When I joined Menewsha in 2007 (almost nine years ago - whoa!) I was a pimply-faced high schooler who played a lot of video games, took a lot of medication, and smoked too much pot.

Here in the year 2016, I am something else. I have a college degree in game design, and I'm a level designer for video games; happily working away on a game with 18 other folks, and getting paid to do it. I've also run quality assurance on several video games - probably even some you've heard of or played!

I enjoy my work immensely - level design is a mix of spacial awareness, at least a basic understanding of architecture, some psychology, and above all it's a lot of communicating. Building levels doesn't happen in a box; I have to solicit feedback from others and iterate constantly in order to build something. Thankfully, I love talking to people and bettering my work through their feedback.

So what gives you that feeling, Menewsha? What do you do?

That's very cool, Pkero. It sounds like you have definitely come a long way :)

I joined Menewsha back in 2008, but I wasn't so active back then. I also played a ton of video games through high school, didn't play all that much during college (but did program some games for classes and had several friends doing game design), and now pursuing my doctorate (and haven't really played many video games since last summer).

I work at Sephora! It's one of those jobs that come across as 'just' retail, but I really enjoy it. The beauty industry is really special to me because you get to see some serious transformations in the confidence and happiness levels of your customers and we're able to form amazing bonds. It actually inspired me to change my college plans and now I'm pursuing my esthetician license and also freelancing as a make up artist on the side! I'm super grateful.

I'm a student primarily, and a writer when I have time. I'm pursuing an English Major after a bit of difficulty but I have finally decided that I am going to do what I am passionate about rather than what is "safe". I care very little about having money as long as I can stay alive, and I think that realising that helped me to decide to stay with English.
As for my writing, I'm about halfway through my first novel, and I'm really optimistic about how its turning out.

@salvete: Oooh. What programming languages did you write in? And what's your doctorate for?

@Nanie: I actually met a girl in college who worked at Sephora, and she loved it as well. I'm not really one for makeup, but I can totally understand that kind of passion about it. I'm glad you've found something you love to do!

@Bearzy: Interestingly enough, those who major in English actually tend to have pretty high salaries throughout their careers. Lots of jobs demand a good degree of reading and writing, and being well-studied in it is actually reasonably sought after.

I am a secretary. How I got there was so crazy round about. I started out as a neuroscience major, then came within a year of finishing I decided I was NOT HAPPY. So... I became a graphic design major instead :P All was well. I liked my freelance lifestyle until my husband came along and messed all of that up by way of being awesome. I decided I wanted a family with him which meant needing to achieve stability since both of us worked independently I decided the best way to do that would be to apply to government jobs and see what sticks. So now, I don't love what I DO in work but I love what I'm able to do with the stability I never had before. Plus, having medical insurance paid for you is a serious game changer. I just had to find other ways of being creative either on the side or just in my own life. So far, it's worked out ok. If I had my way though... my absolute ideal career would be to learn all these different trade skills: acrylic tank making, carpentry and molding, you name it. I'd love a career in something where the end result is something tangible and/or creative. Like now, I don't like the tasks I do. I don't like seeing people that earn 80k-150k fail at using Word and fixing their stuff. Filing is boring. Data entry is mind numbing.. all of that stuff.. but I do like that I'm a part of a bigger cause even if my part is just to push paper.

@Pkero, The more you know! I don't think I have ever seen a job advertised that asked for an English degree, but I'm probably just looking in the wrong places.

I'm, uh, a barista. ._ . Not really where I want to be just yet. But if I give it context like you did, it sounds more impressive!

When I joined in 2007, I was a depressed 16 year old in a toxic and unhealthy relationship. I didn't have friends offline, wasn't in school, and basically only left the house to tag along on grocery shopping trips. I had no confidence, no direction, and little hope. I thought about suicide a lot.

Now I've got a college degree, a job, a car, and an apartment in the city with my really wonderful boyfriend (not the same one as before obviously). I'm still sort of rediscovering what it means to feel like myself again, because it's been so very long since I was actually happy. I surprise myself sometimes.

@Pkero - My class projects were in Java, Objective-C and Swift, x86 assembly, C++ and C (MPI, OpenMP, CUDA). Just standard stuff, I guess. The doctorate I am pursuing, however, is in one of the health professions.

@Empress: It doesn't get much better as you go higher up; I think it's an age thing, though. My parents are both pretty senior in government and yet I'm always fixing their computer problems. ._.

