Getting a job in the game industry and first official game design (part 2)
- Frédéric Hatanian
- Nov 10, 2016
- 5 min read
In my last post I talked a bit about how hard it can be to get the interest of gaming companies and that even if it can sometimes be a bit depressing you should never let go of your dream. Well once you've started to receive some positive answers from different companies, another challenge awaits you... You basically have to prove that you are a better choice than the other candidates out there and that hiring you will be a good choice for their company but also for you (nobody wants to hire you for a couple of months then see you leave).
In order to determine if you are the right choice, the game industry is using very similar methods that any other industry would use: little questionnaires about you and why you want to join that specific company, telephone interviews, Skype interviews and, in the end, on-site interviews. The number of interviews you have will vary greatly depending of the company.
In my case, a first company asked some questions through a few e-mails, they then sent me a questionnaire to describe a bit more myself and see if I had some general knowledge about games. After that came a test (I will come back to that), and finally 3 different Skype interviews with people from different branches.
Another company sent me a questionnaire then flew me directly to the country to have a day of on-site interviews with all sorts of people that would keep on asking me questions to test my sense of logic and my capacity to stay calm in a stressful environment.
I also had a company that directly sent me a test then proceeded to a few Skype interviews.
In the end it is about 2 things: your personality and how well you answer to these tests. Depending on your profile these tests could be anything from writing some code to showing your ability to use a specific software. Since I was applying for game designer positions, my test consisted in creating game design documents or analyzing a random game and say what I would change about it or which features I particularly liked.
These kind of tasks are not particularly easy if you're trying to get your first experience in the game industry, but you have to remember when applying for an entry level position, most of the other candidates are going to be in the same situation. Once again, everything is going to depend on how creative you can be to differentiate yourself from the rest of the hungry beginners. To give you an idea of what to expect, you can have a look at the game design document that landed me the job in my current company. The assignment was to take a game that is currently in the top of the Google Play list and make the sequel of it. My work is not perfect and I would definitely change a few things, but the amount of time I had was limited to a few hours and it did the job.
Dodgy Head
Presentation By Frédéric Hatanian
Quick description:
Dodgy Head will be based on the game Arrow developed by Ketchapp. The player takes control of a head and has to collect as many points and gems as he can on his way while avoiding the walls. The head naturally move to the right and the player can change the trajectory to the left by touching the screen.
New Features:
We will add the possibility for the player to double tap his screen which will trigger a special skill. The “Skins” from Arrow will be replaced by “Heads”, each head will have a different special skill that can be used with a double tap. Examples of skills: the serpent head will throw his tongue in front of him and collect all the points it touches, the snail head will slow down the speed for a couple of seconds…
Introduction of bonuses that can be bought with gems by the player and will spawn randomly, see description of the bonuses in the monetization section.
Instead of counting the score of the player only with the number of points that he gets, there will be a distance meter counting how far the player went, giving him a feeling of achievement and making it easier to compare each party.
We will remove the possibility for the player to buy a different background via the in-app store as the background will change automatically every x meters to give the player the sensation that he discovers a new part of the game. We can reuse the same color patterns for the background as in Arrow.
Monetization (in-app store):
In Dodgy Head the player will be able to buy 2 different types of items in the in-app store:
Heads: we can reuse some of skins from Arrow and invent a few new ones
The numbers of heads available is reduced from 14 to 8
Bonuses: once they are bought they will spawn randomly during the game. You can buy 4 levels for each bonus and every level raise the frequency of appearance of the bonus. There is 3 different types of bonuses:
Invincibility: the player’s head bounces on the walls without killing him (10 seconds)
Flying: the player starts flying over the walls, he can still collect the coins and gems (5 seconds)
Coin Magnet: when the player passes near a point, it attracts it even if the player doesn’t touch it (8 seconds)
Also, the cost of buying coins on the in-app store will increase as right now, buying the biggest bundle offered (7€) is enough to buy almost the entire items in the in-app store.
Monetization (Advertisement):
Currently the game uses 3 different types of advertising:
Banner ads that are always present at the bottom of the screen during playtime, they are fairly discreet and display quite a bit of information for their size and they should be kept as they do not slow down the playing pace.
Full screen ads that pop up after the player loses and that can be closed with a tap of the finger. They are not very troublesome for the player as they are easy to discard but they display very few information compared to their size. They should either be removed or present more information (see below).
These ads do not give a good description of what the game is about or what kind of Facebook page you can subscribe to.
Video advertising: the player gets a few gems in exchange of watching a video. This advertising system is good as it is to the demand of the player and we should keep it.
Retention:
To try to have the player come back regularly to play the game we will offer him a daily reward in the form of additional gems that he will get when he connects. The reward will increase every day if he keeps on connecting. At the end of the week
Schedule:
Week 1:
Developers: recreate the code for the basic Dodgy Head gameplay mechanisms (touch to change direction, collisions with walls and points…) and add the new double tap mechanism.
Artists: recreate the skins and background for Dodgy Head from Arrow with our own style and create new heads.
End of the week meeting to discuss problem and other questions.
Week 2:
Developers: Implement the first skins created by artists in the game and add the other new gameplay mechanism (skills effects, bonuses, distance meter).
Artists: Create effects for the different skills and bonuses.
End of the week meeting to discuss problem and other questions.
Week 3:
Developers: ad the 2-3 different advertisement systems to the game as well at the daily reward system.
Artists: create the visuals for the menu and the daily reward system.
End of the week meeting to discuss problem and other questions.
Week 4-6:
Testing and bug chasing followed by a soft launch in a couple of countries to obtain the first data on player’s behaviors. Once we have the data we can modify what there is to modify and do the hard launch.
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