victorianmartian

[victorianmartian]

Also. Guys. I met Brennan Lee mulligan, Erika ishii, and Zac Oyama today. Idk what to do now I’ve peaked

[victorianmartian]

There’s also this one, so close

I made an acespec bingo!

*Mentioned in the bingo is the term “m-spec” - it stands for “multiple attraction spectrum” and is a spectrum of orientations defined by attraction to multiple genders.

A common aspec (asexual and aromantic spectrum) experience is thinking you’re m-spec before figuring out you are actually aspec.

You can support me by following me on my socials (link in bio) and engaging with my posts, thank you 🧡

[victorianmartian]

Damn I’m never gonna get a bingo

I made an acespec bingo!

*Mentioned in the bingo is the term “m-spec” - it stands for “multiple attraction spectrum” and is a spectrum of orientations defined by attraction to multiple genders.

A common aspec (asexual and aromantic spectrum) experience is thinking you’re m-spec before figuring out you are actually aspec.

You can support me by following me on my socials (link in bio) and engaging with my posts, thank you 🧡

[victorianmartian]

I’m doing sound implementation for Chronostasis this week and it’s really making me want to get in to sound design more. I enjoyed it a lot when I first messed around with it a couple years ago but I just didn’t have time to explore it more.

Ps. It’s also my first time doing sound work in unreal and I am loving messing around in animation blueprints and working with metasounds I gotta do this more

[victorianmartian]

I almost have as many hours in baldurs gate 3 as I do in bloons tower defense 6

[victorianmartian]

aroace people are not tragic or sad! my asexuality has nothing to do with my psychological problems!

[victorianmartian]

GAME JAM OVER I'm so tired

WE Did IT. After 12 days I think we made something awesome. I'm genuinely surprised we finished it without any major issues, and got to do almost everything we wanted to with it. We find out results on Wednesday and I feel like we have pretty good chances. If you wanna plaaayyy ittt that would be pretty cool.

Our itch.io page: here

[victorianmartian]

AAAAA last day of the game jam

[victorianmartian]

Ooo i forgot everyone should try Grimhook on steam

Its free, should take you like 20 mins, its really good, and so many of my friends worked really hard to make it happen!! They also have an official discord where you can talk to the devs and/or give any input or critique, submit bugs, etc. <Steam Page>

<Website>

[victorianmartian]

It took me a really long time, almost 2 years, to finally get up and actually go to my local game dev drink up. It was just something that was so intimidating to me, and I couldn’t fathom going to them alone. I was experiencing a lot of imposter syndrome as someone who’s actually still a student and hasn’t worked in the industry yet.

But then I went for the first time last January and I’ve missed 2 or 3 since. The second Thursday of every month has become one of my most anticipated days because I get to go to a bar and talk to a bunch of nerds who like the things I like. I’ve become friends with people because of this event. I’ve made connections with people that I don’t want to lose, not because they feel valuable to me as an opportunity for work but because I will genuinely miss getting to talk to everyone.

So moral of the story for anyone nervous about attending events like this. You’re walking into a room full of nerds so nerdy they decided to make a career out of it. You can walk into a group of people and be like “so what games has everyone been playing recently?” And boom you will be locked into and hour long conversation with people telling you about the things they love. Most times I end up standing on the street for an hour and a half after the bar closes because we don’t want to stop talking!

[victorianmartian]

Yeah so I’m currently in my last semester at university and in a class that supposed to generally be a studio simulation kinda thing where I’m a ‘Co-Art Lead’, and the amount of imposter syndrome that flows through me whenever I talk to people about it is immense. But in the case of this class there are about 60 people working on making this game, right now 23 are of them are artists. We’re divided into departments and strike teams and the professors more or less just watch us and only step in if there’s a major breakdown.

It’s been very funny for people to ask me about the work I’ve done on this project and getting ready to see it on my portfolio. And I’m like. I haven’t made art in so long. I mostly do spreadsheets, art bible, paintovers, critiques, and generally just organize communication between artists. And truly it has been so informing for me that I really don’t want to lead another project this big. It’s incredibly stressful and I feel more detached from the art than ever, even though i have way more impact on the art of this game.

But I’ve definitely noticed that because of these big classes we as students tend to mimic the work styles we experienced in them. And that results in a lot of projects where you’re the programming lead because you’re the only programmer.

A pattern I see a lot from student group projects that is pretty silly is when they assign themselves roles that they are obviously not doing (and also underqualified for).

Are you a "Art Director" or are you just the only person on your team working directly on the art?

Are you a "Design Lead" or are all of the design people on your team actually working self-sufficiently in equal capacity?

Are you the "Game Director", or was your team handing out titles because they look good on resumes and sound cool?

"Lead" is uaually someone whose primary job is to...well, "Lead" other people. They are a people manager first and the other role is usually the people they are leading. It's a soft-skill heavy job that involves a lot of empathy, organization and...er...leading. If you're working on a student game and/or don't have artists directly reporting to you on matters that you are accountable for then sorry - you're not really doing work comparable to a "Lead". I haven't seen many small game teams set up in a way that necessitates a "Lead" role.

Same with "Director". Directors usually define the vision of certain parts of a game, ensure a game is on track to meet that vision as well as an overall quality standard for an area of the game. It'a a full-time job and they're rarely ever doing boots-on-the-ground work in development. Odds are good if your project only has a handful of people you're likely working way more democratically than a "Director" prescribes, and your game doesn't need any one person in a "Director" role. If your team is less than a dozen people you'd be hard pressed to find yourself in a position where your vision is getting miscommunicated.

Don't call yourself a title just to sound important or because you think that's what studios do. Trust me - wantonly emulating studio practices just because it's "what they do" can also be a curse.

Give yourself the baseline roll of what your job is on the project. It's fine to do that. Just being a "programmer" or "artist" doesn't sound unimportant, and recruiters will also probably ignore any "Director" or "Lead" claims as a student anyway.

[victorianmartian]

Oh god I’m staring a week long game jam in 49 minutes. I haven’t done a jam in like 2 years

[victorianmartian]

I’m so excited to graduate and be on the job hunt in may

Just this week in games:

- EA laid off 700 workers

- Sony laid of 900 workers

- Rockstar announces in-person work mandates for all employees (a 'soft layoff' that will force some staff to quit, which likely means that actual layoffs are forthcoming)

In 2023 6,000 games workers were laid off. Now in 2024 over 10,000 workers have been laid off, and there's still 10 months to go.

Not to be hyperbolic, but I think this is perhaps the worst year for video games ever if we're measuring by number of layoffs.

[victorianmartian]

Current Projects!!

Submersed: An independent animated short film following the crew of a research vessel as they explore an uncharted ocean planet. I worked on this film for a little less than a year as a prop modeler, 3d generalist, as well as r&d focused on texture projections. As it gets closer to the final release I'll be able to show off more of the cool stuff I did. Check it out here!

Chronostasis: A 3rd person action game with the ability to stop time massively changing the state of combat. I'm currently working on this as a programmer. Its currently early in development and a playable vertical slice focused on the combat system and a single detailed environment is set to be out by early may!

Cosmic Combat: A four person party game where you battle with your friends in an intergalactic competition. I'm one of the Co-Art Leads on the game and we've been working on it for about 6 months and are set to finish in early may!

[victorianmartian]

Helloo

hii im tori mars (Victoria) She/Her, im 23, im trans-ace-bi. I'm a 3d digital artist, programmer, and game developer. Im probably just gonna put whatever nonsense i get up to on here.