Hello all,

I recently graduated with Diploma a in Game Design and Development, it was a one year program and i graduated on the 15th of September,2013.

Prior to my graduation I worked on getting my own website/portfolio up and running and made sure that it was straight to the point and friendly as possible. In the last 45 days I applied to at least 10 jobs in junior positions(mostly game design) and QA and I only received one reply back and it was a negative. I came to the conclusion that showcasing 1 game is not enough so I started working on a new RTS project, I love RTS's and the cool thing about them is that they provide a lot of possibilities when it comes to designing mechanics and features.

A few people(not exactly in the industry) tried to put me off from this career because i didn't land a job quickly but i am positive that this is the line of work i want to be in, I love video games more than anything and my creativity shines when it comes to designing mechanics, levels and missions. I also enjoy programming for a couple of reasons, main reason being that its awesome to bring things to life in 3D Space.

If you would be kind enough I would love it if I could get some feedback and advice from you guys, I am currently unemployed so i am using the time to code and design the RTS game that I am working on. I know that the post I wrote here might not cover everything you need to know about me, so if my website is missing something please do not hesitate to ask me here.

Here is a link to my site :

Game Designer Portfolio

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this and I hope to hear back from you!

Have a good day

My recommendations are:

1. 10 rejections (well, 1 rejection and 9 no replies) isn't that many. You should apply to a lot more places

2. Working on a new from-scratch RTS might not be the best way to create a resume piece, it'll take a long time before there's something showable, and even then, it'll probably be pretty rough looking. Why don't you consider making a map or a minor mod for a popular game that you particularly love?

FatalM,
You should read some articles from this forum's FAQs. For starters:
http://legacy.igda.org/games-game-june-2009
http://legacy.igda.org/games-game-july-2009
http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson24.htm
http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson27.htm

My recommendations are:

1. 10 rejections (well, 1 rejection and 9 no replies) isn't that many. You should apply to a lot more places

2. Working on a new from-scratch RTS might not be the best way to create a resume piece, it'll take a long time before there's something showable, and even then, it'll probably be pretty rough looking. Why don't you consider making a map or a minor mod for a popular game that you particularly love?

Thanks for writing back, what you recommended makes perfect sense. Only reason why i applied to that small number of companies was because I got caught up with perfecting an application I made a for a company that i really wanted to work for (they are the ones who replied back with a no). I will start applying for more jobs soon.

As for the second recommendation I might have to do that, I came across a problem with pathfinding for my units today and so far my development workflow is at a halt, even if i end up coding my own solution using the A* Algorithm it's gonna be take me a lot of time and it will look rough. Might as well mod something for C&C Zero Hour if it doesn't work out :)

Thanks again!

FatalM,
You should read some articles from this forum's FAQs. For starters:
http://legacy.igda.org/games-game-june-2009
http://legacy.igda.org/games-game-july-2009
http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson24.htm
http://sloperama.com/advice/lesson27.htm

Hello Tom, I came across sloperama a while back when i was getting my website up and loved the amount of content and advice it provided, pure gold! I'll give the other 2 links a read in a bit.

Thanks Tom!

From my perspective, what you've done outside of school is the most important thing. It is nice to have the degree and to know you have some technical skills, but if you've never created anything outside of class, then you aren't nearly as interesting a candidate. It is good that you are working on something, but don't think that it has to be some massive and impressive game. A simple prototype that shows skill and creativity is just as impressive.

Also, if you want to get an actual response, be sure you do your research on the companies you are applying to and tailor your contact to them specifically. It is painfully obvious when someone is sending a form e-mail and when someone genuinely is interested in your company. When I receive form e-mails from applicants it is rare that I even look at the resume.

Regarding your resume and webiste, why don't you have this there:

Experience

Sales RepresentivePC ZoneJanuary 2012– May 2012(5 months)Amman,Jordan

Advising Customers on purchases and providing them with the best products and service.

Owner/FounderGotaPCOctober 2009– March 2010(6 months)Dallas,Texas

GotaPC was founded to provide affordable PC and Network Solutions to Small Businesses and Homes , our services ranged from Computer Repair to Web Design. Everything was available at an affordable price combined with great service.

This is work experience is it's valid, put it on your resume and start working on your own project to show up more projects, when looking at your portfolio, it's not a lot, do you have some small games that you made that you could put up on your site? have you tried some specific programing type? example event, or something with ligh changes depending on what the player does and so on.

Look at this regarding making your resume a notch better: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=729&q=beuatiful+resume&oq=beuatiful+resume&gs_l=img.3...587.3848.0.3944.17.14.0.3.0.0.159.806.13j1.14.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..4.13.776.C6EXcwv9ctc

and applying to 10 jobs, you can do that within one day, thats applying to one job each hour. If you know a cool game company that you want to work with, get to know them, contact someone from the company, ask them to buy that person a coffee, but! a big BUT! remember, this is an informaitonal meeting, not a job interview, DON'T ask if you can start working their, they will ask you if they like you.

Something that they tought me at school which is many people have told me is a great way, both in interviews and on resume & coverletters, calling STAR
S - Situation, what situation where you in? What was the problem/oppertunity? (10%)
T - Task, what is your task, where you working as project manager? lead developer? (10%)
A - Action, what did you do to solve the problem or making use of the oppertunity (40%)
R - Result, how did it turn out? (40%)

The procent, meaning what the employer is looking for, the most important is what you did do and what the result is, talk alot about this and make it broad.

example:

S - Situation: Working with a 3D game in unity where there was very long loading times everywhere in the game, I realise that the game testers didn't like waiting this long for the game to load and got fustrated and we had problem in the team to find the time to fix this problem.
T - Task: I was working as a AI programmer
A - Action: I took a few long nights to dig into the code to figure out what the problem was, I saw that the game re-rendered most of the objects and saw flaws in the AI coding that made some heavy prestandad loops that was not nessecery
R - Result: The game was loading 75% faster and the games was starting to run in 60FPS and not 20FPS, the game testers started to love our game, we got an award for best optimized game at school

I'm not a programmer and some of this might not br accurate, I hope you still will get the point I'm trying to get across, hope it helps =)