Part of the routine: the free lance spirit

Right, so they closed our studio down. I woke up the next day and realized that a lot of the interesting ideas and concepts for the title we had been working on would never see the light of day.

 So with a little too much eagerness to create, I quickly assumed a freelance position as level designer for small but productive company, called Sproing

They are doing quick but good quality projects, and were in need of somebody who could jump in and do the levels for an upcoming Jump n’ run franchise sequel.

 Wow, I always loved J n’ Rs when games where still planar, so I only demanded two things:

 - a working edit & test environment

 - threes days a week, fixed.

So far these conditions were mostly met. This enabled me to come, do my work, test it, leave. Prevents burnout, keeps you interested.

 However, a couple of issues arose very soon that you will probably know if you’re working in the field of the industry: small DevCos are usually very quick-and-dirty. as people fulfil multiple roles and everybody knows where everything goes. However, the moment a third party steps in (read: their publisher and my humble persona) things start shaking. No fully used version control system, word-of-mouth bug management, ‘creative’ changes in the asset structure.

And there’s always at least one artist that has never heard of the ‘n to the power of 2′ concept in tile & texture size.

So, although my initial prerequisites where met and I was tuned for high speed productive work, those small file management and communication issues took away a full week from my output, making it tricky to meet the current deadline.

Lesson learned: once in production, make sure everybody is on the same page with the assets, process and tech specs.

Onwards with the levels, now.