Lee Ann Holt

What a battleground you’ll find in the comments. All because Chris Heatherly touched the taboo subject and used the taboo word. We all need to recognize, politics divide. Sometimes companies put their politics blatantly in the game content itself, and some big percentage of would-be customers are instantly removed from the purchasing audience. Sometimes it’s more covert, with politics contributing to the development decisions or the messaging or the optics of any of the companies involved (IP holder, publisher, developer). This still creates a detectable undercurrent that can subvert reception. Games are always messy, and are a sum of many parts. It’s impossible to discuss why a game succeeds or fails without hitting it from many different angles. If a game is “good enough” it can overcome the negatives of a political agenda. But “good enough” depends on a million factors not the least of which includes how strong the political messaging itself is. Any company making a product should want as many customers as they can get. And then, quietly, they can use those funds to further whatever values and politics they hold dear. You can have your cake and eat it too, but to do that you don’t put the politics into the product. You make the best product you possibly can. Ruthlessly executing toward greater sales/reception. The better it does, the more you can do with it. And it’s worth mentioning that sometimes politics steals the limelight from potentially bigger issues that tanked a game. It may have been just one of many factors, but people will be quick to point to politics as the nail in the coffin (especially during an election year). Before throwing further comments into the mix, let’s all remember the blessing it is that we share this world and life together, and that our differences give life a unique and complex flavor. Internet platforms make it easy to forget our humanity and robotically attack the entity on the other side of the screen. It’s another person.

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I'm excited to share with you all that I've completed the Blueprints for Film and Games class with CG Pro taught by John Waynick. Before this class I knew how to convert a bunch of Static meshes into Blueprints, or convert my Blueprint into a Static mesh...as a VAD Artist I knew I needed to understand how to use BPs to be more effective. This class, lead by John, ushered in a skillset that I wish I had in my toolbelt much earlier. From real-time in-game events to helpful world building techniques, I learned how to make the process of iterating faster, allowing for more creative decisions and how to do things in-game in real time. They taught me how to make better use of UE 5 lighting, how to understand where the performance hits are, and how to avoid them while maintaining the look I wanted to carry over from Look-dev. My personal goal was (and is) to make my passion project video game a reality. This class has helped pave the way for me to do that, and I cant speak highly enough of the experience. If you're on the fence, just do it. You won't regret it.

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Game design has been a passion for my entire life. I remember sitting down with a friend growing up, looking at games like Armored Core and Skyrim and saying "Well, that's great, but what if we made it available to be played at a table like D&D or Pathfinder?" TTRPG experience and knowledge has been so critical in learning how to design games- and better, the experience extends beyond just TTRPGs. It extends to games of all kinds- general roleplaying, first person shooters, turn-based or action, trading card games, board games, etc. - Wording VS Intention: Wording and the concept of RAW(Rules As Written) and RAI(Rules As Intended) are incredibly important. Anyone who has spent time playing Magic the Gathering or D&D 5e knows that the occasional loophole in the wording of a rule allows for some fun, albeit potentially unintended nonsense. - User Experience: As a Game Master of 10+ years, and as a player, having fun with the system is extremely important. The mechanics should be intuitive and should have synergy that falls naturally with the other systems within the game. Players inherently want to enjoy their games and have fun, and will praise the design of a game for having good synergy within its own mechanics for having that level of forethought. - Simplicity can be Key: Pathfinder 1e is where I started my TTRPG journey, and retroactively it has a lot of things I love! However, it also has paragraphs and paragraphs to describe a single class ability; it means less people have to filter through more information to understand the exact interaction and experience they will have. I have had players immediately express disinterest if a class has too much information in it, even if it was the exact description they were looking for. - Lack of Stagnation: It has been a consistent experience in the TTRPG community to release new editions, updating, simplifying and refreshing rules. The difference that Pathfinder 1st Edition and Pathfinder 2nd Edition have is vast- and even the revision of Pathfinder 2e changed enough rules to breathe life into the already fun and understandable system. - Plan Ahead, But Adapt: When designing a game, you want to keep in mind any systems you aim to include, as far down as you can. The Tree method comes in handy here, allowing one to think down to the minute details of a project. Thing is, you'll miss things. You will have oversights. That is why adaptability to your plan is important. Planning ahead by creating frameworks for your systems allows the adjustment and insertion of new ideas into old systems. TTRPGs are foundational to the video game industry as a whole, and my passion for designing systems has led me to create and refine several systems for games. The core concept of mechanics, synergies and frameworks would not have been as relevant without my experience and time as a Game Master and a Player in the TTRPG world.

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🎮 Want a job in the video game industry? 🎮 Begin with the end in mind.* ➡ When you drive to work do you just turn left or right based on how you feel that day? 😅 (I hope you left extra early that day) ➡ When you gather data for a project, do you grab monthly active users, popular breakfast items and breeds of dog? 🤐 (This report might be fun but your boss will not be happy) ➡ When you schedule a doctor appointment, do you call random numbers in the phone book? 🙃 The same applies to...well...applying for jobs. ❔ Do you look at the minimum requirements for a job or do you click easy apply on cool titles? (Although, I might as well shoot my shot for Game Director) ❔ Do you update your resume with your most relevant experience when you apply? What is your desired outcome? Work backwards and you'll see at least some of the steps in a path to get there. This is not easy to do, because there is no perfect way to be the best fit for a job. Everyone's journey is different. What steps have you taken to get to your goal or how have you been successful in your journey? *One possible end goal pictured #Letsgetyouhired #RecruiterAdvice

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