Amazing announcement

I know I haven’t been posting in a while. I am thinking multiple times a week about this blog but never found the energy to post anything. Well, here is my first post in a while.

Check past the cut for my announcement.

Thanks for clicking 🙂

So, the announcement… is … :

I HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AT THE BEST GAME DESIGN SCHOOL IN MY COUNTRY… MAYBE EVEN EUROPE!!!

=D

I have been doing a lot of work to improve on my portofolio from last year (basicly had nothing last year). I made a few small games and showed off some of my modding and was just hoping it was enough.

I also had to make a boardgame. I decided to make 5 different squares with different pathes on them. Printed them out multiple times and put them on small wooden squares (5cm x 5 cm). I had about 100 squares and it was a lot of printing, cutting and pasting them on the wooden squares. In the game you could arrange the wooden squares anyway you wanted on the board. There would be 4 pilars in the middle and you would pick a card so you knew which pilar was yours. You then had to roll a dice when it was your turn, making every eye of the dice equal either a step your character could make, or would allow you to switch positions between two squares. This could either create new pathes for you or block your opponents.

The game was intended to be played by 4 players, with the minimum being 2. It’s a lot of fun to play because no one knows who has to go to which pilar and the board isn’t super small so it cannot be finished in one turn. Because of this you need to think strategicly and might wanna make your opponents think that you gotta go to a completly different pilar so they accidently create a path for you to your actual goal :). You would win if you exactly landed on the pilar you had to go to.

So I worked really hard to finish the board (black background on a wooden board (45cm x 45cm). My dad helped me a lot. We chose some paper and glued it to the wooden board with some kind of spray. Everything looked fine when I went to bed.

Then it was D-day. I woke up at 7 AM to finish some stuff and looked at the board.

FUUUUUU — it was all curled up. The clue made the paper pull together and it looked really rippled. I was like, what ever, they won’t see it because I will be placing the wooden sqaures on it. I grabbed all my stuff, double checked, tripple checked, quadra check… then finaly I checked one more time if I had everything and if I would be on time.

Took me an hour to get to the school, which in my courty is quite a lot. By car you can get from the most northern point to the southern point and enter Belgium in a few hours…. so going by public transit for an hour seems really far… and boring -,- Nearly fell asleep in the bus and train lol.

Finaly, 9 AM I arrive. I rush to the counter and tell them I’m here for the portofolio day thing. They assign me to the room and I place all my stuff.

…..

Now I had to wait 2 hours. Boooooriiiing. I just went where most people were, in the cafeteria room. Since the school wasn’t really open only for those that did the portofolio day most people were talking about their own stuff and were really nervous. Ofcourse there were some students or people that already passed to come with their friends and the occasional parent was also heard every once in a while. I remember that there was this really really annoying guy. I would describe him as cocky as Jeff Winger from Community…. combined with the dorkyness of Abed. He wasn’t that super over the top cocky, but he always had his opinion. He felt so super happy cuz he past the previous round and got accepted which was a month or two ago. He was with this two friends that were trying to get in today. We all sat around this giant table and then suddenly they start talking about League Of Legends. I was like, dafuq, does EVERYONE here play o.O Litterly 80% of the ppl there played League…. Was kind of funny hearing them talk about games for a hour or two , though it started to get a bit creepy… a bit to nerdy for me.

Anyways, the two hours were over and we all had to go to our previously assigned room to collect our stuff and then go to this other room where everyone would hear some kind of announcement of who went to the next round of that day (this was only the first round, showing off your stuff and skills). I grabbed all my stuff but as usual I’m a bit slow. I had no idea where to go so  I rushed to follow the other ppl, since I was the last one to leave the room :p

We got to a room and I was like “hey I remember this from last year, I know what is going to happen now”. I knew that they would call a few names of the people that absolutely did not make it (always about 8 out of the 80 people) and the rest would go to the next round.

Everyone was super nervous but I was like “eeeh, what ever, nothing I can do now right?”. So they started greeting us and called some names. One of the guys who were with the annoying guy were called out and I heard the annoying guy say “oooh, failed again? 😦 “. I was hoping they didn’t call out my name because I knew it would be game over. Thank god, they didn’t say my name. Everyone was like “omg what is going to happen now”. The moment those poeple had left the room and followed some other teachers, a women closed the door and told us “Congratz, you all went to the next round”.

She gave us a piece of paper where there was a schedule of who was going to get their conversation and where they had to be. Mine was at 2:30 PM or something… So I had to wait another 2 hours listening to Mr. Annoying.

Went downstairs and I felt pretty good. The next round was easy, it was just talking with a few people from the school, students and a teacher, so they would get a feel if I would fit with the education. This was more a personality test than a skill test.

I waited for 2 hours, being really bored… but to my suprise Mr. Annoying wasn’t there… or I forgot all about him by now…. Idk where he went, maybe chillled outside idk. Finaly, 2 hours passed and I went upstairs. Talked a dude that had to go in before me. I waited, and I waited… finaly he came out and he told me to wait another few moments cuz they had to do something. Now I started to panic. Not because I had to wait a bit longer, but because I started to doubt myself. Would I be good enough? Should I ask them some questions? I know that for a job interview it’s always good to ask some questions to show you are interested…. I quickly wrote down some questions on a piece of paper so I knew what to ask.

