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Post by Miked0801 on Apr 22, 2003 14:05:05 GMT -5
Ok, I'll byte BASIC/VB, FORTRAN, C, C++/builder, PASCAL/Delphi, Assembly (x86 (PC), R3000/4200 (PSX), MIPS(GBA), Z80 (GBC/DMG Baby!), a bit of 6502/6510 (yuck!), and I can get by in HTML and Make When working on games, you get to know the hardware really well - to the point where assembler knowledge is pretty much manditory for the lowest level of code (interrupt handlers and such.) The neat thing is, once you learn 2 languages of any type (a type being high level like C/PASCAL or low level assembler) you can pick up another language in days and be fluent with it in weeks. My favorite assembler thus far is the R3000 work I got to do with PSX. Lots of registers, multiple processors that are easy to access, the works. GBA is pretty good too. GBC sucked because of almost no register space and everything pretty much had to go through either A or HL. Much pushing/popping and messiness. - Mike
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Post by mdouet on Apr 22, 2003 15:06:36 GMT -5
So you're a game developer? Who do you work for Mike?
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Post by Miked0801 on Apr 22, 2003 15:23:55 GMT -5
We're called Amaze Entertainment. You probably haven't heard of it as we do almost all our work through other publishers such as EA, THQ, and others. Some of my recent games which you may have seen or heard of are: Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone for the GBC Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the GBC. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers for GBA (they forgot to put my name in the credits! Doh!) DareDevil GBA (a so-so game that didn't have near enough dev. time) some other previous games are Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2 for the GBC. Magic the Gathering BattleMage for PC/PSX (Don't hold this one against me ) and of course I'm a robocode fan. -Mike
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Post by mdouet on Apr 22, 2003 15:35:31 GMT -5
Sweet man! I'm curious how you got into the biz. I'd love to one day work as a game developer! I work at IBM myself, working as a developer on High Performance Storage System (HPSS). Not as cool as your job, but still interesting work.
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Post by Miked0801 on Apr 22, 2003 16:18:07 GMT -5
You send a resume to us (or me), we interview you, then and we hire you. In truth, I believe we're the only game dev company in the greater Seattle, WA area currently hiring due to the economy and all. We're always looking for new people, especially experienced programmers - though I doubt you'll get paid as much as you do at IBM. They seem to have a bit more capitol than us (250 people here vs. 250 x Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY there) While our company pays very competative in the field; in general, other programming fields pay more. That said, I do garner a comfortable salary We also have perks - a pool table and about 7 upright arcade machines in the lunch room, all you can eat/drink chips and pop, no dealing with non-technical people at work (I worked at a bank for a while so this is real important to me ) and flex-time (show up between 6 and 11, work your 8 hours, go home), good insurance. Not bad vs. other game companies, that's for sure - Mike
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Post by mdouet on Apr 22, 2003 16:25:46 GMT -5
Haha, what I meant was, what kind of experience do you need. Actually, I wouldn't mind the cut in pay if I truely loved what I'd be doing, but as I've never done it, it's hard to say that I would for sure, I mean it sounds cool, but would it still be cool after the intial wow factor wore off....I just don't know for sure. Cool perks! About the only thing that IBM offers that you mentioned is the flex time and good benefits. I want a game room and free Mountain Dew!!
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Post by Miked0801 on Apr 22, 2003 19:44:45 GMT -5
Experience, hmmm. Well as long as you know C/C++ pretty well, have had a little team experience, and like games, you can get in the door as entry level. If you have lots of programming knowledge and experience, and have a dev cycle or 4 under your belt, you can get in as a normal programmer or perhaps a lead. Actual game experience is nice, but other types do fine as well. Your experience would be enough to make you a step or 2 above entry level programmer, and after a project or so, probably a lead. This of course is all guessing on my part, as I'm not in management and such, but I am a lead so my say does mean something - Mike
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Post by mdouet on Apr 22, 2003 19:50:27 GMT -5
So you maen as long as I have some development experience with C/C++, I can get my foot in the door? I assumed you had to have some AI and/or graphics programming expierence to get a job like that, that's encouraging.
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Post by Miked0801 on Apr 22, 2003 20:41:46 GMT -5
Yep. Mostly it's finding a company that's hiring that's the hard part. After that, we're all human and looking for good people.
- Mike
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Post by NintendoFreak on Apr 22, 2003 23:09:48 GMT -5
I don't know any languages.
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Post by GameCubeGuy on Apr 23, 2003 9:35:52 GMT -5
Woah, you need to get out more. j/k. Anyway, you would have to stay in to learn languages
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Tango
Nano Bot
Posts: 129
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Post by Tango on Apr 23, 2003 13:33:28 GMT -5
I don't know much, but i know a bit of these languages:
Visual BASIC, "Mallard BASIC" (old amstrad PCWs), HTML, Javascript, C/C++, Perl, and i'm in the process of learning Java, for robocode purposes.
Tango
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Post by Kuuran on Apr 23, 2003 19:32:12 GMT -5
HTML and about fifty billion other scripting languages (shell scripting, etc). VB (though I'm trying to forget). Java and C/C++ are my big ones. I took one look at asm, said 'wow, that'd be sweet to know' then ran as far away as possible. Currently want to learn COBOL, simply because alot of companies that maintain old garbage mainframes are against upgrading, and the programming population willing to learn COBOL is aging quite a bit. I've recently heard a prof at UofWaterloo (premiere compsci university in Canada) was told he'd get a rather substantial check if he'd refer COBOL programmers to some US hiring agency, so I guess my guess is right
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Post by Hedgie on Apr 23, 2003 20:00:33 GMT -5
I know english ;D but seriously, I am learning portuguise and that thing with the 0s and 1s I kinda forget what it's called. [glow=lightgreen,2,300]Hedgie[/glow]
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Tango
Nano Bot
Posts: 129
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Post by Tango on Apr 24, 2003 7:53:16 GMT -5
That would be "binary". ;-) binary is a base, not a language. And i think people meant programming lanquages, not natural langauges. ;-)
Tango
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