Jolt Country

Okay, boss: Help me out. I'm applying to get a job as a games' tester here in Edinburgh (not, amazingly enough, at Rockstar) and they want to know some things. Including:

What games I think are good or not, and what bugs I have found.

M'man, make up some bugs I found in your games. Pleeease?

No sweat. I actually have all the bugs I created in a text file in all my games. Would you like them? I think everyone here would be cool if you padded your stats a little. Or, actually, I think you found bunches all on your own.

Sound good?

I love you. Dude.

I found all of two, and I can't even remember them. I hope that grabbing six of yours is acceptable to everyone around. I shall send them candied treats!

Ask pinner to let you have the bug he found in that one Independent game. Also, you'll be blamed for any of their problems.

Their offices were pretty amazing; I go up a lift, and there are arcade cabinets on both sides of the door. Completley open to the lift is this... ocean of blue light, the bathing of 40 dudes' and dudettes' monitors, as they do things on screen I'm not alowed to talk about.

The interview was cool; very relaxed. What're your favourite games? Best posession? Favouite game on the Neo Geo?, etc.

Nice guys. It's strange to think they make black-guy-punching-grannies simulators.

Lex wrote:Nice guys. It's strange to think they make black-guy-punching-grannies simulators.

I thought you said it wasn't Rockstar.

Bruce

Turns out it was.

I did it through a contacting company; I didn't know until TOO LATE!

When are they getting back to you?

I've now officially applied with both (2) game companies out here.

... =(

Well, I just called Mr. Agent D00d, and I didn't get the job :(

Apparently they thought I was lovely and would fit the team fine, etc., but I hadn't played the game I'd be porting, which is a bad thing as you can imagine.

It's one of those annoying things you remember an hour later you should've said: "Course, I'd buy a copy and play through it this weekend if you want me to."

Still, they liked Ninja Cop.

I asked agent-man to keep me in mind for any handheld-games testing they might be doing in the future.

Which game were they porting?

I had an interview with a company once and they asked me if I'd ever made levels. I mean, Jesus Christ, I am an accomplished Assembly programmer for fuck's sake... I think I can handle dropping the "shotgun" in a square room next to "the exit."

But I said I didn't. I actually did make Duke 3D levels, but I wasn't going to go looking for them and display them. So that and salary considerations were the end of the process for me.

Lesson learned? LIE. If it's something you can pick up in the two weeks before your job starts then lie your ass off.

Also, I'm sure that your company figured this already, but I would think you would want some people who have played the game being ported and some who haven't. But seeing how Rockstar thinks so much of their playtesters that it took them three games before cries of how desirable water != lava would be I don't know how much effect they have anyway.

They were actually quite happy to slag off Peter Molyneux for half/hour. Which is faire enough; Apparently, he's a stoner. Answers a great deal.
I have no games for my ds :(

Oh, the game I'd be porting is San Andreas; either working on the Xbox port, or the PS2 port. I love handheld gaming, and hope they keep me in mind for alpha-testing their new GTA-PSP game.

There IS the possibility that when I said I was impressed with the GBA port of GTA, because it was done in only 16 MegaBytes, and he deducted and told me so that I must have a flash cart, he thought I was a :yarr:

I hope he didn't think I was a pirate :( I only use it for carrying around Ninja Cop, the Fullmetal Alchemist game and some NES roms.

If you lost a job because you wanted to carry around your shit on a flash cart then they deserve the morons that they hire that have no idea what that is.

Did you tell them that you worked for EB for free for three months? Sometimes these things just come down to salary.

Nawww, they had a flat rate of £6 normal and £9 over-time (which is a lot for a 20-year-old, as overtime would be HUGE come crunch-time).

Thanks for the support, though.

There's a lot less crunching for testers though. Fixing the bugs is the bulk of crunching, and confirming the bugs as fixed, considerably less.

Lex wrote:Nawww, they had a flat rate of £6 normal and £9 over-time (which is a lot for a 20-year-old, as overtime would be HUGE come crunch-time).

Holy shit.

That's only marginally better than belly rubs.

Although, yes, far more than I was making at 20, even inflation-adjusted.

Bruce