@Cherry: Well, it can always get better. I was definitely pretty unhappy for the last six months; between some personal problems and the inability to deal with them in a healthy way, I was making for a pretty crappy game developer. Now that I've got a better grip on that stuff, I'm finding ways to re-engage all of my teammates and improve myself, my relationships, and my work. Nowhere to go but up, yeah?

@salvete: Pshh, standard. I can code some reasonably basic stuff in C# and that's about where it ends for me, and I'm a "professional." :P

@Pkero, I guess I meant mostly standard stuff for my major *nods* although I really admire your quality assurance and game design profession! I think I'll do that in another life...or maybe a little in this one later in the future, who knows :)

You know what I think would be really cool to do, game story writing. Like, worldbuilding for fantasy RPGs or sci fi games. I would be so keen to do that.

@Salvete: Well, while I've enjoyed QA, I hope I don't make a career out of it. :P I'd much rather be building levels.

@Bearzy: Hah, unfortunately, game writer positions are few and far between. The only companies that really employ writers exclusively are CD Projekt RED (The Witcher series) and Telltale. Quest designers, on the other hand, are much more frequently sought after. It requires understanding game structure, pacing, etc., but also has a fair bit of writing to do; developing characters, lore, backstory and whatnot. You'll also generally need some basic scripting/coding knowledge, but most of the heavy lifting on that sort of thing is done by real programmers. :P

Currently I'm not working but I am a legal drug dispenser, aka pharmacy technician.

lol The Wandering Poet, I always love how you word it.

@Pkero, building levels does sound more fun than quality assurance *nods*

I joined the same year, in 2007. I was fifteen, freshman in high school, with severe depression, insecurity issues and no confidence. I was in a pretty bad place and menewsha was somewhat both of a crutch and happy escape for me...although I am afraid some of real life drama followed me even here.

Now I am 24, living in a new city, working as a teacher's assistant. I am much happier, getting over my insecurities and gaining confidence every day. I am in a serious relationship with the love of my life and I only hope to gain more from my future. I hope to go back to school, finish a degree so I can be a teacher and not just an assistant. I hope to also marry in the next few years...and maybe start a family. :)

Originally Posted by Pkero

@Empress: It doesn't get much better as you go higher up; I think it's an age thing, though. My parents are both pretty senior in government and yet I'm always fixing their computer problems. ._.

I work for a lab. So I don't accept age as an excuse. I really never do. People should be constantly learning or at least willing to try. I feel that way especially for people in science-related fields. But that part is just an annoyance. The part that I say I hate goes more in line with how there are some people that ask how to send an excel document as an email attachment and are also the same people that treat clerical people like they're stupid. That's the part I hate. It's just the culture here. Thankfully, I don't deal with those people too often. My immediate group is actually pretty awesome save one and I've put him in his place enough that he finally gets it.

I joined in 2007 too. I was 18 and in a dual-enrollment program so I was technically both still a high-schooler and also a college student. I was still an awkward anime nerd then, although I was getting over it by that point. A few months after I joined Mene (which caused the first of my many hiatuses) I went to Japan for the first time, which set the ball rolling for where I am today.

For the past six years I've been an English teacher in Japan. On the job I met my now-husband and generally I'm really happy with where I'm at. However, my employment contract will reach its limit in a few years so I need to start thinking about where to go from here. I also learned how to cook, which was a skill I always wanted to develop but I didn't have the motivation until I moved in with my husband.

@Pkero: If you're willing to talk more about it, what kind of games do you develop?

@Ferra: I actually know someone who teaches English in Japan as well. I wish I had the patience to learn a language, especially Japanese. I'd import so many games.

I develop a lot of games! The ones you haven't heard of are all personal/group projects. My junior capstone was a simple 2D platformer with a quirky little control scheme; nothing incredible, not terrible either. I coded and designed it myself, so it was a nice exercise. The next year, I led a 37-person project for my senior capstone. It was a first-person collectathon/racing game with a weird gravity-shifting mechanic built into the level design. It's quite pretty in its own way, but it definitely looks like a student game.

Then I came to the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy here in Austin. We spent 3 weeks developing a 2-player board game for iPad (which we never released, though I have a build of it hiding on my personal iPad; hopefully we release it at some point). Now we're working on a two-player asymmetric platformer called Roots of Sarkos. Its Beta is up on itch.io, so feel free to search for it, but we're avoiding doing any real press pushes until we do our 1.0 release in about 2.5 weeks. I've been doing a fair bit of level design on it lately, so something I put a lot of effort into will be in that release.

