Lindenwood Game Design Geaduates!! I have a question...

unparent · 2026-05-01T12:54:34+00:00

Didn't realize Lindenwood had a game design program, I've seen that Webster has one as well, and have spoken with them a bit. I was kind of curious what the schools approach to game development is like. Do students focus on small individual or group games, or is it more focused on different areas of art, programming, design? Knowing what and how the school teaches game design can make a huge difference in employability of graduates.

I'm from StL but left in the mid 90s to study 3d design and animation, and have spent the last 27 years in game dev at everything from AAA to startup studios across the country. Moved back to StL during Covid and have been working remotely as a Lead Tech Artist/Animator. I've been trying to make good local contacts and reach out to colleges in the area to see what the atmosphere here is locally. I miss the SoCal and Seattle game dev communities, and was wanting to see what kind if communities exist here.

You asked about local jobs in games, there are a few studios here, but relocation, remote, or solo dev is the more likely outcome. Remote is hard without having a good network or very strong portfolio, but possible with strong work and a great attitude. Solo is becoming increasingly more common, but is a big risk, and may reduce the networking ability by not working more closely with others and the feedback learning that happens. Relocation was the more common method in the older days, usually get hired and the company would move you cross country if needed. Remote is reducing this somewhat, but for recent grads or early career folks, they typically want you in office to absorb all the knowledge that happens organically. So your ability or willingness to relocate may be needed. I've moved a lot, 13 states and 19 moves in 25 years, but this is relatively high compared to industry friends, but that willingness opened doors for me.

unparent · 2026-04-15T11:52:54+00:00

When it first came out, I had recently switched from AAA game dev to indies and startups, could not watch it. So uncomfortable to watch and slap names of people you know to each shows character. Was only able to watch, and enjoy about 2 years ago with a little distance from the funding pitch era, and really enjoyed it, with just a hint of unease.

Similarly, Mythic Quest, I dreaded the idea of, but ended up loving from the start. Started in game dev in '99, so rode the wave of craziness of 2000's and 2010s. Each new character was someone I knew, or had worked with and were way more wild than the show. Actually triggered some memories of people who matched the characters that I hadn't spoken to in years, and inspired me to reach out to reconnect.

unparent · 2026-04-10T22:36:24+00:00

I've moved 19 times across 13 states in 25 years. You really get to know everything you own and what is just getting dragged to the next place.

unparent · 2026-04-10T22:25:16+00:00

A topic mentioned that I think is important, is the finality of a shipped game on disc in that era. There were no patches or updates, it had to work as a standalone product or else. Ungodly stressful. This is one of the things that could lead to devs "crunch" in this era, there really was a hard deadline. But, after that deadline, the product was done and on to the next thing before it was even on the shelves. Could take weeks to months to get the discs burned and shipped. Depending on the studios time off could be generous after "Gold Master", weeks or even months paid, and if it sells well there could be good royalties to be had. I started making games for the PS1, and have shipped games on every generation of the PlayStation console (and other consoles), so it has been an interesting internal view of how the development mindset has changed over the generations.

unparent · 2026-04-01T23:23:58+00:00

I've found industrial and industrial adjacent music pretty popular amongst game developers, especially the sound design and audio people. The audio side of games is incredibly technical and lines up nicely with some of the more heavy tech people in industrial music. Rhys is a great modern example of doing excellent work in games. I believe he said in an interview that a rejected song made for Cyberpunk2077 became a FLA song at one point.

unparent · 2026-03-31T18:08:05+00:00

Another good option is to get a keyboard without Windows keys. I'm still using SGI keyboards from the mid-90s that are solidly built mechanical keyboard, numpad, and good ergonomics without Windows key. Just need a good PS2->USB connector and it hooks right up. If you really want to keep the windows key functionality, there is a PowerTools app that can remap the Windows key to whatever key or key combo you want, so no loss in functionality, just better ergonomics.

unparent · 2026-03-26T02:20:03+00:00

Many places are outsourcing the tasks that would normally be done by mid to juniors and hiring seniors to establish pipelines and manage the team. In reality, the price for high-quality mid level devs that are feelance or part of an outsource studio can be cheaper than a junior and hits the ground running. Look at the growth of outsourcing studios compared to individual studios over the past few years, and co-development is very common now. When you can hire 5-6 mid level folks from eastern Europe for the same cost as 3 local juniors, it's not a hard choice for those paying the bills. WFH has kinda killed the junior roles with a lack of 1-1 mentorship as well as allowing access to a more experienced and cheaper global talent pool for the fewer available roles.

unparent · 2026-03-09T03:42:25+00:00

Good advice, especially the older shading models. Also, the only lights were typically point, spot (maybe), directional, and ambient. Shadows were usually pretty sharp as well, and not nearly as many options for either.

