Monthly Archive for August, 2007

The Not-So-Secret Master Plan

Published
by
tioneB
on 14/08/2007
in General
. 3 Comments

4 and a half years ago, I completed 3 years of professional technical study in Computer Science (In Quebec, this is called a “DEC“). In the last semester of my DEC, I did an internship at Air Liquide Canada, developing web application for their intranet. At the end of my internship, I accepted the job ALC was offering me as a Web Developer.

Fast forward to September 2006. I’m in Japan with 2 good friends. We’re riding the train to go to the Tokyo Game Show. Stéphane is listening to music, Marie-Michèle is reading a book and I’m lost in my thoughts. “I’m living my biggest dream. I’m in Japan! I’m going to the TGS! … … where do I go next?”. When I came back from Japan, I decided that I would do everything in my power to make my 2nd biggest dream come true.

“Your trip to Japan will be a life altering experience” a good friend had told me. At the time, I had no idea how true those words would be! hehehe

Officially, as of August 31st, I’ll no longer work for ALC. September 5th will be my first day at University, where I’ll be on my way to earn my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. You got that right folks! In ~20 days, I quit my job to go back to school! If that is not life altering, then I don’t know what is ^_^

Going to university is only my first step in becoming a renowned Game Programmer. Since I still have a rent to pay, I’ll find a part time job. I’m aiming for Game Tester, since that would give me a good insight into the Game Industry process.

I’ll continue volunteering at IGDA Montreal and build a good network of “inside” contact. I’ll also continue working on HexEngine and other projects to add to my portfolio. With a good portfolio and some inside contacts, I shouldn’t have any problems to find an internship.

Then, to expand my network to outside of Canada, I’ll volunteer as a CA for GDC or maybe even go for the IGDA’s GDC Student Scholarships.

After 3 years, I’ll be a Bachelor and I’ll have all the tools to land a job at Ubisoft as a Game Programmer ^_^

What do you think? That’s a good plan? A bad one? What’s your master plan to break in the game industry?

64squar.es

Published
by
tioneB
on 05/08/2007
in Asides
. 0 Comments

You know the game where you move around peons to do your bidding and die for you? No no, not life… chess! I found this fun website where you can play with your friends or find new opponents. You can play realtime when they’re online, or by correspondence if they’re not.

Soo.. are you man enough to register on 64squar.es and send a challenge to tioneb? :P

Progress Report 2007-08-01

Published
by
tioneB
on 01/08/2007
in HexEngine
. 0 Comments

Changes:

  • TetriQuest: Multiple Board shown on screen.
  • TetriQuest: Player vs Multiple AI.
  • TetriQuest: “Add line” attack.
  • TetriQuest: “Remove line” defence.
  • I refactored some of the TetriQuest functions into class, but “class” in lua seems really slow. I have to investigate to find what is causing the slowdown I’m experiencing.

Challenge 200:
For this progress report : 8h
YTD : 88h00 / 200h

Todo:

  • TetriQuest: AI react to magic attacks.
  • J.I.M. : Do not allow an object to be push into another object.
  • Fix gif transparency.
  • Pixel perfect collision detection.
  • Rework the split of a tileset image. I should copy the pixel of the big image in the tile, instead of each time copying the big image and cropping it.