PROJECT: WIZARD

what i learned

One of the biggest things I learned throughout my internship was how to work effectively within an established professional codebase. Before this, most of my experience involved systems that I had created from scratch. Here, I usually had to investigate how a system worked and how it might be connected to other systems, as well as understand its constraints. This usually involved checking how other developers had implemented similar mechanics and looking for existing functionality I could reuse before creating something new.

Throughout the internship, there were many times when I had to recognize what the project needed and find useful work for myself. Sometimes that meant fixing bugs or noticing that a mechanic needed additional feedback, while other times it meant noticing that an entire mechanic planned by the design team hadn’t been implemented yet and taking it from the prototyping phase to a completely finished feature. This gave me experience taking initiative and owning mechanics end-to-end.

Working closely with programmers and tech designers also improved how I collaborate with others. With part of the team being in the US and part in Sweden, clear communication was especially important. I became better at understanding what someone needed from a system and why. Often we would talk about technical limitations and tradeoffs, and I learned how to adapt my implementation based on their feedback and needs. For instance, creating lots of dials and knobs for designers to tweak, exposing functions to blueprints, and using data asset to make it easier to create variations.

Seeing how programmers and tech designers approached game feel, as well as discussing it with them, was something that improved my eye for it. There is more to it than just making an action responsive or adding feedback. Small details like timing, anticipation, hitstop, camera shake, animation, audio, and how different pieces of feedback work together can completely change how a mechanic feels. It’s also possible to do too much, so finding just the right balance is key.

Spending a lot of time fixing bugs in unfamiliar systems made me much better at navigating and debugging code I didn’t already understand. My intuition for recognizing possible causes of a bug became stronger. I became more deliberate when using the debugger and printing out relevant information, often with timestamps and where the information came from. Another skill I acquired was recognizing when it’s more appropriate to fix a symptom rather than spending a significant amount of time on the root cause.

what i would improve

If I could do my internship over again, I would ask questions and seek feedback sooner and more frequently. At times, I was too stubborn about figuring things out on my own, when asking someone for input would have helped me solve problems faster and learn more from the people around me.

I would also try to become proactive much earlier. Towards the end of the internship, I became much better at identifying what the project needed and taking ownership of things without waiting for a task to be assigned. If I had developed that mindset sooner, I think I could have contributed more throughout the internship.

conclusion

Overall, my experience at House of How has made me much more comfortable entering someone else’s project and contributing productively. I’ve become faster at implementing and expanding upon existing systems, I have a better eye for what makes a mechanic feel good, and I’ve become much more capable of finding and fixing bugs with very little context about the affected system.