Reflection

Upon my successful graduation, I am planning to find work at an independent game studio to gain some experience in the industry before I work towards starting my own studio. I know that to secure employment, there are some processes I first need to undertake such as updating my CV, creating a portfolio, researching to find the best places for me, and building my networking skills.

The lectures I have been given over this module have provided me with the advice and information to guarantee success, and I now feel far more confident about setting foot into the industry. Some key tips I have been given are:

• Adapt CV and portfolio to each company I apply to

• Grow social media presence for opportunity

• Networking - developing relationships helps your career

• Portfolio quality over quantity

• Testing skills helps to become more aware of mental and physical limits.

• Separate career from practice

• Adapt to become a "T-Shaped" designer

My current project should allow me to showcase the skills I have developed as well as show potential employers what is meaningful and important to me. This year I have ensured that I am exploring themes that I care about such as mental health and have set out to create a game that can create positive change. The studio I end up working for will be passionate about creating games for good.

To test and develop my skills, as well as proving I can be a "T-Shaped" designer, this current project has provided me with the opportunity to push my ability using unity and developing my hard skills and understanding of technology. I am currently pushing my skills by working on an XR prototype in Unity, to help visualise the game space we are creating and provide a medium of testing before we build the physical space. I have no previous experience with 3D development so this has been an interesting challenge.

Video to show the latest progress update on my XR Prototype.

Since Loukia Kyriakidou's lecture, I have tried putting her advice into action and began developing my social media presence. In November, I created my professional Instagram account which I am using to share my work and make connections with other creators. At this point, I had no previous social media presence except my personal Instagram account to interact with friends and family. After publishing my first post, I was able to reach 34 accounts and made 38 impressions.

Since November, I have published three further posts which show the research I have been undertaking to guide my current project. I thought it was exciting that the creators of the Igloo Dome I visited engaged in my post and asked me to update them on further developments in the project.

In the month of December, you can see below how the number of accounts I was able to reach increased by 512% compared to the previous month. Furthermore, my first post I made on the account had made a further 260 impressions, which showed how visitors to the page had taken the time to look through my content.

I understand that this is just the beginning of my journey creating a social media presence and I have a long way to go but it was interesting to see this short development. What I have learnt from running this is that more impressions are made when I use tags and share my posts to my story. To grow my audience, I think I need to begin engaging with more creators and their content as well as posting more of my development process and using the relevant hashtags to reach the right people who will be most interested in my work.

This reflective process has helped me to realise a direction of travel for my route into the industry as well as provided guidance for the development of this final year project. My confidence that this course has provided me with the skills I need for industry has been raised and my dreams of starting my own business seem much more achievable. I am going to make the most of this year by pushing myself to work on my hard and soft skills and make sure this final year project will accurately show off all I am capable of and enhance my portfolio.

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