Big Huge Games, UI Engineer
1)I want to work here because I'm very interested in another american fantasy rpg (what they're working on right now), and as an interface engineer it would be a fantastic project to contribute to

2)Fable III - the interface is awful and I could spend volumes telling you why, and also what I see them trying to do, how I think it could have been executed better; but because I love the overall flavor and humor of Albion
Borderlands, Shadowgate

3)Fable III could use consistency in its UI, The holding in a button thing is annoying, and even more so it isn't consistent whether you have to hold it in to do something. Alert windows should be alerts only and not events that take over the control. Cutting down choices was their solution to having a game that was too complex in statistics and features, but it breaks the immersion when you first approach someone and want to play the lute for them specifically, as an example, and the game will only let you tickle them. They should have allowed for a starting screen menu, lack thereof has only caused more frustration than immersion.

4)I'm torn between Shadowgate and Portal as the best game of all time. As a game from the 80's I suppose Shadowgates antiquity disqualifies it as the best, but I've always found its integration of point and click adventure with text game fascinating and its sardonic tone stimulating. Portal I find to be the best game of all time for similar reasons to shadowgate in tone, but for opposing reasons in UI. Portal is the best minimalist UI I have ever encountered.

5)I really love exchanging ideas

6)My biggest weakness is that I hold myself to very high standards, so I may end up having an adjustment period over shipping-quality vs. ideal-quality of work.

7)I feel absolutely comfortable with crunch time. I will be able to commit myself to the studio during that period. I was talking to Katie Hersch one time, and she described herself as a "fire fighter" in what her jobs usually entail, taking control of situations that have gotten out of hand and finding ways to fix multiple problems. I've found myself doing that from time to time and believe I will work well during crunch time.

8)the test, dun dun dunnnn. as a note for this course, not an interviiew answer: I have talked about this with a few industry experts I've been able to meet about this aspect of the interview process; the UI engineer at Big Huge says his would be an assignment for me to work on from home over a week and send back to him. I feel very comfortable with problem solving

9)In five years, I would love to have shipped a couple of games and be applicable for lead UI engineer, start whiddling away at a graduate degree (ub
has an interaction design & information architecture one that I'd like to apply to out field), have some long term investments established for retirement, and some steady short term investments for emergency

10)If money were no object, and if portable device ram were no object, there's this augmented reality disability sim I'd like to make

11)Lately I've been poking at web technologies. I retaught myself php and mysql because i wanted to see if I could make a forum; html 5 and css 3 are things i've been reading up on

12)I'm so freaked out at this point that my only question is if i'll be able to afford living

question as an interviewer:
What do you feel is the strongest piece in your portfolio, why?

Demo 1

Here is the link to my prototype. Use the arrow keys to move around, and just run into stuff. And if it interests you, here is a much prettier illustration of the pyramid than the one I had.

My questions:

• What other things in an unexcavated pyramid would you expect to interact with?
• Would you expect the rest of the pyramid to be in one scene/level or multiple?
• Imagine this was a 3D environment, and you are 10: Would this appeal to you?
• Again, if you were 10, what would you want to do with/to the artifacts?
• What other suggestions do you have?

Also, thanks for all the great feedback in class guys.

Proposal Document

The proposal document for Pyramind (now the working title) can be found here

To be honest, although it is necessary practice for a well rounded background in "game design" in general, I don't plan on being a game designer as it is conceptualized. So alot of the chunks were just because it needed something to go there. I'm therefore not too worried about how well I can actually sell a game idea because I'm not good at forming them from nothing; but I hope it reads well enough for you guys.

Tumblr work in progress?

I like blogger better, but I guess I could jump between the two and post in each simultaneously. The purpose of this post, however, is to link this blog to my tumblr blog: http://nwheeler.tumblr.com/. The Insulator!!! team doesn't have any type of comments or reposting enabled -the specifics of every type of comment or note or what not are still confusing me in my own blogs config- so my commentary on their pitch presentation is in my tumblr blog there.

Pitch Presentation

The link for my pitch power point is here