#working with a team

[askagamedev]

What do you do when you are at work but for whatever reason you have to wait to keep working (development breaking bug that is being fixed by other people, code compiling, waiting on person working on X thing you need so you can start work on Y, etc)

You're talking about downtime. Whenever I have downtime I try to be productive if I can, but the type of downtime determines what I can do. There's two main types of downtime - when my workstation is still usable and when it isn't.

If my workstation is still usable (e.g. the build is broken but I can still look at code/script/assets/etc.) then I notify my team that I've got some bandwidth and downtime to help out as a second set of eyes on any tasks my team might need help with. I can do code, design, or asset reviews for teammates and I can look over the various Slack discussions on other in-progress bug fixes and features to comment if I feel like I can contribute something helpful. I might not be able to run the game to test or validate anything, but I can still contribute my skill and knowledge to others who aren't having downtime.

If my workstation is unusable (e.g. all system resources are dedicated to building the game, building assets, compiling a level/lighting/etc., network or VPN down, etc.) then I really can't do much. I can't do reviews or join those conversations. In those situations I've traditionally done things to pass the time like listen to music or a podcast, scroll through social media, or think about what to write next on the blog. More recently, I've been focusing on leaning away from the social media scrolling and being more mindful so I have been taking the opportunity for mental and emotional "digestion" by not focusing on anything external and allowing my mind to process the normal emotional experiences in my life. It was difficult to start, but has definitely helped with my focus and my attention since I've started doing it.

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[diabloku]

Lucifer: *enters the hotel*

Alastor: I cast vicious mockery 😈

An animation my sis and I made for fun

Music is Perception Check by Tom Cardy.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

not "i ship these characters" or "i want them to bond platonically" but a secret 3rd thing (I want them to be forced to interact by the Narrative bc they would HATE that)

[boxboxlewis]

[squinkoblinko]

hes thinking real hard about eating a yummy sandwich

one with no crazy filters cause why not zzzz

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

Love seeing people achieve their dreams

[bluegiragi]

before.

early access + nsfw on patreon

[potatoes-tomatoes]

anyways, Looney Tunes’ Instagram declared Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck canon so don’t touch me i’m not normal alright

[forestgranted]

i drew etho's kill on joel for @trafficzine !! this was super challenging and i learned so much, i hope i did the scene justice

[askagamedev]

With the expansion of remote jobs, will there be any reason at all for studios to reallocate employees in the future?

There are (and always will be) some fully-remote studios that manage to make things work, but I don't really think it will become the norm across the industry. There's a lot to be said for in-person collaboration and the spontaneous iterative process that's much more difficult to happen in a digital-only environment.

There's also been some significant recent internal pushback against further full-time remote hiring at many studios I know of, including my own. There's been a lot of tech industry layoffs lately, which gives the management more leverage to require certain behaviors from the workers such as "return to office" and such. I know that my own studio has instituted two recent policies - a hiring freeze and a hard cap on the percentage of workers that may be full-time remote. Fully-remote devs like me get grandfathered in because the fully-remote status was already written into my contract when I signed, but most new hires won't get that same luxury.

If I had to predict the future, my guess would be that full time remote positions will be uncommon but not unheard of in the future. They will be more common than they were pre-pandemic, but I suspect fully remote positions will be more like H1B visa applications - typically reserved for senior roles that are more difficult to hire instead of a common status for a majority of the team.

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Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent Questions: The FAQ

[arachnid-guts]

i finally finished this... i can die now..........

here is the reference picture, which is a poster for the movie Re-Animator (1985)

[harmonizingsunsets]

Running Gags in Hatchetfield Musicals pt 10 | Fake Musicals within a Musical

[dragon-spaghetti]

Shhhhh,, even heroes need naps 💖

(Please click for better quality!!)

[somecunttookmyurl]

the "all customer service people are trained by management to be illiterate apes you can never get any resolutions by design dont be mean about it" crowd would faint to know there is a guy at my bank RIGHT NOW attempting to resolve an issue that would normally take a week

see. i tried to order food (having nothing of note in the house, and too much pain currently to get down 3 flights of stairs about it) and the payment failed on just eat's end.

but it went through fine on my bank's end, so the funds are tied up in "pending"... for a week. my available balance is now 95p so i can't just do it again

the bank cannot typically do anything about this until the normal time frame for collection passes and they funds just release automatically. just eat have zero contactable customer service

but it is for FOOD and there's no more MONEY and i am a DISABLED CUSTOMER so BY FUCKING GOD not on zeeshan's watch

[soyboywenzie]

aemond: my uncle is a challenge i welcome, if he dares face me—

everyone, literally everyone, team green enthusiast and haters, team black enthusiast and haters, rhaenyra stans and antis, aegon stans and antis, alicent stans and antis, daemon stans and antis, team neutrals, team ‘I like pretty people and want to fuck them all’, team ‘yall are missing the point’, helaena lovers, and AEMONDWIVES AND HATERS:

[catsurfavs]

Poor thang