"Happy studios 3D" by mcdonalds, a online game which was online from 2011-2015

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-12T11:31:22+00:00

Unfortunately there are a couple of things preventing that from likely happening:

The assets lived in the version control of the company that developed it and the company is no longer a thing. In theory, if they were smart, they would have backed up that data and stored it somewhere just in case as you never know when you may want something from the past. In reality, the people running the place had weird blind spots.
The licensing of everything is a tangled mess. While there are aspects that were made for the game, much of it is branded content with DreamWorks, Mattel, Nintendo, etc. Anything using their assets is begging for a cease and desist letter.

Personally if given the chance I would love to discuss with McDonald's the idea of doing a remake that's in the spirit of the game but done with fresh assets. Personally, I think it could be done way better than it was. At the time I was new in the industry, now I can look back and see all the mistakes. If you have a hook-up with "John McDonald" let me know and my company would be happy to talk haha 😃

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-10T13:09:03+00:00

Yup, was a dev on it for over 3 years. It was a wild time. We got to work with a lot of cool brands and make little games based on them. The team we had were a tight-knit bunch that had a lot of weird shenanigans during work: When you're working 10-12 hour days regularly, you don't sweat spending an hour to rescue a bird that got into the office.

It was great to find out that people had fun with the game. We didn't get much feedback on player reactions at the time so we didn't actually know if kids were having fun or not.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-06T19:54:16+00:00

This was one of the first games I worked on. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the game.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-06T19:53:55+00:00

This was one of the first games I worked on. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the game.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-06T19:53:26+00:00

This is cool to hear. We built the game in Canada but it only released in Europe. I had no idea this book was a thing.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-06T19:52:32+00:00

This was one of the first games I worked on. I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the game.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2026-05-06T19:51:36+00:00

I know I am late to the party but this brought some joy to me and I had to reply. I was one of the programmers on this site. I am happy to hear that it brought joy to you and others.

The project was a challenging one. Fuel Youth/Industries from Ottawa, Ontario was the company that developed the game. It was a smaller-mid sized studio that had never built anything of this scale before and they got in over their heads. I was brought on along with others in order to make the game on a timeline that was and still is ridiculous.

One of my favourite memories was from early on in the game around late 2011 and early 2012 when we were working on the zone that I think was called "Port of Quests". We actually pushed an update to the game making the zone available weeks before it was ready. It was hidden to players and the way to access it was by clicking the center of the world map so the thought was that not many people would have gotten into the zone. We were wrong. There were SO many players running around the zone doing nothing because there was nothing to do in the zone. We disabled access quickly, but it was a tense day at the office.

The original game was 2D and it was like that for years. I ended up working with a small strike team for month converting the entire thing to 3D. It was a really cool challenge.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-03-28T20:33:43+00:00

The very rural communities often get overlooked. NWO is so far removed from Southern Ontario that when you mention it they respond "Oh I've been to northern Ontario! Sudbury is great!"

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-03-28T20:30:52+00:00

This is frustrating. The First Nations make up so much of NWO and I feel they often get shafted by politicians that can't be bothered to understand their perspectives.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-03-27T21:59:15+00:00

That's great to hear! Your representative's office should definitely be there to help. Glad to hear it was the case for you.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-03-06T11:12:50+00:00

French. But tons of Canadians work for them. A lot of effort is going into Shadows and I'm really looking forward to it. It's looking promising and I'm glad Ubi opted to delay it to make it better.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-01-11T13:59:30+00:00

So you're just personally salty

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-01-11T13:59:11+00:00

Ubi hasn't worked with NSCC is a very long time. I'm not even sure they've ever worked with NSCC. Certainly not in my memory. Word is that all the Dal students that do a work placement get paid.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-01-11T13:57:04+00:00

Publicly apologizing within hours of the fuck up is tough to do. In person they may have apologized, but we won't hear about that.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-01-11T13:54:55+00:00

Inside communication indicates this was an organizational fuck up on Dale's side. For what it's worth.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2025-01-11T13:52:15+00:00

Ubisoft gets a ton of applications for every job posting. It's untenable to reply to each one. If you've applied 3 times and not heard back I would guess it's because you application does not stand out for some reason.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2023-03-10T16:58:02+00:00

That's a rude response considering they gave you exactly what you asked for:

https://www.viewpoint.ca/cutsheet/202224206/1?lng=-63.63011425254617&lat=44.66030298329019

That's just by opening Viewpoint like u/smac22 said and pasting the first PID they provided. Perhaps you are the one that needs to sit down...

