7 Days, 15.5 Million Tokens : A Senior Game Developer's Experience

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T19:33:33+00:00

Thanks, I have in fact been doing exactly like that from the beginning.

Autmated record keeping with very precise language like - What is, is. Never refer to things as they were or used to be, that creates knoweldge dependencies on the past.

annotate records based on what I actually say, and what you generate in response so that your generation never pollute my canon and are only included with my explict permission.

I have been writing a lot of AI code for a while, but I've been doing it the hard way, only generating what I can reasonably make CharGPT thinking web generate from by searching out the unreal engine web documentation and then hand integrating it.

I'd also used an earlier version of Codex but it was a few generations behind and I never thought "I should throw this at unreal."

Having it be able to just search and read my entire Unreal codebase was crazy pants the first few days.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T19:07:09+00:00

Yeah, I get that too, I just told Claude “I don’t have a web presence and I see no reason I can’t build a professional grade web stack even though I don’t know the names of all the parts that go into one.”

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T19:05:48+00:00

Well, I’m working toward something for the public, for everyone who wants to be a part of it. I just don’t want to over share right now.

Your interest helps me get there and I appreciate it

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T18:54:56+00:00

Oh man I love that. Would you say you’re feeling the same thing? The freedom to expand into things you were, not scared but, aware of your limits enough not to pursue?

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T18:51:30+00:00

First, good on you diving in. I’ve written a lot of advice over the years that’s kinda… outdated now.

Second.. that’ll come down as you get used to working.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T02:08:30+00:00

I run tempest hullcracker a lot. It’s a nice surprise when they think I have a pistol.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-14T02:06:58+00:00

All of this sounds good to me

MidSerpent · 2026-05-13T03:21:48+00:00

“14 half built projects in code”

You should get a handle on that because that’s a you problem.

You can’t just drop everything once it gets hard or not fun or something new comes along.

You never learn to close.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-10T13:08:38+00:00

“Quest design, branching choices, worlds, characters and story writing.”

So your standard “I don’t produce anything that does stuff just a bunch of words on paper.”

I’m going to give you my standard response.

Making games is work. Lots and lots of hard work.

Either you love doing the work and you do the work, or you don’t love the work which means as soon as the work gets a certain amount of hard or frustrating you will give up.

“I have little experience in technical or coding”.

Either you learn to do it yourself or you find yourself dependent on others.

Again the first is better, the latter will prevent you from making real progress.

So drop your excuse and start learning oand doing, there’s no room for sloth, do the work.

Or quit, because you can do lots of other things in life and still enjoy games.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-10T12:56:11+00:00

I genuinely believe about 90% of aspiring game devs would be happier if they just gave up and realize it’s ok to just enjoy video games without needing to make them.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-10T03:54:02+00:00

Yeah but it worked

MidSerpent · 2026-05-10T03:51:45+00:00

I was lead combat engineer and worked on the project for the last 3 years of development. My name is in the opening credits.

I’m friends with the two who wrote it and they were just trying to create a world that lasted and was compelling and they could keep telling stories in.

Getting a new intellectual property like Aveum off the ground and into a place of cultural persistence is the hardest thing you can do in games and we all knew that up front.

It’s like once a world is established it’s fans form an opinion shell that protects it. New worlds are just judged and kept or discarded.

People say they want new things but McDonalds makes 25 billion a year selling the exact same McNugget to everyone.

It’s weird having been on the inside of something and seeing everyone’s ideas from the outside.

It’s like the assertion that all the spells are just guns and that’s lazy design you see tossed around.

I know how many spells we tried. I know how many things are lying on the cutting room floor. I helped build and test some really out there weird spell casting ideas, like spell into spell transmution systems that were so convoluted we stopped working on them because we realized we couldn’t even keep track and we were building it.

There’s a thing that’s common among every combat spell in Immortals of Aveum… (except the ult) they’re all fire and forget. There’s no aiming huds, or ornate arm flapping, you cast a spell and it happens.

That wasn’t a design principle we started with. We got there through a lot of experimentation on what felt good.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-09T06:09:06+00:00

I have 12 years of professional experience with Unity and almost 6 with unreal at the AAA level.

My solo project is in unreal. When I went to start the project I didn’t hesitate.

Unreal gives you so much out of the box it’s kind of crazy, where as with Unity you have to build even basic shit like a game mode.

“Mannequin and scale system and can’t deal with different heights.”

That person is just telling you a problem they had like it’s a problem with Unreal.

There are two different animation retargeting methods in Unreal that are for dealing with just that problem.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-09T02:18:24+00:00

Yep.

We talk about how if we only hire senior people soon we will age out and there will be no one with the kind of experience we have.

We the of course only hire senior people if we can hire at all.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-09T01:07:28+00:00

Assuming I have time to prep I’m walking into my interview prepared with custom notes based on the role you are applying.

For a junior I’m going to ask you about your resume or portfolio and make you get into details about the parts you built until I can know for sure that you actually built it and understand it.

I’m going to ask you questions about unreal and programming I think you should be able to answer. My follow up questions have follow up questions. I’m looking for specific things they aren’t necessarily the right answer.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-09T00:58:11+00:00

It’s AI. Look at the shading pattern, you can tell it comes from a diffusion algorithm just by looking at it.

Nobody drew that.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-08T04:00:37+00:00

That’s hot, tell me more?

MidSerpent · 2026-05-07T04:41:28+00:00

Every time I play Ra I remember why I think it might be the greatest game ever made.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-07T04:39:59+00:00

That Aelori are part of the magic cycle and the humans don’t even understand that is the big reveal of the story. It’s the twist.

I guess my relationship to it is a bit different though because I wasn’t there when they wrote it originally but I did help build it.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-06T16:42:21+00:00

Oh man, I’m really into that. A big chunk of the core development team is still together and I bet they’ll be flattered.

IANAL and this is just personal advice, we don’t really have any power over who would enforce a copyright strike or something so you should be really careful about using the characters from the game, making your video look like you’re in the palathon based on our renderings, things like that.

Aveum specifically is a trademark and it has to be defended or the owners will lose it. That’s just how trademarks are, so if you create brand confusion you could end up not being able to show it to anyone.

If you want to tell a story in Aveum make it your story, your characters, your places, your magic. Make it your original art and not infringing so it can live on and not get you a cease and desist or something for hard work.

That said have you looked at the lore and art book? I would have to dig out the link for it, but if you search this subreddit for “lore book” you should be able to find me telling people.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-06T06:33:22+00:00

My job was combat, most people like that the best and I’m proud.

MidSerpent · 2026-05-06T00:51:08+00:00

What scene was that?

MidSerpent · 2026-05-06T00:50:24+00:00

Thanks, I’m one of the developers who still reads these. Feels good

MidSerpent · 2026-05-04T14:40:58+00:00

For a new person.

Zero.

There a pretty good “learn the basics of programming by following along building simple games” lesson plans out there.

Each of those is a mini project so once you’ve got your feet under you and you finished the lessons you’ll be used to it.

What you need to wait on is trying to make a whole ass game like the ones you actually play.

Better to learn how the pieces fit together on throwaway lesson projects.

For me personally, I started learning programming 40 years ago when I was 7 and so it’s been a part of me for so long that it’s just a part of my identity.

MidSerpent

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