Finaly I was allowed inside and there were three lovely ladies there. I remember last year there were 3 men… this was a improvement ;). They started by asking me about the game I created. I had 10 minutes to talk to them and show them a bit about who I am. So I quickly showed them my game and gave them my portofolio to look at. They were really impressed. The older lady said something like “I can see that you really think about everything and describe why you did this”. I knew this would be a good selling point for me because I always think about the WHY, rather than the WHAT. It was a really fun conversation. It felt a bit .. I wouldn’t say unproffesional, but it didn’t really feel like an interview. It felt more like a fun conversation with my friends. I remember last year they asked me the question “if you had to create a game for girls who are going to high school, what kind of a game would you create”…. That question was really hard for me cuz I had to come up with ideas on the spot in a timeframe of a few seconds… I knew that they would be asking me a question again and I prepaired that one specific question all year long so if they were going to ask it to me again I would have a answer. This time however, things were a bit different. They asked me the question “if you had to create a game for kids to learn them the different music key tones (do,re,mi…) what kind of a game would you make”. At first I was like: “wtf, I have no knowledge about music so… could you explain the question a bit more lol”. They explained it and together we came up with some idea’s. In the end (cuz one girl said my idea was a lot like it while actually it wasn’t), it turned out to be a bit like Guitar Hero, but with a piano where the player would controll a character that could jump to different keynotes that would show the name of the tone that was playing….. eeeh whatever, not the best idea.

We also talked about what I am doing right now. I told them I am doing this international communication study where I learn everything from making a advertisement to being a PR manager for a big company. They then asked me if I think that it would benefit me in their study. I told them that I sure as hell hoped so. I know how to write and behave in a proffesional enviroment, have experience with programs like Photoshop, have amazing group work skills because all we do now is make projects in groups and that I have great english skills because I can do a college study completly in english.

Then we talked abit about my cultural interests, if I recently visited any musea. I told them that I recently went to Canada – Toronto and visited the Toronto Science Center. There was this game Expo in the science center for a limited time that I also visited. One of the girls was like “aaah so that is why you went to that museum, not to check on the art, but on the games”. We all laughed, but I really had no idea that expo was there untill I saw it on site.

I mentioned that I saw some games that I used to play like Animal Crossing, and the girls then sarted talking about the New Animal Crossing game that was comming out soon… So we talked a bit about that.

.(I could upload some pics of it if you guys want, was a expo from the history of gaming, from Pong – recent games and systems).

Then they asked me if there were any political issues that I would wanna make a game about. I told them I had no idea what was currently going on in the world, cuz I was in Canada for a few weeks recently and I had no idea what happend outside of Toronto cuz the news only reported on the shit ton of crazyness that happened in Toronto (man Toronto is crazy, on my first day 2 stabbings and other crazy shit… also a few shootings and murders on the news while I was there. In The Netherlands this would happen maybe once every few months, not multiple times a day). So I told them I had no idea and they suddenly got interested in me a bit more asking why I went to Canada. They thought it was really cool that I went to meet some ppl I met online 😛

I told them this was my 2nd time of doing this and the older women asked me “ooh, what was the feedback you got last year”. I told her I didn’t get any feedback just that I was denied on my email. She made a note of that and would take it to the board, cuz she was some high person in charge about this stuff.

The older women then told me that the time was up and we had to stop talking. I packed all my stuff, told them good bye and stepped outside. I felt a bit good about how it went and walked to the train station. Met this dude that I had seen earlier that day when I was waiting to go inside the conversation room. We talked a bit about how it went and when we arrived at the central station we each went our own way.

That all happened on June 4th… On June 25th I got the email that told me I was accepted.

Woot Woot =D

Now, I would like to thank a few people that I do not know in real life that helped me.

Zach [last name is classified], being a big inspiration and basicly you are the person that got me motivated and made me realise that Game Design was my future proffesion. I am and will always look up to you as a role model.

Joey [last name is classified], for being such a good friend and being such a nice guy in general. You have been a great support for me always being positive on things that I do, like that RPG game I am making (it will be finished, I promise you that).

Orange [same last classified name as Zach], for being a awesome fruit and giving me motivation. Because you and Zach (and more) moved from Jamaica to the USA you gave me the motivation to explore North America. Thanks to you guys I now have the dream to move to the USA/Canada after I finish my studies. Also, without you guys I might have not decided to go to Canada 2 months ago. During the decision process I was thinking “well, if Orange and Zach went to America to live there, I sure as hell have the balls to go to Canada for just 2 week right?”.

TheUnproPro, he is a amazing youtube and he learned me A LOT about RPG MAKER VX ACE (the program I am making my RPG game in). His tutorials and replies to my problems really helped me. Thanks man =D

Princess Ninjato, another great Youtuber that helped me with my games. She was the one that recommended me a few game maker programs that helped me create some games in that got me accepted. She is really nice and I recently (a few hours ago) learned that she is studying game design and visual arts/ visual communication. She makes some create games, has her own website and her own WordPress – so go tell her I said hi! =D Ooh and best of all, she plays Maplestory!

RageOfAER, great youtuber aswell that tought me a few things and is a great motivator. He is awesome and you should really check him out. Not much to say here, he’s just awesome

Sammi, she is awesome for sending me those pics. Thanks Sammi they really helped me. She is also a really great person and is just being nice. Her blog posts are always a lot of fun, it just makes me sad there aren’t that many recently but looking at the situation she is in now I’ll forgive her… for now.

Thanks everyone, I am sure I missed a few people (like the person that created the guide on RPG Maker VX Ace’s website), but I’m tired. It’s 2:02 AM, please forgive me… I’m going to bed right now, good night 🙂

 

Also, 1 year ago  I registered this blog…. So happy birthday to my blog I guess =D