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Hey, couldn't help but notice your profile pic, looks really cool, the girl. Who is she? and which anime is she from?.

Gatchapen best monster!

belated happy bday fam. I hope things are going well for you

happy bday fam

I think you have been very active if you have been busy. It is weird when people say they haven't been active just because I don't talk much on the internet. What you do irl and on the internet is one and the same.
I really want to ask what you are doing in college but I have died every time I have asked other people that. But I already opened the rabbit hole, so please answer my curiosity.
I am in the last year of high school, in case you ever wonder.

ty fam, appreciate it

Hey, how are things.

Best facebook of all time, ngl

Coffee >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> sewer water >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> tea

mahal kita

The best games are normally the ones that involve the art teams from the beginning, so the audio can influence the gameplay or vice versa. Bastion and Transistor are definitely examples where the story, art aspects where worked on in conjunction with everything else and not shoehorned in at the end so the game has a very strong identity. There are indie devs out there who won't hire a sound designer or composer and just use free sounds online and licensed music (and I guess it's part of my job to convince them otherwise, or I wont have a job). That can work on some ideas but yeah, the most immersive experiences are when everything was tailored for the game. It will only get more immersive with virtual reality which has some exciting stuff for sound :P

The 14 hours thing is definitely a worst case, when you watch behind the scenes videos there's always that segment when it's 4 weeks before E3 or the release date and everyone is pulling all nighters to get things done in time. Hopefully normal working hours are a bit more forgiving lol. The main thing I would worry about if I do get full time work is if I think it's a studio that is good to be at creatively; it's common to be hired full time for a couple years, finish a game and get your name on the credits, then leave for a different company and repeat until you want to settle down

That's fair enough, it's best not to rush into something when you're not sure yet, I suppose a wide topic like programming requires a lot of experimentation before you decide what you like about it. That's good, I know (at least in the UK) there are good industry connections at universities for programmers getting into gaming, I guess when over half of that workforce need programming skills it makes sense

Well that's mostly a foley stage for recording 'natural' sounds, you'd normally work in a converted office room (http://designingsound.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Tearaway_04-1024x683.jpeg) or purpose built room (http://cdn.indiewire.psdops.com/dims4/INDIEWIRE/ef2145d/2147483647/thumbnail/680x478/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdl9fvu4r30qs1.cloudfront.net%2F7f%2F32%2Faf63f4174f1eae2ceb2faf822a66%2Fdefacto-sound-studio.jpg). Although that might be changing in the next 10 years as some people are worried the audio team are too reclusive lol. You want a quiet space to work but that makes it harder to talk to other people, or people are hesitant to walk in and disturb you so developers like Valve encourage you to work anywhere with headphones and save working in a studio for when you really need that equipment

Yeah it depends on the project budget, I guess it's hard to define 'indie' nowadays because some games are considered indie despite being published by Sony or Microsoft. A self financed or Kickstarted funded small game normally has the budget for 1 person full time, and perhaps hire 1-2 more people by the hour to help out for a few months. I know Darren Korb for Supergiant does everything himself, at least he did on Bastion. Even Bethesda have only one resident audio guy and hire help when they need it, although they spend years on each game. It can be a lot of work, I've heard of some horror stories about the 'crunch' where you do 14 hour shifts, 6 days a week. Some of that is self inflicted though, either poor planning or being too ambitious

What sort of modules are there for your course? I've taken some physics modules that I really didn't get at the time but slowly understand now as I research them on my own when they spring up, that module gave me this subconscious understanding where I had to connect the dots months later ha. That has become the typical learning experience at university for me now, not sure if that's good or bad

Are there are industries you want to break into? Like you say it's applicable to so many

Exactly yeah. 20 years ago you could get work with little experience and a lot of veteran audio people now came from a film or music background and had to learn on the job. That's pretty much impossible to do now as the industry is so huge and becoming more 'Hollywood', so jobs are becoming more specialised (in all fields like art, programming, animation, audio). I am aiming for a sound design job, creating sounds to be implemented into the game, but indie games normally hire one or two people for the whole audio side of development so I might have to record dialogue, compose the music, record foley, program the sounds into the game, everything basically. The bigger the studio is then the more they can break that down into individual roles until you get to Hollywood levels where even the 'backgrounds' (ambient sounds you hear when nothing is happening) is one person's job. And that person could have been doing only background sounds for 30+ years so it can be incredibly specific what role you end up in, as long as someone wants to pay you for it. I am hoping to end up in a studio where I only have to worry about a few things, variety is good but there are areas where I really struggle (like music composition, or engineering, programming). I like the prospect of the job as it's a mix of creative and technical skills, and there's a focus on creating content that suits a story so it's like a combination of all my interests

This is a pretty good showcase of what I want to do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfwDLONo7nI

That seems like a really flexible field to me, I mean hey you could end up working in the same studio as me, making systems I rely on :> I have a really basic knowledge of C as it's part of a programming project I need to finish but I find it really cool and gives me a better appreciation for some of the mathematical concepts I never cared about in school. I'm sure it's a lot more demanding work than what I do lol

Assuming I've made the right choices and this is something I want to do then working should be exciting rather than daunting and when it comes to audio you never finish an idea, you normally work on it until you have to stop. It never sounds right until someone else listens to it and tells you it's good/crap. So I think it will consume most of my time, but I'd rather worry about my career now than later

It depends on the industry (I'm sure certain STEM fields require postgraduate degrees to even apply for the job) but in the industry I'm trying to get into a degree is a bonus rather than requirement. I think connections are just the universal constant for any job, people want to work with people they like or know do good work. That is my problem at the moment as all the positions I want to apply for expect minimum 1 year industry experience and credits on a finished game. The only work I can get is entry level contract work (3-6 months employment) but that isn't listed very often in the UK so I'm looking internationally too. I think most likely I'll spend the rest of this year working on free stuff like mods or small indie games while I spam email all the big companies so they at least know who I am. The dream is to become recognised so companies approach me instead lol

I've only worked part time at a local sports hall so in the grand scheme of things I have no work experience either. We'll just have to wing it when applying for work ha. Awh, what are you studying at the moment?

If an average game development cycle is 2-3 years, and the audio team is normally among the last people to finish, then that gives me a couple months every 3 years between big projects to weeb :s Actually I have no idea what hours I'd end up working

I find side projects are fun because there's no pressure for me to finish them. I struggle to motivate myself with university work because there's no tangible benefit waiting at the end like money hah. Plus I am trying to get into an industry where experience + connections matter more than a degree. I think worst case is it takes me 5+ years to get to where I want to be (worst worst case is I never get there but I'm not even considering giving up as an option), it's a competitive market. I always find job openings in this country but I don't meet the requirements so I'm thinking applying for work abroad (Ubisoft just opened a studio in the Philippines, hmmmmm)

ML burnt me out forever on VNs apparently, well I have a long summer ahead to start Umineko. Just busy with work? I imagine when I do get a job I'll never have time for weeb stuff again lol. Valkyria Azure Revolution looks really cool, I need to finish VC too