I encountered this article earlier, and it makes sense. The idea is both interesting and disturbingly accurate in my existence.
I’m not stellar at any one thing, but I’m above average at a bunch of stuff, and some of it is even related to other stuff. That’s what makes me a solid robotics tech and game designer.
On the robotics tech side, I have a pretty solid machinery skillset. Bear in mind my ratings are within the field, not compared to laypeople. It’s a pretty technical field, and even getting to “probably won’t hurt himself” level takes a two year tech degree.
Here’s a partial list:
- Mechanical Assembly: acceptable. I can build a fairly complex piece of machinery from prints if I have all the parts and a decent toolbox.
- Mechanical Troubleshooting: passable. Not an expert, and you certainly don’t want me working on your car, but if there’s a mechanical issue I can usually figure it out.
- Electrical Assembly: solid. I build electrical control systems for a living, have done so for the better part of a decade.
- Electrical and HVAC Troubleshooting: solid. I was trained as an HVAC service tech before I went back for robotics, and when I was in school I was the Zen Master of rooftop units.
- PLC Code: solid, but rusty. I can do both Allen-Bradley and Siemens.
- G-Code: decent. I can do G-code by hand, and I’m decent with AutoCAD and a couple of related programs that can output instructions to CNC machines.
- Machining: passable. I can run a mill, but I’m no master of the craft.
- Welding: passable, but rusty.
- Electrical and Controls Prototyping: solid. I’ve been a professional controls prototyper, and it comes in handy in my present builder role when the engineers bring out a new design and we’re expected to find everything they screwed up. Which is part of prototyping, not an indictment of their skills.
My talent stack for game design is much fuzzier. It’s hard to quantify a skill level for what’s an almost entirely creative endeavor; at least when you’re building an industrial automation system it either works or it doesn’t. You only get that “OK, it doesn’t gorram work. Fix it,” level of feedback on the development side, and even that is much more often “well, it works, but not the way I’d like it to. Do I scrap it and start over? Can I tweak something?” and more often than anyone wants to admit it’s a “huh. It works. Sort of. Doesn’t work great, but it’s — WHAT IN THE NAME OF ELVIS IS IT DOING NOW?!” deal.
I’ve been a Game Master for a dozen tabletop RPGs and wargames for just shy of 40 years now; I’m 45 and started when I was six years old. As such, I could partially quantify the creative end as follows:
- Threat Force Design: absolutely solid.
- World Design: solid, bordering on obsessive. Which is one of the reasons I despise Pathfinder like I do. Their world was clearly designed by committee for marketing purposes. Every single state or area is defined by a gimmick, and every single gimmick feels like a line item on their “which group of gamers are we trying to attract?” checklist.
- Scenario Design: solid. Scenarios are what makes the game worth playing. Otherwise you’re just playing something like how one of Doom’s developers once jokingly described it: “you’re a space marine. A hatch opens up and monsters come out. Kill them.” His point was that Doom wasn’t the most cerebral game ever invented. Great fun though — I still play it every year or two.
- “Level” Design: acceptable. Since I don’t run dungeon crawls or similar games, it’s hard to think in terms of levels.
- Encounter Design: decent bordering on solid. I’m hampered mainly by the simple fact that there are only so many encounter types and you can only spice some of them up so many ways before it gets ridiculous. Thankfully, most professionals seem to have this issue too so it isn’t just my own personal incompetence.
- Encounter “Decoration”: solid. By this, I mean the weird little details that turn a fairly straightforward encounter into something memorable. It’s been commented upon in every game I’ve run in the last couple decades.
- Writing: solid.
The video game development side looks like this:
- 3D Modeling: you’ve seen my work. I’m passable at best, and 99% of what I do ends up looking like machinery. Go figure.
- Art Design: mediocre. I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. Luckily, I know quite a few actual artists.
- Music: bloody terrible. It really doesn’t help that I’m half deaf and have zero musical talent. Tried the cello in 5th grade and was terrible. That’s on top of all the musical education they tried to give me along the way. Again luckily, I know some top-notch musicians and sound techs. And by “top-notch,” I mean “they headline music festivals and fill arenas with their act.”
- General Coding: solid. I’m good with C#, Java, Python, and a few other languages.
- AI: acceptable. I can throw together a hardwired AI or Finite-State Machine pretty easily, and I’m branching out into behavior trees and GOAP.
- Animation and Animation Control: vaguely acceptable, but I need more practice.
- Other Asset Coding: solid. I’ve coded everything from basic light switches to spinning fire-sticks of death.
So yeah… Thank Elvis I have a vacation coming up where I can work on some of this stuff at my leisure at a cabin in the woods.