Prepping for Change

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had a great week. My last week was pretty busy. I’m slowly making progress on job hunting and side projects. I’m making great progress on my latest Twine game. I need to try and be better about sticking to my schedule. I have made some excellent time on my various projects. The D&D game I’m running in Curse of Strahd had another player character die. So that’s 2 in 6 sessions both belonged to the same player. I have some plans to deal with that and I’m looking forward to their next character. We’ve been playing using Discord without cameras, so I also surprised them by using my camera to perform a Tarokka reading. In Curse of Strahd Tarokka is effectively Tarot. It has a built-in function with the campaign, so what I pulled for them makes a difference in the game. Hearing their reaction when I turned on the cam was awesome. I’m super excited for the next session.

I’ve also been cleaning out part of my grandparents’ house. My best friend from college will be moving up here relatively soon so I’m making sure he has a space. It’s been interesting moving stuff around the house and making space. I’m excited for him to join me up here, but also a bit stressed by it as I still am lacking in the job department. Speaking of which, I do have a phone screening coming up. I’m very excited for it and I’m hopeful in my chances. If I got this job it would be my first full time job in the industry and that would be really cool.

Well till next week you guys! I’ll, hopefully, have some good news for you next week. Have a good week you all.

Graduation Season

Hello everybody!

I hope you all have been having a wonderful week. My week was okay a little frustrating but ultimately informative. It’s really starting to hit me that I need to write now and focus. Not saying I haven’t been, but I haven’t been taking my career in writing as seriously as I should and that’s my fault. I’m planning out a new schedule to help me focus on my career and building my portfolio. I’m looking to learn coding and keep working on myself. I did have some cool stuff happen this week though as well. I’m getting ready to start Curse of Strahd on Tuesday. Curse of Strahd is one of the classic D&D campaigns and I’m excited to finally get to play it. My oldest sister also graduated college and we celebrated that today.

It’s super exciting to have my sister graduate. I’m extremely proud of her and what she’s done. Her future looks bright and I’m looking forward to witnessing it. My other sibling are also making progress in their school and careers. I’m pumped by it all. It was weird being the first one done with school. Having gone to Full Sail where everything is accelerated made it weird to see other graduation season’s come and go. To see what paths people have taken is really exciting to me. My path was quick and direct, but others have taken a longer more circuitous path, and both can lead to amazing results. Hopefully, my siblings and I are all on our way to our own definition of success.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I hope to have something exciting to talk about next time. Once again congrats to my sister, and I look forward to seeing what you do.

Exciting Week of Progress

Hello Everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week. My week was really exciting. It started off a bit slow, but towards the end of the week it became a whole lot more exciting. I’ve been enjoying my role as a manager so far and I’ve enjoyed the chaos that I deal with on a day-to-day. It brings an extra challenge almost like a puzzle which is pretty fun. The only time it’s annoying is when it makes it difficult to do some of the other work I have to do as a manager. However, it makes my days go by so much faster. I’m excited to see how my work develops and what the rest of it entails.

The rest of my week has been pretty fun, working on side projects and getting back into the flow of trying to improve myself. The side project I’m working on currently is pretty exciting. I want to spend more time on these projects and I’m trying to be better about working on them when I’m home. One of my other goals is to get my license so that I can get a car. If I get a car it will make my life a lot easier and will allow me to spend more time on things other than work and sleep. It should be pretty nice to have my own transportation.

Well till next week you guys. I hope you have a good week and I have some good stories next week.

Progress Towards Employment

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys are doing well this week. My week has been very interesting. I continued working on my side projects and applying to different jobs. A big thing that happened was I heard back from my recruiter for the job I had interviewed for. Sadly, they turned me down. They told my recruiter that I was a great candidate but they were worried I’d be leaving them soon. I’m just happy to have feedback and have actually been in an in depth interview. It was a great experience to go through that process and learn more about the interview process for a QA job. Now I’m just waiting to hear from some other companies.