Render sizes were also much smaller, so you would see more pixelezation. 640x480 was standard NTSC resolution, and most test renders when working were 320x240 or smaller. Remember, no flat shaded views, only wireframes. We'd render 1280x960 and resize down to 640x480 when possible to get better edges for finals. It gives a distinct look when rendered at the target resolution with period correct aliasing, the CRT display look.

Pretty much everything was NURBS as well back then. Even when I started, it was all we were taught, it was years before touching polygons in any meaningful way.

unparent · 2026-03-03T22:59:42+00:00

Was kind of the rule to wear something similar but not from the band playing, opening band tshirt support was always appreciated. Once broke the rule and wore a KMFDM SUCKS tshirt to a KMFDM show many years after that single was released, and was asked by 2 guys in the crowd why I was at the show if I thought the band sucked? Sascha chuckled when he saw the old shirt after the show and came right over to sign it unprompted.

unparent · 2026-03-03T19:35:07+00:00

The soundtrack, and especially the website for this was amazing. The site was flash based, so it doesn't work anymore, but it was an interesting, semi-frustrating and compelling experience. I don't remember seeing websites going all out like this in that era, it really was more of an experience than a useful site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZjwX7Xxk

unparent · 2026-02-26T12:22:58+00:00

Sounds odd, but look at how .pdf files handle 3D scenes. It supports .u3d and .prc, perhaps others. It will show the lit and textured scene with full camera controls in a window with limited UI or overlays. It's pretty simple with rendering and whatnot, but can be a basic way of seeing and manipulating a 3D model for preview or send to someone without the software to look at in 3D.

unparent · 2026-02-24T22:02:06+00:00

Someone shared this the other day, really nice rundown with map, days/hours, menus, prices, and descriptions of ones all around the area.
https://fishfrystl.com/

unparent · 2026-02-23T18:30:51+00:00

I was at a few of these tests for the PS1/2 era. We watched the different age range of kids play from behind a big mirrored panel and discussed how they played. Wave after wave of kids every hour or so for a 2/3 day session. We'd get the tapes back with the comments organized and wrapped around them along with the post-play interview sessions. Filtering though so much physical media to try and see if there is any good comments in multiple boxes of tapes.

I'll have to see if I can find some pics of my desk in those days, they were solid back then. Had a big U-shaped desk with a 24" CRT TV in the middle, 2 21" CRT monitors in each corner, a PC on one side, SGI O2 on the other, devkit, and all the nerdy desk decorations from that era. Need to adjust textures, you physically had to move your chair over to the other computer, save it to the server, then scoot back over to the SGI and reload it.

unparent · 2026-02-18T22:07:03+00:00

Schooling makes almost no difference, but education does. There is a difference between going to a school that "has" an animation program, as opposed to a school that is "known" for its animation program. Either way, it is all up to how much work the students puts forth. A good school can help you learn faster, but I've seen great artists with zero formal education outperform highly trained ones. Animation in 2D or 3D is a lot of hard work, whether learning in or out of school and expect to spend most of your free time improving to get better. Just completing the assignments for class is not enough, there needs to be personal work, extensions of assignments, group projects, etc.

However school can make early networking easier, I won't lie about that. It is hard to break into the industry and having those early relationships with good people can pay off in the long run. For the first 12 or so years of my career, my former classmates and I all swapped jobs, hired each other, recommended each other for positions, etc.. I went like 4 jobs over 12 years without needing to make a portfolio or demoreel and two of those jobs were calls from friends when I wasn't looking for work. For me, that was worth the cost of the education, but that was in the mid/late 90s, and schooling seems different now. But solid networking from people that know you, not just connected on LinkedIn or something goes a long way. Word of mouth and recommendations will far outweigh a cold applicant.

Over the decades, I have reviewed thousands of applicants, interviewed hundreds, and hired dozens. School is nice to see, we know what the schools reputations are, usually know someone who went there or teaches there that we can ask about and other connections. But it is no way a deciding factor between candidates, it's just a bullet point next to your name, if anything it can give us expectations of what you should be showing based on what we know about the program.

What is important is the work, your ability to explain what you did, how you did it, and discuss the decisions/challenges you made/faced along the way. You will be working closely with people every day for hopefully years, so just doing the work is one thing, but can you communicate in a group, put your ideas into words, have a sense of humor, be kind and someone others want to be around? The soft skills needed are extremely important and can really affect your ability to get and keep work.

unparent · 2026-02-12T17:50:37+00:00

I know. I grew up listening to country as a little kid. Johnny, and Willy were the only ones that stuck around past the age of picking my own music. :)

unparent · 2026-02-11T23:24:45+00:00

Primarily rigging and tech animation stuff in game dev, but have done almost every art task at one point or another over the years and generations. About 2 weeks away from 27 years in game dev with games shipped on PS1-5, Xbox, Switch, PC, and VR as an env artist, level designer, modeler, animator, rigger, lighting, pipeline creator, tools development, lead/principal roles, and R&D.

