Greetings.
Actually I didn’t remember to take any notes right after the guest lectures. After few lectures I’m inspired by Dice and Logtown Studios and also other companies, and notified by my team to write notes about my immediate expressions. It’s such a shame that I just put my every last effort into improving our project game, although I’m just stepping into my comfortable zone to solve programming problems and do designs, rather than writing down something. After all I could forget everything from the lectures as I have a forgetive mind (so bad!), but once before I flinched and refused to write any texts. Now it might be the perfect chance for me to note down every things I’ve been impressed with in this post. It would be both such a relief and a good start for me.
Dice is a everyone-knows-it-is-great Swedish game company that developed Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield series. The guy who came to the lecture is a developer mainly working on gameplays, who attended this course just 1 year before.
The lecture lasted 1.5hr, demonstrated a lot of things how the game development and collaboration works in Dice. Everything is just as expected to me, as they have most their game development work on FrostEditor and collaborate via a file-independent version control system. There is in sum ore artists and content creators than developers, and the numbers (~200 members, 88 developers) looks natural to me.
Something I’m interested in is the core development. I am the guy who like to solve programming and settle down for hours or even days for a single target. I know that there will always be some people working for the core mechanics, just like what I have done in Game Design project (I set up the framework of core codes of the game and coordinated other two teammates to collaborated on the project development), however it’s always exciting when something unconfirmed is explicitly announced by one from the official. Just like what is my thought to Oracle (noted below), I’m the same or rather excited about working in Dice for core developments compared with Oracle.
(Note that the notes is copied from the reflection for my study visit; the document can be accessed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hoXWGzJfaDeQx4l24xaEPY9zpumPWwV62pCFPkcc55Q/edit?usp=sharing)
“Oracle taught me that how close I am to the great invention in programming technologies. Also Oracle appeared to be less old-fashioned while in my awareness I thought the company could give me the impression of being more traditional. Actually I felt comfortable and calm in while walking around the public area in Oracle, and for this reason I thought that Oracle would be a potential choice of my future career path which once I didn’t believed it is.”
After the lecture, we are involved to ask questions about Dice to the lecturer. Few general questions is asked about their company, but I decided to ask about programming in Dice. The question is “Did you feel difficulties reading the codes when you had just started working at Dice, and how long approximately did you spent to become comfortable with all the game codes?” (not exactly what I’ve asked), and I got the answer “have to spent hours (or days, some time long? I don’t remember) to find the script in some occasions; the project is so big that probably no one remembers all the codes; everything is ok but there is some really old codes and even comments where the original developers appologize for some function they could not implement or flaws.”
Actually this is my most concerned question for me and I asked the question after making sure no one else is asking a question that includes or be able to summarize my question. The answer proved my strongest belief about the status of all the programmed stuffs of game projects in large companies. Everything is so certained, making me felt such confidence, much encouraged, so good, wow.
After that, I asked one more question off-lecture about coroutines. The lecturer seems to have good knowledge of this technique, and discussed shortly with me about the coroutine he experimented and the probably new coroutine feature in C++17. Also as what language they used for programming with Frostbite engine, the guy is most familiar with language C++ too, cool!
So every thing in Dice is just appealing to me at now. (But the thesis projects they’ve provided is not appealing to me at all! :P)
Logtown Studios is a indie game studio working on VR games. They show us the climbing simulation VR game and the eye-tracking technology used in the game.
I hoped to work at computer graphics and interactions just like what they are doing in Logtown Studios. The technologies makes me excited and as well confident, as it’s a single step right out of my comfort zone. And they have internships and thesis projects for students.
I don’t have much word about them, as I’m actually not so passionate about VR developments now, just expecting to make some workshop-scale mini game with my own equipment I would buy in the future, but not feeling very synchronized with the feeling to participate in VR game developments.
This is also a indie game studio working on VR games. They had made few games that is more relaxing and less hardcore compared with current hotest non-VR games on PC. Actually I think they are more-or-less successful in game designs among VR games I’ve seen before, just as what design ideas they have as they had told to us.
Also I don’t have much word about Resolution Games too compared with Dice. It’s a pity that I missed my study visit to Resolution Games as once I had registered (then I went to Oracle), it could have been generally a supplement to my knowledges about this VR company. But nevermind, there will always be chances that I can know more about them. The future awaits.
After writing this post, I recognized that this might had becomed a solo for notes about Dice. But everything I’m pretty impressed and still remembered now is written here. This may shows my true mind, to be sure, a reflection of myself, rather than raw memories that is formed immediately after things. Anytime when I come back to review this reflection would be a good experience for me, as I’m sure I will forget all the details about the guest lectures, but still remember me being impressed by sereval things.
December 9, 2017