It’s not a name that conjures up images of fun, laughter or days upon days of staring at 2 computer monitors, sometimes covered with pages of text, sometimes lists of sprites and even artwork. It’s not a name that seems capable of evoking an entire spectrum of emotions, ranging from elation, to amusement and inevitably, frustration. It sounds, well insipid, almost as if it was conceived as an afterthought, without having any real meaning or depth.
It’s also where I’ve been working (well, interning) at, as a junior artist/programmer for the past 7(8?) months. And today was my last day at what has possibly been the best work environment I’ve ever encountered in my life.
The story actually began a long time ago, when I was finishing my short stint at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore back last December or so. I came down for an interview at Mikoishi, not knowing what to expect and hoping against hope that I would get to work on their actual current game project (I had thought it was a fighting game), since up to that point, all I had ever done on games was essentially whatever I did in my spare time.
The interview didn’t exactly go very well, I think, and I was uncharacteristically nervous when Amy (one of the bosses) brought up the subject of my mom, who had actually done the initial contact/negotiations for me to be brought on board. It got worse when I was introduced to one of the directors on the art team, who, I think, wasn’t exactly wowed by the inadequacy of my portfolio or my customary matter-of-fact responses to questions (sorry about that, Joelle, if you’re reading). Although I was accepted, I couldn’t help but feel that I was out of my league.
That feeling got a lot worse when I first started. I met a couple of the artists, who were drawing/painting stuff about a million times faster and better than what I could do, and it was all I could do not to just to admit out loud that I would probably be better off just making coffee for the team and shadowing them instead of being given an actual workstation.
After an initial and enthusiastic briefing about the game we were working on by the art director, I got introduced to my work partner, who in turn introduced me to our 3rd-party particle system used for the game.
(Note: I am not writing anything about the game at this time as it’s not released yet. While I personally feel that we should be doing more to promote the game, I respect our producer’s wishes and trust his expertise in these areas.)
Anyway, the first thing he asked me was, “have you ever used a particle system before?”, to which I was relieved to be able to reply, honestly, “Yes, I’ve worked with Combustion and XSI’s particle systems before”.
“Like, particleillusion?”, was the next question, to which I could only reply, sheepishly, “No”, having no fucking clue what particleillusion was at that time.
“Oh, it’s alright then. Just, you know, explore,” was the response, to which I was thinking shit, what if I can’t get the hang of it?
I guess at this point I’m going to thank my physics/maths teachers, because if not for my studies on kinematics/forces, I would never have been able to grasp as much of the IDE as I did. And now, at last, I’d daresay that I’ve come a long way since that first day when I was sure that I’d be kicked out within a week for not measuring up to standard. While I admittedly still can’t paint/draw for fuck, I’ve learned, if anything, that it never hurts to try shit out. If it doesn’t work, throw that shit away and try something else instead of planning for every eventuality and automatically discarding options based on distant, uncertain possibilities. By following the latter method, you unknowingly limit your own creativity and your output suffers as a result.
It seems, sometimes, that the time I spent there has passed so quickly, too quickly. Yet, I remember almost every single thing I’ve done, every line of code I’ve written (except which visual effect I worked on, that always fucks my mind up for some reason), every time I’ve cursed an engine crash/graphic artifact. There’s so much I had to do, and yet, at the end of all things, I feel like I should have done more.
It was pretty much the same whoever I talked to. Whenever I talked to a programmer or even a QA team member, I always felt as if I didn’t belong, that I was intruding on the territory of what someone else would probably have done had I not so rudely butted in. I followed the old army axiom, “listen to everything and say nothing”, the equivalent of lurking.
But as time went by, and as I started joining in discussions about art, about gameplay, about programming, I found something existed about this company that every other work environment lacked: the fact that this company was more open to ideas and changes than most other game companies. Imagine me, an intern, a wannabe artist, actually being allowed to speak my mind about the look of a spell that an artist working in the industry for years had designed! Imagine me, a C++ beginner, helping out the programmers by finding API functions in the particle system’s SDK that could be used to give the artists much more control over the look of their designs! Imagine me, a random gamer (though I like to think I’m pretty good in awp_map_fair), taking part in gameplay discussions with the producer!
I mean, all these are small things when you consider them from the sanctity of a chair and a desk, but you really have to experience it in order to understand why it means so much to me.
Time does go by, though, and before too long, I have to leave. But leaving means cooling down, and that means problems.
My last week was mostly spent teaching my replacement (also an intern) most of the stuff that our team had developed and how it all worked. Unfortunately, due to the dreaded manpower issue, how everything went from the particle system into the game was mostly under my purview and a couple of the programmers’. Because the programmers had much bigger issues to worry about (e.g. the game actually being playable), most of the time I had to work on my own with the particle system’s SDK to try and find out what other capabilities I could prod someone to code into the main source for me.
I hope it went well, especially since I didn’t really have time to test what the new guy had learned. In fact, I honestly worry about whether he will be able to take up the challenge of being the Point of Contact for anything to do with the particle system’s integration with the engine. He’s learned fast, and well enough for someone who has had absolutely zero prior programming experience, but somehow, even as I’m writing this, my mind still conjures up horrible images of an entire team of tired individuals closing in on a overworked, sleepless intern who has been staying up through the night to figure out an unsolvable bug.
Yea, I know. I’m not usually one to wax euphoric about stuff, but I really enjoyed my time spent at Mikoishi, even if I should have been preparing for my future and all that. But if we all just cared about our own future, there would be no future, and so fuck that. I’m really going to miss the place.
Amy, Alex, Cash, Joelle, Danny, Nat, Ros, Patrick, Ke Liang, Anton, Eunice, Ben, Wilson, Mansoor, Yun, Joe, Khalid, Ker Ching, Tristan, Melvin, Stone, Jeevan, Lin Yew, Sean, John, if any of you get to read this, I know I’ve probably said this before and it sounds retardedly cliche, but I honestly can’t offer a more genuine word of thanks for all the help, advice (and in Cash/Mansoor’s cases, car rides!) you’ve given me. I really hope that Dark Grounds takes off. (And that you guys get your 10% back sometime soon!)
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