Diary Entry 6
We had a change of plans this week — back to the UDK work again! Unfortunately that means my plans for the new game are on hold, for now.
Personally, I’d rather be working on one thing, because it’s easier to keep up momentum, but you never know what you’ll be doing in this industry (at least as a junior programmer), so I suppose it pays to be as flexible as possible.
So I’ve been working with UDK for most of this week, with a little bit of time spent on the new game (improving some things I’ve already made, nothing new). I finally got to the point where I need to polish some of the work I’ve been doing, and it seems to take forever. It’s like I spend a few hours doing something technical (like a custom HUD system) then taking just as long trying to get it to look good in the editor!
That’s a new feeling for me, because most of the work I’ve done in my spare time just goes on my website, and I can change it whenever I want. But this time, once it’s finished, that’s it — no more time to change things, so it has to be close to perfect.
I’ve also been working on my portfolio during my spare time this week. I’m still worried that I’m making too much work for myself, but after I started working here it seems really easy to just get my head down and code all evening. It must be because at work, you can’t just quit when you’re bored, so you just keep working anyway. That’s how I feel when I work on my own projects now, so I just keep going until something is finished.
On Wednesday, we went out to dinner (me and the other placement students and mentors). I got to hear about the studio’s history, and where everyone worked before. They talked a little about what they dislike about working in the games industry (like the extra hours) but also how fulfilling/rewarding the job can be otherwise. Overall, I still think this is the place I want to be.
Also, I haven’t really looked around Milton Keynes since I got here so that’s going to be my new goal for the next few weeks. Hopefully I won’t get lost …
