Greatest Work Experience Of All Time (GWEOAT)

In early June 2022, we were excited to welcome a local high school work experience candidate, Will C., to join Drop Bear Bytes on our distributed journey through game development. During the course of a week, Will met with the leads of different departments and got insider insight into what it’s like to work across 3 different time zones, give a report in each of our daily standups, and provide reproduction steps for some of our more pernicious bugs.

We sat down with Will on his last day and asked him the hard questions. His responses are below.

What was the most unexpected aspect of your work experience at Drop Bear Bytes?

“That despite there being team members based all over the world the fact that you guys can still keep in touch regularly and always be up to date and connected.”

What's something you learned about one of the disciplines (level design, business, animation, art, narrative design) that you'd never thought of before?

“That even if you specialise in an area that with the modern tools being easy to use you can work on other areas of game design.”

As an RTS fan, what aspects of your playstyle do you think were most beneficial to your time playing Broken Roads, and which parts did you find difficult?

“I found that the skill system in its current state is obviously not finished but there are no clear explanations for the skills but obviously this will improve with time, but all around despite not playing to many RPGs the game was easy to get a handle on.”

Has this experience reinforced your desire to become a games programmer, or has it opened your eyes to other career paths? Why?

“It has opened my eyes to other possibilities like level design, but I will most likely stick with programming but not just programming.”

How well do you feel Broken Roads captures Australian flavour/characters? Did anything stand out in particular?

“You have captured the animals for sure. They are very well detailed and I do like the wombat rider (SPOILERS!!! - Ed) and definitely the slang as well, but I don't think that would have been hard, as most of you do live in Australia!”

Did you have a favourite location / scene in the game, and which characters did you enjoy talking to the most?

“My favourite location would probably be Merredin because it captures post-apocalyptic and people have reverted to the early 1900s. One of them was Jonesy before (SPOILERS!!! - Ed), and probably Mad as well. She was a standout character to talk to, especially at Bally Bally Hall because she doesn't like you at the start, but if you respond correctly she is like, "mmm," and begins to like you.”

Do you agree that you had the greatest work experience week out of anyone in your class, and in fact most likely the greatest of all time?

“I very much agree with the fact that I had one of the greatest experiences of all time. This was a great experience for someone who wants to make games. It very much opened my eyes. This work experience will be contributing to the graphics card I am saving up for.”

Give us a piece of wisdom to round out this interview - anything you want other people to know, that you think isn't talked about often enough.

“That if you want to go into game design/programming whether it's making your own game or joining a larger studio that people are helpful and are really nice and this experience will leave me with a lasting experience.”