Dennis Fong’s Post

It's one of the questions we hear the most often; HOW do I get experience in Games... 💥💥💥When people only hire those with Games experience?💥💥💥 ONE of the most consistently effective answers I hear (and often share) is joining a Game Jam. So, let's talk about why: 1. Network. You build, you learn, and you form meaningful connections. This should, in my opinion, be your most heavily-weighted variable when choosing your professional development experiences. 2. Skills. You actually hone the skills you're likely cultivating in your courses and personal learning, and you get real-world feedback to make those skills relevant and relative to what's happening now. HUGE. 3. Data. While honing and applying your skills you get to harvest data that lends deep credibility to your resumes/interview answers/etc. Set goals with numbers, measure your success, write down those stories, repeat. Forever. Thank you so much to my great friend Maya Rand and to TheXPlace for including me as a speaker for the #summergamejam. I'm massively excited be striving to create value for the worldwide Games community alongside Larry Hryb, Joy Horvath, Martina Johannesson, Matt Dondelinger, Mark Holmes, Kate Edwards, Emily Grace Buck, Andrea Saravia Pérez, Neel Upadhye, Kevin Leung, Dori Arazi, Katrina Strafford (Kat), Peter Moore, Shelby Moledina, Karl Magnus Troedsson, Dave Rosen, Thomas Winkley, Debra Isaac, Carl Domingo, Gavan Gravesen! #gaming #gamingjobs #gamingcommunity

Currently on the second week of development for the specialism module at Escape Studios, thought I’d share my progress so far. This is a lightning/electrical shockwave effect which is inspired by Miles’ lightning ground strike in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 by Insomniac Games. The effects definitely need refining but timing and scaling the effect is something I’ll be working on and prioritising specifically this week. #vfx #ue5 #niagara #unrealengine #gameart #gamedev #gamedevelopment

How does something like this happen? You get government backers that are willing to go on the journey with you and the ability to move quickly and with agility. The backers see your early results and then that forms a trusting bond. You empower teams around you, whilst holding everyone to account on the market realities. You equip developers with business skills and help them find ways to better their production processes and marketing. You bring other agencies along for the ride, which is sometimes an education and an effort but you encourage them to grow ambition in a space. You work with an excellent internal team who are always interested in pushing harder and doing better and holding each other accountable. You make sure every single dollar you spend brings maximum value to the industry, government and taxpayer. And sometimes it's just doggedness and spite. 😂

Here we are with the first speaker announcement at DevGAMM Gdańsk 2024! 🎙️ Nickole Li, Principal Game Designer, Mojang Studios AB Starting at Ubisoft Singapore, Nickole worked on weapon systems design and monetization, later contributing to titles like Star Wars Battlefront 2, Battlefield 5, and Battlefield 2042 at EA DICE. 💡 Things I Wish I Didn't Have To Do - Workflows For The Near Future In the past, game development workflows have been mind numbing and human error prone. As new tools become available, so does the accuracy and quality of the output. In a world where the scope of game projects is reaching the logistical limits of sustainable human effort, how shall the games industry better serve its players? Join us to hear this insightful talk this February! #gamedev #gamedesign #workflow

You can follow this cool HORIZON project that I'm part of, it's about researching important questions: how (regional) clusters of game developers form, grow, stabilise, etc. Hopefully, we'll find the magic formula in the ensuing three years :)

MobyGames may be a quarter century old, but its info and stats are as fresh as ever!🏄♀️🐳🔥 Check out this killer (whale) of an interview from Destructoid Video Game News with MobyGames Jeremiah Freyholtz and Atari Wade Rosen. Highlights include the new addition of MobyPro (in early access), Freyholtz and Rosen's optimistic future for the site, and a definitive takeaway that "we need sites like MobyGames now more than ever." https://bit.ly/4ahf4B6

I recently had the pleasure of playing "Inferni", a truly great tabletop role-playing game by Lorenzo Trenti, Studio Supernova and XVGames inspired by Dante's conceptualization of hell. The game develops as a three-way shared narration, in which players switch roles and interpret, at different moments, the Wanderer, the Guide, and the different Damned souls that they encounter in different Circles. Players first collaboratively create the Wanderer and their Guide, then they build their personal hell by choosing sins that relate to their own experience or values, and then placing them in Circles in order of ascending gravity. As they travel, Wanderer and Guide will meet various Damned souls who represent different sins, and who dwell in several Circles - whose aesthetic is decided each time by a different player, either by following the contrappasso rule or not. Inferni is a really well-constructed game, which moves only through shared narration. Through good balancing of narrative authority and constant role-switching, it creates a deeply immersive experience. It also features different endings, which will be unlocked according to players' votes (compassion or judgement) after each Circle. We had a fantastic time playing, and you can find our game session online on MorgenGabe Crowdfunding Youtube page (in Italian): https://lnkd.in/dFGM6vGq Finally, Inferni immediately struck me as a literary storygame that can have an immediate in-class implementation - both in Italian language and literature classes and in world literature courses. The author added a helpful section at the end of the manual with tips for educational use, but more can be done in terms of scaffolding and debriefing. So that's what I will be working on, along with some materials in English to facilitate play. Stay tuned - and if you speak and read Italian, go get the game! Here is the link (Italian only, for now): https://lnkd.in/dTTUgx-k ❤️📚🔥 #inferni #ttrpg #lorenzotrenti #studiosupernova #xvgames #italianrpg #gdr #literarygames #storygames #inferno #italianol2 #giochiletterari

👽 Helldivers 2 launched last week so we've compared its critical reception with other titles released by its publisher and other titles in the same video game genre. This new intergalactic shooter is a continuation from its predecessor and is developed by Arrowhead Game Studios. You will see that its performance within the shooter genre is particularly noteworthy, outscoring major titles to earn a respectable 4th position. 💻 Stay tuned as we share more key findings and observations on newly released titles with you in the coming days. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on Helldivers 2. Have you had the chance to play it yet? And what are your thoughts of the title compared to the first one entry in the series? 👉 Keep up to date with #GamesIndustry insights ▶ https://shorturl.at/krEN4 #Videogames #Data

Game studios will know that the process of creating a game comes with many challenges. When we asked MD Sam Tamiz about the biggest challenge he faced in creating Luna Blast, he said this. "Condensing so many great ideas into a single game! It's easy enough to wake up one morning and say to yourself, "I should do this because of that." But turning an exciting thought into a commercially viable product while remaining true to your values? It's a real challenge! It's why we have put together such a stellar team, bringing together knowledge and expertise from across the business spectrum to operate in an open, collaborative environment where all ideas are respected. We also have multiple overlapping feedback loops to ensure that our ideas are sanity-checked. And finally, we are sympathetic to the past and present - the pioneering game studios who have trailblazed the industry and set the bar so high; as well as the future - the values and technologies that will shape our world for our children and grandchildren. You can't say that Luna Blast isn't up for the challenge!" #LunaBlast #GameDevelopers #GameStudio

As our team descends on #SanFrancisco for Game Developers Conference, we've got to tip our hats to Dean Takahashi for his relentless reporting and research doing a "deep dive" on launch-day challenges. Along with our friends at Pragma and Frost Giant Studios, Inc., he quoted Siddharth Dhulipalla, our CEO on a few topics related to the challenges around #launchday. Take a read of the article: https://lnkd.in/gvwsqSyh What are your thoughts on the challenges of going live with a #multiplayer game? #gamedev #videogames #launchday