Adrian Kulinski
Y2 Games Development
Project 2
Identifying a Specialism
Following my successful placement on Quantum Loop’s Fast Track Development Programme, I have been asked to reflect on my progress and the diverse range of skills I’ve developed across several disciplines, including Games Design (Level Design), 3D Art and Animation, Programming, and Audio Development.
During the programme, I explored various industry-standard tools, creative processes, and production workflows, producing a range of experimental outcomes that demonstrate my growing technical and creative abilities. I also researched the work of leading practitioners in the field, using these insights to inform my own practice and to better understand the variety of professional roles within the games industry.
As Quantum Loop moves into the next phase of its talent development initiative, I will now take part in a process designed to help me identify and pursue a specialist pathway. To do this, I will critically reflect on my experiences so far, evaluate my strengths and interests, and decide which area I want to develop further.
Throughout this project, I will carry out a deeper investigation into my chosen field, building on my previous experimentation to develop a more focused understanding of my specialism. The project will conclude with the creation of a professional personal statement and an industry-standard CV, both tailored to a specific specialist role I aim to apply for in an upcoming group project at Quantum Loop.
These materials will not only form part of my formal application for the group project role but can also be used to support my future progression goals, such as UCAS applications, university interviews, or entry into industry-focused higher education courses.
Task 1
Selecting a Specialism
Industry Skill Comparison
I decided to make a radar chart to analyse my skills and lack thereof as a means to determine what areas I may need to improve in accordance with how important they would be relating to my specialist area (programming). Evaluating myself this way allows me to visualise key weaknesses and focus on how to mitigate them to my best interest.
My highest-scoring skills were teamwork and basic design principles, with programming in third place and communication in fourth. These show me that I have a well-established understanding of working on a group project in my preferred specialist role. I believe that these skills being my highest are due to a range of factors, such as my personal preference for programming in place of something like 2D art, alongside my amicable circle of friends, improving my communicative skills through daily.
Task 2
Specialism Research
Tools, Software, and Materials
Think you've done this, please upload, I saw it in class, you were working on Word.
Production Pipelines
https://gdkeys.com/game-development-process/
Conception Phase
The author believes that the chaos and unpredictability of the conception phase makes it hard to properly define a timeframe for it (possibly taking "a few weeks" if done quickly or "several years" on the higher end), especially for bigger companies that have more than one game ongoing at one given moment, which helps with exploring many ideas without committing to one for the next few years.
Pre-Production
The author believes that the three tenets of pre-production are to "confirm your team has the technical, artistic and workload capabilities" to follow through with the project, "prove that your game's vision and core loop are valid" in order to ensure the entertainment factor of the game and finally "define the scope of your game's production" as to make sure that the project is able to be completed in the projected timeframe. Teams could become stagnant in their progress if they allow the pre-production phase to become an "early production phase" as the team wouldn't be sure of their own capabilities, instead rushing in without a plan and eventually letting the project outgrow them, especially if it's a project with different teams all working on it; if one team decides to let the project creep on them whilst the other teams are working on pre-production, then the entire project would be out of sync.
Production
The main threat during the production phase is scope creep, where new developments that weren't considered in the pre-production phase are able to be made for the betterment of the game. This, however, would obviously add some time to the production of the game. This should be properly balanced by, instead of 'adding' these new developments, replacing planned features for the new ones. This helps with ensuring your timeframe for the production phase is still relevant whilst ensuring that you're being considerate of what features are actually being added to the game. This was especially shown in Naughty Dog's The Last of Us II, which had been planned to have an online mode as well as the main game. Unfortunately, this was cancelled due to Naughty Dog believing it too ambitious, turning their focus entirely to the narrative-based main game.
Polish
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Why does the author claim that teams rarely respect the need for a substantial Polish phase?
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What risks develop when Polish time is eaten by extra Production work?
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Why does the author argue that even solo developers should follow a structured pipeline?
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What does he mean when he says that a pipeline “is not playing against creation”?
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Summarize the author’s final pieces of advice for navigating the pipeline successfully.
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Why is understanding the game development pipeline essential for you as a programmer
Investigate Career Progression
How to get a job as a game programmer | GamesIndustry.biz
What educational paths do industry professionals recommend for aspiring game programmers?
How can aspiring programmers gain relevant experience for their first game development job?
According to the article, what is the typical career progression for a game programmer?
Which qualities and skills are highlighted as essential for a game programmer in the article?
What advice do Monteiro, Palmer-Leandre, and Cakmak give to new programmers for improving their skills and starting a career?
Task 3
Applying for a Specialist Role
Analysing my skills
During my first year, I believe that my strengths lied in the programming side of the course, where I was drawn to the more logical side rather than the creative as it simply made more sense to me.
Having said this, I do feel as if my 3D modelling left some things to be desired last year. This year, I hope to improve my modelling and generally become better in the creative side of the course.
Upon finishing my course, I believe that I'll be able to use the time management skills that I have managed to develop throughout the duration of this course. Alongside this, I believe that this course has made me more personable .
University Research
University courses comparison
If I were to continue on the path of game development in my future, as a career, I would probably study at Anglia Ruskin University (abbr. ARU) due to their proximity, favorable course and it being an accoladed institution.
This includes things such as a gold TEF award in 2023, Times Higher Education University of the Year 2023 and the medicine and health Queen’s Anniversary Award in 2021, which show how innovative, well-performing and friendly the institution as a whole is. This draws my interest since I was already interested in their game programming course before knowing how prestigious they were due to the modules including game engines, programming and even software development, to name a few, which aligns well with my goal of specialising in the programming field for my second year at USP college.
However, a more general course could also be of some benefit, such as the University of Creative Arts (abbr. UCA) with their games development course, which offers some similar modules that includes game engines, scripting, programming but also sets some time aside for 3D modelling, meaning that it wouldn’t be as specialised as the aforementioned ARU course. This could either be a positive or negative, depending on the extent you want to specialise in the code part of the industry.
Since I would prefer to focus solely on coding, game engines and the general programming part of the gaming industry, I do believe that ARU would be more suited to my tastes than UCA’s games development course.
Identifying Key Skills
Create a list of:
Industry Skills
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Skills relative to the specific role, for example a 3D artist needs to have knowledge of Maya and/or Blender.
Employability Skills
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Skills that can be used in any role such as teamwork, leadership, organisation skills.
Exploring Junior Roles
Job Title Here
Job Link
Begin with describing the job role:
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Who is it for?
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What are they asking you to do?
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What responsibilities would you have?
Then focus on the skills that the job asks you to have:
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Compare the skills that you currently have to the job's listing.
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Do you feel you could successfully apply for the role?
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Identify skills that the job requires that you currently do not have, what would you need to do to be able to apply?