All of this has helped me greatly with my job hunt. I’ve been slowly making progress on my job search. I’ve also been gaining more feedback over time on the different aspects of my application and interview process. I’ve received tons of great feedback on my resumes and I’m now at a point were I’ve heard my resume is great from different recruiters and people in the industry. Now, I’ve gotten feedback for how well I interview. I’m super excited and happy about this progress and I’m looking forward to the future.

Till next week you guys. I hope you all have an awesome time and I hope to have good news.

First Interviews

Hello everybody,

I hope you guys had a good week, mine was very busy. The first half of this week was spent coordinating and preparing meetings. Then I spent time working on my side projects. I’m hoping that these projects continue on track and can be finished on time. I think all of the projects I’ve been lucky enough to work on post graduation are fun or interesting. I hope they can be met with success, but we’ll see. This week was also exciting because the final season of Game of Thrones premiered last night. I’m super excited to see how this season goes but I’m also sad as it’s the last one.

The most exciting thing this week though were my two interviews. I had an over the phone interview and then a in person interview at the same company. They’re my first few interviews in the industry and I’m super excited about it. This opportunity came from a friend who recently got a job at another branch and reached out to his recruiter. Hopefully, I here back from them soon and maybe I’ll have my first job. I’m super excited about this opportunity and possibilities it provides.

Well till next week you guys. I hope to have even more awesome news for you next week.

President's Day Relaxation

Hello my friends,

I hope you guys had an amazing week. My week was kind of meh. I spent the entire week sick which really hurt my productivity, luckily, I’m at the tale end of my sickness so I should be able to boost my productivity. I’m going to begin learning some new skills and working more in engine with side projects. I’m looking forward to resuming my own personal side projects as well. I’m hoping to keep moving towards getting a job as well. I’ll also begin updating my website again. I want to write more and edit my older stories. I feel that it would be a great way for me to improve my chances of getting a job if I have my portfolio constantly growing. At this point I will continue to go down all avenues to improve myself and my own project goals.

This weekend was nice. I got to relax and rest without being stressed. On Saturday I beat Kingdom Hearts 3. I enjoyed the game a lot and I’m curious to see what the future has for the series. I’ve heard a lot of differing opinions about the game. My opinion is based off being a recent fan of the series, but I’ve noticed people that were fans for years and waited for a decade dislike the game. It could be due to the game not living up to expectations or I’m easy to please. I may write a review on the game I just need to dedicate the time to it. On Sunday I participated in Harry Potter trivia. It was a lot of fun, but sadly I’m not as up to date on my Harry Potter knowledge. My team sadly did relatively poorly and we got I believe 8th place out of 15. It was fun just a little annoying to learn how little I know. Then today was President’s Day which was a great day for me and my mom to hang out and spend sometime together. It was nice as we never get the chance to hangout.

Well til next week my friends. I hope you all have a great week and that I can bring you all exciting news next week.

Projects New and Old

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had a great week. For me my week went pretty well. I’ve been working on different things and keeping pretty busy. This last week I applied to some more jobs. I’m still super excited about one of the jobs I applied for and I feel like it’s Christmas Eve. I’m just waiting to see what happens. Will I be turned down? Or will I get a call back? I believe that I will get a call back though and I’m very hopeful, but if I don’t at least I have another thing to strive for. It’s all very exciting and scary still. I just want to work, my time at Full Sail kept me busy and all of this downtown is messing with me. I’m ready to be back to working I want to flex my creative muscles in a studio environment and learn new skills.

I will say I am happy to be working on projects. Currently I’ve been splitting my time between two projects. One is and old project while the other is my new one. sadly I haven’t had time to work on my side project, but I downloaded the latest version of Unity for it. These projects are exciting though. I’m pumped to see where these take me and I’m excited to have you all check them out. I can only keep expanding my portfolio and skill set.