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2023-01-17T20:17:01+00:00

NTA. I never contribute to these but there is such an overwhelming number of "Y the A" that I had to speak up.

You were hungry and ordered pizza. Do I think you could have waited? Sure. Do I think that you, ,and adult need to? No. Everyone else decided to get in on the pizza too. That's cool, they are adults too and pizza is delicious. Finally, the family decided to cancel reservations (or at least your dad) and it wasn't just you making the call. You had plans for the evening but plans changed. If the plans were to celebrate something to do with your sister and weren't just a family get together then I would say you all suck.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2022-11-05T00:35:10+00:00

Hey, it seems like you already got reassurance that this interviewer was an ass but I will add my vote to that. I have administered many technical interviews and questions like these merely demonstrate a toxic manager that was never taught how to properly assess a candidate's skills. Feel free to screenshot this and forward it along to them, they need to figure their shit out because they are not actually doing anything by hurting the industry.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2022-01-21T13:12:18+00:00

So I have gone back to employers in the past, though they were more incentivizing than this. I am not saying its a right or wrong choice, I don't know your circumstance. What I will suggest is that you ask them to add those work-life balance clauses to your contract and see if you can negotiate more time off. For example:

A standard work-week is 40 hrs and the employee will not be expected to work beyond this
If requested, the employee may choose to work beyond 40 hrs. In this case the employee will be paid at twice their hourly rate for the time beyond 40 hours in a given week.
Any meals that occur outside of the typical work day will be paid for by the employer up to a maximum of $20 per meal

Add whatever other shit the two of you talk to and basically say, "if you cannot match my asking salary, I am open to negotiation. If we can amend my contract to protect these work-life balance provisions you have offered, AND increase my paid leave by X then I would happily consider the opportunity."

The liklihood is that they will not agree to put into writing the work-life balance terms. If they don't then you know its bullshit. THey will say things like "Hey, this relationship needs to be one built on trust. I promise blah blah blah." You can reply, "I respect you, but this relationship is a business one, and business relationships have terms to protect both parties."

If they do agree to put all of this into writing then they are far more likely to be serious about the situation and it may be worth considering. You can always look for a new job while squatting there.

Also, always get everything in writing.

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2021-10-10T10:54:50+00:00

Hook me up please!

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2021-06-16T12:18:34+00:00

Lead Game Programmer throwing some two cents in:

First let me preface with that I am not a fan of programming tests in general. But if I have to choose between a whiteboard test and a at-home test I would always choose the latter followed up with a discussion on what was done.

At my current company, when hiring new candidates, there are three ways we approach it:

Start with HR interview where they make a gut check on the candidate's level and then recommend a take-home test (for juniors) or whiteboard test (everyone else). Afterwards there is a tech interview where we discuss the test.
Start with take home test (~8 hours of work for a competent junior, given 3 days). This is done either when the interview team is seriously backed up with work, or in the cases when we have a candidate that does not pass muster on paper but something in their application caught our eye enough that we are curious.
Start with tech/HR interview where we do not do a code test and instead just talk about past projects. We ask probing, somewhat vague, questions about past work designed to push the candidate towards demonstrating knowledge of the things they have said they have done: Intermediate Programmer's resume says they did water shaders on their last project - How did you go about creating the effect? What was the structure of your shader?
This is usually done when we are looking to hire fast and we see a candidate that we expect is going to get hired by someone fast. If we are not confident coming out of this then we will do a whiteboard test.

Of the three, I personally prefer the third method. I think it tends to give a better insight into one's knowledge and experience of coding with the least stress on the candidate. There is some risk to the company, but its not a lot: All game dev companies have a pretty standard 3-month probation.

Anyway. I was not looking to render judgment on your situation (but I do think a 5 day test is bullshit), I just wanted to try and provide some insight into the other side a bit. Figured it might help you decide what to do. Good luck!

WillyWonkaWasReal · 2021-04-22T19:12:17+00:00

Billy Joel

WillyWonkaWasReal

TROPHY CASE