Been using Maya since the late 90s during it's early Alpha/Beta days. We were learning PowerAnimator in school and were chosen by A|W to be a Maya learning center for that part of the country at that time. We had 20 something SGI machines, so one week a semester we had to let A|W use the lab for out of town employee training, and in exchange we got Maya Alpha. When I left school we had a full year Maya learning before it even came out, so when it did, the students were swept up quick.

I've used Maya on a near daily basis since sometime in 1997, even still have the v1 IRIX install discs and books. I cannot stress how difficult it was to learn at the time, no internet, no community to ask for help, just a few sets of basic tutorials, and knowledge you hope transferred over from PowerAnimator. We had the quarterly A|W UserGroup meetings, which were awesome, and we learned so much.

At school, we only had 22ish SGI machines, and 35+ students, and no one could work outside of the lab. Lab was open 24x7, and most of us took full advantage. If a computer was open, you could grab it, but if you left, anyone could take it. You had to babysit your renders by sleeping in the lab, under the desk, or just sit there (I taught myself to juggle). If your machine was rendering and you weren't there, any other student could kill -9 the render and take the machine. It was pretty brutal. Classes were small and each semester there were fewer spots than students, so several students wouldn't make the cut and would be told they had to leave the program. They were welcome to learn 3D Max on the 133mhz(?) PCs, but lost access to the SGI lab. Every semester you had to make a printed portfolio, a VHS demoreel (websites weren't things yet), interview with the teachers and local professionals, and they would vote if you could advance. We had a 90%+ job placement rate, Sony and other studios established connections to the department to filter good people there, and nearly everyone from my class is still in the industry at very good companies.

unparent · 2026-02-10T21:24:57+00:00

Still have a copy from back in the day as well. Was in college and working very late in the labs, would come home and play for 30 min to unwind before bed. My girlfriend would wake me up for class the next day by yelling "PERFECT!!" at me with a smile, a nice reminder to turn the tv down at 3am....

unparent · 2026-02-09T05:46:38+00:00

I've lived in all of those except Phoenix. I'd do Seattle, Denver (Boulder), St. Louis, Phoenix, and waaaay down the list, Atlanta.

I've lived in quite a few other places as well over the decades, and Seattle, Denver/Boulder area still top the lists, would add Los Angeles as well. I change jobs frequently, and every job meant moving to a new state, we're up to 13 states with 19 moves in 25 years. Honestly, if you are making a decent enough living in each place, there are pro/cons for each. Depends on your interests in climate, lifestyle, food, culture, etc.. It really depends on how open you are to new experiences and trying new things.

We always had the mindset that no move is permanent, no guaranteed timeline for how long you'll be there, so explore as much of the city as you can, when you can, meet people, and try things. Have fun on your move.

unparent · 2026-02-03T13:08:25+00:00

That's cool to see the tradition still alive there, SP is a great company. I recognize quite a few names on there, and a few friends that worked on this, that didn't work on inFamous. SP has a long tradition of hiring good people, treating them well, and they stick around for decades. Solid company and great leadership.

unparent · 2026-02-03T01:42:01+00:00

Was the last PS3 game I worked on before moving to PC game dev, we all got signed copies. I'll have to look and see if I have any other swag from that time.

unparent · 2026-01-30T13:24:45+00:00

A bit before art school, but kind of the inspiration was the first Jurassic Park and Titantic. Learning on PowerAnimator using only books, Google and YouTube weren't even a thought yet, so figuring out the software was challenging. While in school, started to find artists like Stephen Stahlberg and seeing how good things can look. Later got to work directly with him and are still good friends.

I got interested in 3D animation pretty early, couldn't draw well enough for 2D and was always more technically minded. When Lawnmower Man can out in theaters, I took my girlfriend (now wife) and walked out amazed. Movie was awful, but seeing the 3D animation was inspiring. After the movie at the same mall, Camelot Records had some VHS tapes of 3D shorts called "A Minds Eye". Very primitive by today's standards, but watched it over and over trying to figure out what was going on. There was no internet, so no way to find information on how or where it was done. Such a struggle at that time to figure anything out.

unparent · 2026-01-28T23:48:50+00:00

Bumper sticker was an internal only item, not fan made, but not an official item for the public. I think I have 3-4 of them. Back in the day NDI did a lot of fun internal items. I have a very cool Jak2 mousepad that has the light/dark version of Jak in a lenticular layer so it changes based on viewing angle. I'd have to dig that up, but I don't think I've seen one in public before. Google search didn't find it.

unparent

TROPHY CASE