This is the last post from my internship experience at Helios Interactive Inc., it is a bit saddening. I am going to miss the wacky office conversations and banter surrounding daily video game industry news. Perhaps I should ask Ross to do a weekly 15 minute podcast with me.

Onto the business… My last week in the office was all about getting ready to wrap things up. Well, at least the few remaining tasks that I’m responsible for. Most of my work in the form of spreadsheets is already maintained and located online, where my boss and colleagues will be able to access them. The rest of my files and projects needed to be archived and updated on our media servers. Not too much of a big deal, especially since I’ve been backing up regularly.

The FPS project we’ve all been engrossed with is looking more and more like a real game. I’m not sure yet, but it seems that I’ll be able to continue beta testing and reporting bugs even after my required internship commitment is over. I sure hope this is the case because I want to see this baby complete with at least two playable levels and customizable load-outs. Using Gamecore 3D to produce this game has made all the difference in speeding up development time and iterating faster. I can’t wait to get my hands dirty with the game engine on my own time and with my own 3D assets. Maybe I can even work with Helios to create a new game.

Unfortunately I still can’t reveal specific details on the FPS project, but it seems that people will be able to play it on some of their favorite platforms. The week wrapped up with an office outing to wish me a good trip and to celebrate our time together. Man I’m going to miss the Helios crew quite a bit, they’ve become like a work family to me. It will be weird not having to report to my bosses either at work or at school next week. Then again next week is Thanksgiving and I’m lucky enough to have some of my family in town to help me celebrate. I truly have much to be thankful for this year, completing my degree program and working with some of the most considerate and creative people you could meet.

Adios Florida, I’ll be back!

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I have learned quite a bit from working with my boss on proposals and project pitches. My lessons at Helios Interactive Inc. have been extremely eye-opening and have given me a backstage access pass into the inner workings of a small independent game production studio.

This week was more of the same in terms of QA testing on our game project. Our resident Gamecore 3D expert has created a couple of new environments, or maps, for the FPS game project. One of them looks so sick, and the best part of it is that it is so extremely optimized and runs like a champ. In that regard alone I’ve had an entire education on optimization of art assets in a video game. Working so closely with the team has given me the opportunity to see the development and production pipeline in effect. I can see now why schedules get off track so quickly. Yet working with these seasoned pros has meant that I’m not stressing over the schedule at all. In a way it has been very reassuring, but at the same time it pains me that the guys have to work so hard. Making games is truly a past time of passion. The pay may not always be the greatest, but working on something that is both interactive and creative can be a joy like no other.

My workload for the week was typical and routine, but with an added twist. I had to prepare my presentation for Full Sail University on the topic of my internship experience. I only wish I could share more of the work that we’ve been doing with my mates at school. Perhaps in the near future we’ll have the game up on a site for everyone’s enjoyment. Aside from testing the game, I also wrapped up some research and writing for our most current game proposal. I think I’ve seen enough of these to flush out my own game ideas and concepts into more industry friendly documents. Since writing proposals with our team, I’ve created a few templates that should come in handy as I prepare to transition back to doing my own projects.

Speaking of handy, staying organized has been a huge asset to me as I come into work daily and try to keep my tasks in order. One of the tools I’ve recently found is called WorkFlowy and so far it has been a great and easy way for me to track my tasks. If you like to-do lists check out WorkFlowy.

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This is it people, the last month of my internship at Helios Interactive Inc.. A look at my schedule confirms that I have only a couple of weeks left. It is definitely a bittersweet feeling knowing that I won’t be coming in to the office for much longer. I guess I’ll deal with that when the time comes.

My experience this week has been all about play-testing or QA on our FPS project. It is so weird to be playing a game that is not yet finished. One of our bigger challenges has been collaborating with our kick-ass programmers in Canadia. The time zone and different working hours have affected our work flow, but we’ve adjusted well and developed an overlapping pipeline. For the most part we’ve been working on our own during the pre-lunch hours. Afterwards, typically around 1pm, we get online with our cohorts up north and discuss any issues that may have arisen or require attention. There is always an update or some last minute files to check in to our SVN. After we’ve all downloaded and installed the new build of our game, we update our SVN files and are ready to play; or um, test. Updating files often takes time out of our production schedule, but we’ve managed to stay productive by chatting on skype or on the phone about bugs or new features. As far as testing goes, one of our programmers typically has a checklist for us of things that he expects to be tested. I can easily spend a whole morning or afternoon testing on my own, but in the late afternoon is when we test multiplayer. That is usually the time when everyone can log into the game servers and play-test against each other.

Afterwards, we’ll end up with a list of bugs or issues and pass that along for fixes. This whole process has been repeating daily and I’m wondering if our Canadian ninjas are going to get burned out on iterating so quickly. I guess only time will tell, but in the meantime we’re all having too much fun with this FPS project. I can’t wait until we get more weapons, sounds, and two new maps into the build.

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