Fluffy Logic Games Company

Today we had a talk from a company called Fluffy Logic based in Bristol. It was incredibly useful for me. There was lot of general talk about how people worked in the field which I already knew. However, I found the talk about future projects that they were doing and advice on how to get into the industry really useful.

The tips on getting into the industry are:
Play the companies games and understand how they work.
Don't rely on a degree to get into the job. There is too much competition.
Develop some original and popular Flash games to prove that you have talent.
Know about a lot of different games, even obscure free PC games.

He talked a lot about how to develop computer games. The essence is to have a simple core idea that is easy to explain but can be expanded upon.

To further my chances of getting a job in the industry, I need to do the following:
Keep up to date with the latest games.
Play the games of companies that I have interviews with.
Create some Flash games and open them up to the public using a medium like Newgrounds.com to gain popularity.
Research new and emerging interesting PC games.

Personal Skills - Japanese

When I started the course, I wanted to have a skill that would set me apart from other designers. I decided that learning a business language would be a good idea. I decided to take up a Japanese course. Throughout the course, visitors have spoken about their Japanese clients and how they have trouble talking to them as it takes a lot of time to translate. After a little research I discovered that Japan is recently emerging in terms of design. For a country that makes heavy use of interactivity and screens, a lot of what they produce has poor graphical design. I feel that by learning the language I would be able to open both myself and employers up to a large mostly-untapped market.

I have now been studying Japanese part time for almost 3 years and this June I will be taking GCSE exams in it.

Japan Expo

I wanted to go to JapanEx in London. This was because it had various forms of Japanese media in. It covered areas such as fashion, posters, print making, anime, film, games, music, origami and toys.
I really enjoyed having a look at the different areas because they were very different from Western versions. Japanese design seems to be bright and more vibrant. It mixes tradition with new ways and creates very attractive ideas. This has prompted me into thinking about spending some time in Japan after University to study the design and media as it is starting to appear over here more frequently in the field of fashion, television, film and game.