Well till next week my friends. I’m looking forward to seeing where the future leads and I hope to give you all good news about that job soon.

Networking and Meetings

Hello my friends,

           This past week has been relatively easy. I spent the whole week traveling around the Seattle area. I've meeting with different people to discuss the industry and possible employment. I was lucky enough to have different people from Full Sail reach out to their contacts for me. Now I'm in the boat of waiting while I continue to improve my portfolio and apply to jobs. I have a few more people I will be reaching out to soon. This upcoming week is going to be a bit more of the same. I'm excited and looking forward to this week.

           This past week two games I worked on were released. One was Fury Strike 80s Beat Down. The game is currently on Steam. I'm proud of the story I wrote for the game and I'm excited to see the game move forward. I've been monitoring it's reception and I'm curious to see how the team reacts. The second game was Tales of Mahabharata. I mentioned it being in early access and now it's in full release. I'm still working on the games story as we have an expansion coming out soon. We recently showed it an event named OrlandoiX. I was told we got a great response and a ton of people want to play. I'm excited for it's progress and to see how it moves forward.

           Well till next week you guys! I hope you have a wonderful week and future!

Editing my Resume and a Busy Week

Hello Everyone,

             This past week has been pretty easy. The most difficult part was just wrapping up my Practicum. The other part has been studio work. With wrapping up Practicum the last part was an Excel spreadsheet where I had to make a feature list, master task list, and capacity plan. It was fairly simple creating the documents, but I had fun. As for my studio work we're in major crunch and it's pushing my time management skills. I feel though that I'm able to balance everything that's going on. I'm just at  a point where I have a lot more on my plate than I was expecting. I'm currently formulating my schedule for the week. My friends may be a little disappointed because I won't be playing much Civilization VI, but it's much needed.

           The other portion of this week is trying to improve my resume. I'm trying my best to make a resume that shows my work ethic and abilities. I currently lack in the experience that most jobs would like, so I need to make my resume impressive. I also need to create awesome cover letters. There are also other ways I'm trying to improve my resume. I'm trying multiple formats and I'm trying to get different people to read my resume. I feel I'm close to a good looking resume I just need to keep pushing. I also need to keep updating my website and showing off the stuff I'm working on. I'm ecstatic and want to move into the industry soon. I know it is difficult, but I'm hoping to get into it quickly after graduation. I've been lucky so far and I have a lot of great friends and connections that are willing to help me. I just have to make sure their faith is well founded. I'm confident I can deliver, and I'm hoping to grow more and more as I push forward.

            Well I look forward to talking to you guys next week. I hope your week goes great and you find success.

Practicum and a Game Jam

Aloha everyone!

            I hope your week has gone as well as mine has. This past week has been very productive. I was able to push forward with so much of my work. I also started my Practicum test. If you didn't read my last post Practicum is basically the final exam of my Masters program. We get to pick one of three tests that are meant to gauge our skills in the game industry. I chose the production test. This allows me to explain my production philosophies and the different ways to approach risks. I'm also required to create a task list and capacity plan. I personally love creating the capacity plan and schedule for a project. I like to coordinate the intricacies and uniqueness. It's almost like when you move into a new house and are setting up your room. The different levels and seeing the plan be put together is exciting. I'm confident in my answers for the test and I am excited to see my scores on it.

            As for the other reason I had a great week. The studio hosted a game jam for the game I am producing. We gathered the different team members and spent the entire focused solely on the project. We were able to come up with different plans and strategies to complete the game. We were also able to move forward with combining our different levels and art. The game is quickly coming together and moving forward. We have a lot of plans for the future, and I'm super excited for you guys to see it. The game is my pride and joy right now. We keep hearing great things from everyone who plays it. This makes me very excited to see what reviews we get on Steam. I'll let you guys know when we're ready to release.

            Well till next week you guys. I hope you guys have a great week and wish me luck on my Practicum!