Good The The The Bad Ugly and of Game Production

By Sullivan Randall

he process of making video games is a vast jungle of careers, processes, and experiences. You have people who actually work on the code and base of the game, people who manage teams, and people who create artwork. There are also publicity teams, engineering teams, teams testing the products, there’s so much ground to cover that it’s making my head hurt.I’ve interviewed three different people. Patrick Curry, the CEO of a game developing company called FarBridge, Autumn Almeida, a concept artist who also works at FarBridge, and Jeffrey Flangan, an interface designer and animator who works for an eLearning company named Handcrafted Learning. I’m going to dive into each of their experiences in doing what they do, how they got there, and some of their favorite and least favorite things about doing what they love. As a certain famous plumber would say: “Let’s a-go!”

How’d We Get Here?

There are many different paths that can lead into Game Development. Some people start off going straight into game development while others fall into the field with no idea on how they got there. The path to success is always an interesting one, so let’s see a few examples.

Patrick Curry started off working at a number of companies. He’s actually tried leading game production teams before in his 20’s, but none of them quite worked out. So, Patrick decided to work around the industry a bit. He even got to work on a project for the big mouse himself, Disney! Guilty Party was a game that came out in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii. It combined aspects of Clue and Mario Party in a fun puzzle game for friends and family fun! Even Nintendo was impressed with how the game turned out because they let his team come to a few conferences and events. In 2017, Patrick wanted to give creating a game company another shot, which is when he made FarBridge. Six years and several games later he’s the CEO of a successful video game company.

Autumn Almeida is one of the many talented people who works at FarBridge. She recently graduated from the University of Indiana in Bloomington as of 2020. She had big plans to continue training her skills, but it didn’t end up mattering because the world shut down due to COVID-19. She ended up joining FarBridge in July of 2020 and has been working there ever since. Despite having her original plans thrown out the window, she’s greatly enjoying herself in her position and having a blast with her loving community.

Jeffrey Flanagan is an avid lover of all things animation. He grew up reading comics and watching Disney movies and anime. After graduating from college in 2012, he got the chance to work his dream job: a character animator at Minicore Studios to work on a game they were developing. The game is called The Sun at Night and is a 2d action platformer where you run around a 2-dimensional map and beat up bad guys. Oh! And you get to play as a cute dog! He loved that job because he got to do something that he’s loved his entire life: Animation. A while after that in 2020 he was hired at Handcrafted Learning and began his new journey as an interface designer, and the rest is history.

A Day in the Life of a Game Dev.

Game Development is a very wide field, so obviously people’s days are going to vary based on what they need to get done. Here’s a few examples.

FarBridge doesn’t have an in-person office. It’s a group of people from multiple time zones working together to make magic happen. Patrick does happen to live near where FarBridge is technically located, in Austin, Texas. The large separation between people means they spend a lot of time on everyone’s favorite platform, ZOOM! Patrick says he spends around 4-5 hours a day talking to various people over ZOOM, whether that be with people from FarBridge or other companies. They spend hours brainstorming ideas, reviewing previous works, and talking about new things they want to try. Some of their meetings are also about problem solving where they talk about problems the team is facing and tackle them head on. When Patrick isn’t ZOOM-ing you can often find him emailing. Most of his time is spent in gmail, emailing various different people from other companies for opportunities to work together. He usually ends with an hour or two a day to do more hands off work. He may be able to write some code or proposals for

Patrick Curry

“The first word that comes to mind is stressful. Because there’s a lotta responsibility and I’m responsible for the company making money and paying our team and paying bills and that’s a whole lotta responsibility. Some days that feels incredibly difficult.” new projects. That’s some of the stuff he enjoys the most. And, of course he sneaks in some game-time when no one’s looking. Many of the members of FarBridge live in places that aren’t Texas. Autumn is one of these people. She lives in Indiana. She’s a big fan of scheduled days, apparently it’s caused by her #artist status. A normal work day includes waking up and taking her dog, Griffin, on a walk. She starts working around 10:00 and she begins working on a variety of things whether that be stuff she hasn’t finished or prepping for future work. She usually has meetings around 11:00 where she communicates with her team about plans for projects they’re currently working on. She’ll get evaluated on the designs and art she’s created and given tips, critiques, and plans for future designs. Then she eats lunch, maybe walks Griffin again, and continues to work for the rest of the day. Her day usually ends around 6:00, but this isn’t always true. Who knows, it may be another 5:00 AM work day! Keep in mind that these schedules often

“Usually you start with silhouette or gestures and then bring in a few values, cut those in and every once in a while you’ll be chatting with your art lead or your creative director getting feedback.” dreams of many people, but that doesn’t stop those dreams being coated with the stuff of nightmares! Here’s some of people’s least favorite things about game development. revolve around projects, so depending on the project her schedule may look totally different. Sleep might not always be an option.

Jeffrey likes to start his day bright and early, so he gets up at the crack of dawn to begin a good hard working day! Before he starts work he’ll often read the news, catch up on industry trends, and relax while he waits for the rest of his team to awake from their slumbers. He’ll check emails to see if he’s missed anything from the previous day or if anyone’s emailed him while he’s asleep because his team is spread out across multiple time zones. Then, of course, he gets on a ZOOM call where they discuss the ordinary topics of planning and critiquing. Each day varies from project to project. Sometimes he’ll help his writing team come up with ideas by drawing them out. He meets with different departments and helps develop and change ideas to create the best service for everyone. At the end of every day he checks his emails and threads one more time then signs off for the night.

Time management can be a nightmare for most people, Patrick Curry included. One of the many challenges of leading a game company is managing the time you have. Most of his team works from home after their office split apart due to the pandemic. This switch to working at an office to working from home came with some problems. Being able to stay focused and manage your time while also being in a place with thousands of possible distractions is no easy feat. Patrick says he’s been getting better at managing his time when out of office, so that’s a good thing. When you’re in as big of a position as CEO, it can make some of your slip ups even more egregious. It can be scary to try new things sometimes, and mistakes that happen when trying these new things can be the worst. Balancing your intake of completely unfamiliar projects with things you have done before is a very important part of succeeding in whatever you do. As a CEO it’s extra important to manage this along with your time to make sure that you and your team are on the road to victory!

Uh-oh, Something Went Wrong!

Game design might seem like some magical job where you get to make beautiful creations everyday. WELL IT’S NOT! Things crash all the time! Game development may be the

Whenever you’re working in any sort of creative work, you’re bound to get some sort of creative criticism. While this criticism usually comes from a genuine want for you to improve, that doesn’t mean these criticisms can’t still hurt. Learning to not take criticism personally is something we all must face, and it’s a problem that Jeffrey had to learn over time. At first, it was a lot harder to handle criticisms from those above him, but overtime he learned it was because his coworkers actually want him to get better.

Conclusion

There are many different adventures when it comes to game development. The adventures along the way, the good and the bad, help shape the wonderful developers that work at these studios today. While not everything is sunshine and rainbows, it’s still a really fun journey to embark on. I’d like to thank Patrick Curry, Autumn Almeida, and Jeffrey Flanagan for allowing me to talk about them. That’s all folks!

“it’s okay to not get married to your work because typically it’ll change the next day or the next meeting but y’know again it’s not personal it’s just people trying to help and guide it in the right direction”