My game design portfolio sucks. Sure, finding work in the video games industry is impossibly hard right now. A lot of things are changing. Bubbles may be bursting. I don’t know enough to say how everything is going to settle or when that’ll actually happen.

But one thing I do know is that I’m not being considered for jobs, like a lot of less-experienced people in games right now. I spent most of last year racking my brain, trying to figure out what was going wrong. I got portfolio and resume reviews from multiple designers and writers. I got referrals from people who worked at the companies to which I was applying. People kept telling me I was in good shape, my samples look fine, it’s just that the market sucks right now. I let those words vindicate me, but feeling less bad about myself didn’t make me any less unemployed. I’m pretty confident that a lot of people have been going through something similar.

Additionally, I spent last year with untreated depression among other things, which made a discouraging and difficult career situation into a mental health quagmire. Maybe that one’s a little more relatable than we all would like, too.

I’m still on the recovery path, but I’m doing a lot better now. GDC may not be the biggest bang for you buck these days, but one thing I got from my first trip to the conference was motivation to get back into improving myself as a developer. I feel now like I have at least some form of an idea what I can do next and what my plan looks like in the shortish-long-term.

So here’s where I am right now: I have an undergraduate degree in film production, plus some game design and development/new media coursework mixed in there. I’ve been freelancing as a game writer off and on since about 2018, for both solo devs and established studios with valuable IPs. My team’s capstone game project in University—for which I was the writer and primary designer—was shortlisted for the Student Bafta Awards, and my thesis film project was an experimental full-motion video game (FMV) with live-action footage and branching narrative choices. I’ve also published some fiction and contributed to some indie Dungeons & Dragons content over the years.

Writing is a tough field to find consistent work in, especially now. Design is tough too, at least in the vague, generalist sense that I’ve been looking for roles. For years I’ve been kind of scared of branching out into more technical work in game dev, and I let myself think I could get away with that and find other people to work with. It only took about 7 years, but I think I’m finally over that. I’ve started to take an interest in technical and systems design in games, so I’m going to try and pivot in that direction and see if I have any luck. If nothing else, I’ll be more equipped to make my own games and get some more finished work out there for people to enjoy.

I don’t have a game systems design portfolio yet, so my to-do list for the next few weeks to couple of months is going to look something like this:

• Research systems designer job listings and portfolios to build a list of skills to showcase in my finished portfolio
• Build tech demos in Unreal Engine 5 with Blueprints or Unity with C# that display each of those skills
• Begin learning C++ and slowly integrate code into my tech demos (to help add that “technical” part to my portfolio)

You probably noticed that applying for jobs isn’t on the list. We’re not even thinking about job hunting right now. That process is an entire job on its own, and I could use that energy more productively by continuing to learn.

I’m a little concerned about staying on task and getting to my goals. Depression really did a number on my confidence in being able to finish things. But aside from meds and therapy, I’m hoping that writing semi-regular updates here will help. I said I’m gonna do it publicly, so now there’s a little pressure to follow through.

I’m not saying I know anything special about this whole process. I can’t say that I’m about to show anybody a great path to getting a job in the games industry. But I’m guessing there are a lot of you out there who are like me, who have little or no experience working in a game studio as a “real” employee (why contracting doesn’t count as industry experience to so many people is beyond me and really elitist, honestly), but who want to get better and make great games.

Maybe we can learn something from each other along the way. I’ll be here for you.