Surely there is plenty of scope to trim that down further considering how much debt she is in. Also ‘Phone, Internet and cable TV’ does not cost £80. I had the full Virgin Media Package for half that amount so I have no idea what she is spending that extra £40 on. She can even go one step further and remove cable TV altogether to get it down to about £25.

Unbelievable.

Results from a survey on how potential employers use social...

stevenyau — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:12:25 +0100

Results from a survey on how potential employers use social networks to screen the applicants. Not surprising in that fact that they do use them but I was very curious in what they do as a result of the information they find there.

Getting back into the Game

stevenyau — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:19:00 +0100

As some of you know, I recently changed jobs from WMS Gaming to Playfish UK and as I wrote about my reasons for leaving the games industry, I thought it be interesting to write about why and how I came back.

So what happened?

Due to documents that I have signed, I can’t give any specifics but I can say I was made redundant and it wasn’t because I sucked at my job. You should be able to fill the gaps.

Admittedly, I was already starting to think about moving on by this point although I was pretty surprised considering one of the reasons I joined was for job stability.

However, I decided to stay for at least one more project as I was making very good headway on a Continuous Integration server which would allow us to have automated daily builds deployed both locally and to the head office in Chicago.

I also wanted to properly run Agile pending on the size of team as I had the flexibility and seniority to do so at the studio and it would be great to get the project management experience.

What is it like to be made redundant?

One word: scary. And this is coming from someone who had already gone through two redundancy processes with next to no debt, no dependencies and no mortgage to worry about.

Thankfully, WMS were generous with the redundancy package which allowed some breathing room even for those that started recently. However, you first thoughts will always be ‘How long can I go without a job?’ and more importantly ‘Are there jobs out there for me?’

In my particular case, I knew there would a fair amount of work for programmers but for the others artists and producers, there isn’t a great deal out there. Art is generally being outsourced overseas and as there is generally only one producer per team, there really isn’t a lot of demand.

Still, why go back to games? Did you try looking elsewhere?

When I was looking for work previously, I was quite heavily focused on choosing between industries which I now realise was a mistake. The industry won’t define or shape how a company would be run. I was getting so hung up on the industry stereotype that games would always be crunch heavy that I should only be looking outside games.

This time round, I focused on companies and the work that they do rather then the industry that they were in. My criteria was still the same though, I still wanted a good work/life balance, decent pay and part of a smaller team where I wasn’t a cog in a machine.

A really good site that I came across was Best Companies Guide which maintains a list of companies that have surveyed well by the employees for being a great place to work at.

From there, I did apply to Softwire who write bespoke software solutions to clients. Unfortunately, they never got back to me with an interview offer which counted as a rejection. I did catch them during a recruitment drive so I guess my application never stood out.

This was a shame as from the website and perks, it sounded like an awesome place to work where the staff were well looked after and in positions of responsibility of work.

With my recent research in shared office workspaces, I kept tabs on jobs at technology startups in TechCityUK from their Twitter Feed and also jobs boards such as Tech Startup Jobs, 37 Signals Job board and Stack Overflow Careers. Unfortunately, due my narrow skill set, I found it difficult to find a job that I had the right skills for especially during the Cloud computing/storage boom we are in. For example, some places asked for Ruby on Rails experience.

I also looked at the finance industry on The IT Job Board just to see what it would be like working there and if I would actually be interested as the money is really good in that sector. Unfortunately, I never got even close to applying due to poor recruiters that actually put me off digging any deeper. I kept getting promised of being called back or emailed and neither happened. (Selby Jennings, I am looking at you).

(Tip: When dealing with agencies, it is handy to have a burner phone such as a PAYG on a cheap or old handset. Agencies tend to have a habit of continuously calling you about potential job opportunities even when you have found a job. As I learned the hard, giving them your personal number is a bad idea.)

Next, I looked at games companies that I wanted to join which appealed to me in some way. Usually these were smaller companies and/or had a company culture that tickled my more creative side. From memory, these were Playfish (where I am at now), Honey Slug, Mind Candy and Hello Games.

Finally I had a list of specialised agencies help out with roles or companies I may missed or were completely unaware of and I was surprised on the roles that they had. Holly from Advark Swift got me my original job at WMS Gaming. Peter from Amiqus was awesome to work with since he was a heavy gamer himself and really knew the companies that he was representing especially Splash Damage. It was actually a bit of shame that I didn’t get a job through him. Finally we have Fran from Recruit3D who I still owe a pint to and he also recently set up the site GigsInGames which is a games industry jobs board free of agents.

As to why I went back to games, it just turns out the company that liked the culture and scratched that creative itch of mine happened to be in games and part of EA.

What about being a startup? That seems to be the rage these days.

I did heavily consider that option but couldn’t make the numbers work. I honestly didn’t think I had enough original or compelling ideas to get a startup going and sustain for a period of time.

Also, I couldn’t find a place cheap enough to rent or willing to move to in order to minimise running costs. If a friend had a spare room to rent out, then I would have had a punt at it for 3-6 months to see if I could really do it.

Regardless, while I was attending interviews and going through the motions with the redundancy process, I was (and still am) working on a small tile puzzle based game for the iOS platform as something to keep me busy and get back in the mind set of game development. If I did manage to finish it, then I would also have something to sell and share as portfolio piece.

Since you went from games to gaming and back again, did you find it difficult to get interviews?

