I learned Unity the wrong way
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I learned Unity the wrong way
1–10 of 124 posts
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#2I submitted this because I thought it was a good and nuanced (if long) take.
FTFA:
> If I had AI in 2019, I would not have lasted 3 years before the interview crashed me. I would have lasted longer, and the crash would have been worse.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#3I submitted this because I thought it was a good and nuanced (if long) take. FTFA: > If I had AI in 2019, I would not have lasted 3 years before the interview crashed me. I would have lasted longer, and the crash would have been worse.
It's worth pointing out that:
1. Much of the core lesson in this article has nothing to do with Unity specifically, and applies to self-taught programmers in general; and
2. This person has a vested interest in making you believe learning Unity is especially difficult.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#4> Before AI, I got a lot of interviews. Companies would talk to anyone with a reel. Today a beginner can send out fifty applications and not even get a first call. The thing that saved me may not be available to people starting out now. I do not have a clean answer for what to do about that. I only know that interviews were the best school I ever had, and I feel for anyone who is being shut out of that classroom.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#5What nobody told him is that it doesn't matter. The most beloved games have the shittest code.
The goals of getting a job in the industry, and making a game people love, have completely different requirements, with surprisingly little overlap.
---
As for the latter (game industry requirements) I read this article a while back.
https://lazyfoo.net/articles/article11_top-ten-mistakes-game...
There's a great list of Fundamentals halfway through. Though I have no frame of reference for how reasonable it is. (Is the average game dev really expected to implement a rigidbody sim from scratch?)
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#6Thanks for sharing your story, it was an engaging read.
The part about filters in interviews resonated with me because of a recent experience. The place I work has been interviewing for new developers and the team lead asked me for my opinion on one of them. Overall seemed like a good candidate. But when I took a closer look at the assignment and the solution, I noticed that while technically the solution was good, the candidate had ignored a bunch of requirements outlined in the assignment.
At first I was willing to give him a chance, but when I gave it more thought, I realized that one of the biggest issues I've had with colleagues was them not reading the issue they're given, not understanding it, not fulfilling the requirements given in the issue and/or outright ignoring what's written because they independently decide they know a better solution (without consulting anybody), which turns out to be worse because of reasons which might not have been outlined in the issue, but still lead to the given requirements.
I pointed this out and felt it was a big red flag that, in a best-case scenario, this candidate was still unwilling to follow or incapable of following clear instructions. The candidate wasn't invited to the next round.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#7> But interview after interview, the story started to make sense. They were not wrong, I was not ready, and it took me a long time to admit that.
I believe this is one of the most humbling but also maturing moments in career and adulthood.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#8I submitted this because I thought it was a good and nuanced (if long) take. FTFA: > If I had AI in 2019, I would not have lasted 3 years before the interview crashed me. I would have lasted longer, and the crash would have been worse.
It's worth pointing out that: 1. Much of the core lesson in this article has nothing to do with Unity specifically, and applies to self-taught programmers in general; and 2. This person has a vested interest in making you believe learning Unity is especially difficult.
Yeah, the actual point is "For a long time I avoided learning programming and it turns out you do actually need that for a game programmer job."
The issue was compounded by the author getting a lot of positive feedback on their game, because people respond to how the game looks, not the code.
For the solo indie approach that's not really an issue (many such cases!), but getting a job is a separate beast.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#9What nobody told him is that it doesn't matter. The most beloved games have the shittest code. The goals of getting a job in the industry, and making a game people love, have completely different requirements, with surprisingly little overlap. --- As for the latter (game industry requirements) I read this article a while back. https://lazyfoo.net/articles/article11_top-ten-mistakes-game... There's a great list of Fun…
There's numerous studios across the games industry that have high coding standards, mandatory code reviews, and expect upskilling. Game complexity keeps increasing, and live service games in particular need to be stable and well maintained and very well engineered in the first place. For many games, the days of games being pressed to disk, shipped out and done with (where bad code is fine) are long gone.
Re: I learned Unity the wrong way
#10Thanks for sharing! (Sorry the following is written before I realised you posted your own blog post!)
It does seem like a trap, although you might nit have had the raw technical skills for the job they applied (by the way why wasn't he screened out early rather than on the take home task?),
They clearly have a lot of the skills around game design.
The trouble is that they also didn't have the high level skills that someone who does have the low level technical skills might need from a lead!
I'm not entirely sure on the take that AI would make it worse. If they are satisfied with the kind of game they make. Then they could continue to make games for many years.
I do think it's right that Game Developer companies want technically highly skilled people. My favourite thing about AAA gaming is the feeling of the constant cutting edge.
On the other than, I don't see why they couldn't have a long and fruitful Indie career.