I've also done 3 Quality Assurance terms at Bethesda Softworks. My first two years, I worked briefly on Dishonored before getting put on the DOOM 3 re-release. Oddly enough, I spent more time playing DOOM 2 as it was bundled and the Japanese/German language needed to be checked for achievements and whatnot. The following year, I did another brief stint on Dishonored (DLC this time) before moving over to Elder Scrolls Online before it released. Two years later, this past summer, I tested Fallout 4 - primarily on consoles, working one-on-one with a programmer to solve some issues he was running into. That was easily the most fun I've had doing QA.

Pkero, that's so awesome! I love how enthusiastic you sound when talking about your work :)

@Pkero: Wow, that's awesome! It sounds like you get a nice variety of experiences working on both mobile games and console games. I've been interested in the Fallout series, but I haven't given it a try yet. But that does sound like a rewarding experience!

Regarding Japanese games, that's kind of true. I recently bought a Wii U and decided to get it in Japanese since I plan to live here indefinitely. (Currently I'm finishing up playing the Wii U version of Zelda Windwaker.) I know enough to get by, but there are times when the text scrolls by quickly and I didn't understand everything, so it can be kind of frustrating. But hopefully as my Japanese improves it will get better. I need to get back into studying seriously in my free time.

@salvete: That's why I do it, I suppose. Gotta love what you work on, y'know?

@Ferra: I'd recommend Fallout: New Vegas as the most modern yet most 'Fallout' of them, but Fallout 4 is an absolutely delightful violent romp, though definitely a lot less complex. Depending on how you like your games, that can be good or bad. :P

I'll always recommend Persona 4 when it comes to Japanese games; the text boxes are all player controlled, so you'll always have a chance to re-read something, but as the games are meant for an older audience, I'd imagine you need to know a fair amount of Kanji if you play the Japanese version. They also have variable difficulty, so if you wanted to play it has a hardcore stat-heavy JRPG or as a way to improve your reading comprehension, both are totally viable.

Interestingly, the English translations of Atlus' games all preserve the meaning and culture behind all the Japanese references, so they'll make puns that make zero sense in English (as opposed to something like Ace Attorney, where the localization is very Americanized - references to sushi replaced with burgers, etc).

Originally Posted by Pkero

@Ferra: I'd recommend Fallout: New Vegas as the most modern yet most 'Fallout' of them, but Fallout 4 is an absolutely delightful violent romp, though definitely a lot less complex. Depending on how you like your games, that can be good or bad. :P

I'll always recommend Persona 4 when it comes to Japanese games; the text boxes are all player controlled, so you'll always have a chance to re-read something, but as the games are meant for an older audience, I'd imagine you need to know a fair amount of Kanji if you play the Japanese version. They also have variable difficulty, so if you wanted to play it has a hardcore stat-heavy JRPG or as a way to improve your reading comprehension, both are totally viable.

Interestingly, the English translations of Atlus' games all preserve the meaning and culture behind all the Japanese references, so they'll make puns that make zero sense in English (as opposed to something like Ace Attorney, where the localization is very Americanized - references to sushi replaced with burgers, etc).

I'll keep that in mind! Fallout: New Vegas sounds good.

Ah, Persona. It's a shame to admit but I actually own that game but I've never played it. I bought it in college when I was busy and then promptly moved to Japan after I graduated, leaving my PS2 behind. The only console/handhelds I brought were my Wii, DS, and DS Lite because they were small and light enough to fit. Now I have another Wii, 3DS, and Wii U that are all Japanese region-locked. (I guess I like Nintendo. ) Maybe someday I'll get a PS system again, but I'm not as interested in their franchises as I am with Nintendo's.

But thanks for the recommendation! I agree that the way things are localized and translated is fascinating, especially the better you understand the languages. Even games that are pretty close in both languages, like Zelda, have a different feel sometimes. All of the major races (Dekus, Gorons, and Zoras) have a distinct way of talking in Japanese that didn't really carry over into the English version. I don't think anything was really lost because of that, but those small differences are why I like playing both versions even if I've already beaten the game once in English.

I agree that New Vegas is a fantastic game I am so bummed it isn't backwards compatible with the xbone though. My 360 had a ceiling collapse on it recently and can't play anything anymore.

Joined in 2007 as a senior in high school, I was an even bigger jerk then than I am now. I had joined as part of a potential Chan raid, obviously didn't happen. Went to college for sciencey things. Now I work for the federal government as a park ranger. Off season I work retail and hate customers. In my spare time I play games and draw.