This was a concern of mine and a scary one at that. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad. The year gap didn’t hamper my skills or knowledge too much, the fact that I still kept tabs on the games industry and related articles (such as the ones from AltDevBlogADay) meant I was still relatively clued in.

While the work at WMS wasn’t cutting edge, it did teach me a lot about working with really old legacy code bases. Additionally, the work I did on Continuous Integration and tools to aid workflow which I did in my spare time was good talking point with my interviewers.

I did do a fair bit of preparation to make sure I could talk about the work listed on my CV and covered the high points of each project. ‘What Colour is your Parachute?’ also really helped with the generic interview questions such as ‘What will you bring to the company?’ and also reminded me about salary negotiations and it really is an issue of ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’. A few of my friends who were more experience in this also really helped a lot by sharing their own experiences.

I also make it a habit to update my CV and portfolio after every project just in case something happens like this redundancy and I don’t have to panic about getting something together while trying to deal with the shock as well.

If the gap was a larger, I really would wonder if my skills and knowledge would become dated thereby making it difficult to come back into a such a cutting edge industry. It really drives the point home that I need to be working on projects in my spare to keep skills sharp and up to date.

Only a couple of days ago, I was shown that you can run Git and Hg on top of SVN which is incredibly useful and something I wish I knew at WMS which would have made my life a little easier. It will be something I be looking over the weekend on a VM just to see how easy it is to do.

All in all, was it worth leaving EA Bright Light in the first place?

Yes it was. I left for the right reasons but perhaps wished I thought more about where I wanted to be instead. It did really help to get myself financially back on my feet and therefore am in a much healthier position then a year ago.

Due to the small team sizes on each project at WMS, it meant that I got a lot more exposure to the management layer that I would be shielded from so that level of senior experience was enlightening and useful. I also wanted to stay for another project to try and drive modern software development practises into the company or at least the studio as I doubted I will ever get as good as chance as that again anytime soon without starting up my own company and/or team.

Such a shame that it never happened as that could have been my mark at the company if it went well.

I have some more questions, where can I get in touch with you?

Feel free to contact me via Twitter @yaustar or by using Tumblr’s Ask Me Anything form.

User Interface Design For Programmers

stevenyau — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:40:56 +0100

User Interface Design For Programmers:

It’s an old article but a pretty good one with analysis on GUIs from applications that we are all familiar with. Well worth a read if you ever had to implement a GUI menu or are intending to.

My new Portfolio

stevenyau — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 01:11:24 +0100

My new Portfolio:

Finally got round to updating my online portfolio again. My last upgrade didn’t quite hit the mark for me. A step in the right direction but it still didn’t feel presentable or something I was proud of showing.

After looking at some student’s portfolios and some inspiration from the the Update Conference site, I set myself a challenge on making a single page site and here is the result.

The layout and colour scheme is much nicer and I used Initialiser 2 as a base for some jQuery work.

360 degree view of Space Shuttle Discovery cockpit

stevenyau — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:34:15 +0100

360 degree view of Space Shuttle Discovery cockpit:

That’s a hell lot of buttons!

Update Conference 2011 gets the thumbs up!

stevenyau — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:53:16 +0100

On Monday, I attended the Update Conference 2011 in the Brighton Dome Theatre and it was a fantastic experience it was! Great venue and a good mix of talks and entrainment with live music acts (including the host himself singing on stage to open the event and a Kinect hack sample mixer). The majority of the talks were very design driven, focusing on the user experience and interface from web and mobile technologies.

Between the various sessions, 5 min mini-talks (TechBeats) were taking place in another area focusing on smaller and more specific subjects such as Typography for the web detailing the differences when compared to choosing fonts for printed works and the mobile phone industry in Africa which was an eye opener for me (more people in Africa have access to mobile Internet then clean water).

The organisers also booked the Brighton Museum for an after party which allowed us to view the exhibits while live music acts and DJs were playing their sets.

All in all, it was definitely worth the ticket price and I look forward to Update Conference 2012.

(I will post more on some of the individual talks a bit later).

What happens when to chat bots start talking to each other?...

stevenyau — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:20:35 +0100

What happens when to chat bots start talking to each other? Watch the video and find out! Flipping hilarious!

Your Nurofen Plus pills may accidentally be Anti-Psychotic drugs

stevenyau — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:59:05 +0100

Your Nurofen Plus pills may accidentally be Anti-Psychotic drugs:

The affected packs of Nurofen Plus all contain 32 tablets and carry the following batch numbers, expiry dates and product licence numbers:

13JJ, 03/2014, 00327/0082;

57JJ, 05/2014, 00063/0376;

49JJ, 05/2014, 00063/0376.

Each batch contains between 4,000 and about 7,500 packs, amounting to about half a million tablets. However not all packs are affected.

Want!

stevenyau — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 12:03:26 +0100

Want!

13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

stevenyau — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:11:00 +0100

13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence:

From the article:

“To see why they branch this way he built a small solar array using the Fibonacci formula, stepping cells at specific intervals and heights. He then compared the energy output with identical cells set in a row. Aidan reports the results: “The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!””

One of the dangers of being a contractor or freelancer is a...

stevenyau — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:16:00 +0100

One of the dangers of being a contractor or freelancer is a client failing to pay due to a variety of reasons. Mike Monteiro talks about how to avoid this issue by having a contract in place and the basics of what should in that contract.

Contains profanity.