Working at Hothouse Creations was a great deal of fun. Coming back down to earth it seemed hard to believe that I had been given the opportunity to have a part of every man's (young boys) dream job. But there I was, sitting at a desk, designing characters, interfaces, sprites, maps, etc. for the games I worked on. Sometimes the days were hard and long. Sometimes they were very pleasing. And somedays they were strangely shocking. I was at work when the planes hit the two towers, and we all stood and watched for hours. Not even wondering about returning to our seats and getting on with the work at hand. Other times we found that the male strong work force desired to watch the World Cup, and so our bosses (football fans) allowed us to view the games in the board room, and even ordered in pizza and drinks.
Now, I guess listening to this it could be seen as a privileged situation to work in such a field. However, it should be pointed out, that tis type of work. Although fun and rewarding, also is highly demanding and requires the best of skills and talents in order to succeed. The schedule was tough toward the end of projects, and as some of the team found out, when the project dried up and there as no more work in the pipeline, the door was also shown to us, with regret.
My days as a Games Designer in England are full of memories, and the friendships I forged are still there. Even if over some distance. We played tournaments in Counter Strike in the late evenings after shop was shut, and seemed to do quite well. Each of our little holes was a home from home, that saw personal adornments and the like, but was also an open sanctuary for all the folk who freely wandered and chatted and obliged in critique. If I had to post a review on working in the industry and give a grade to the work, it would be a true thumbs up. The only day I regretted in the time I was at Hothouse was the day I caught my boss in the lift and gave him the sad news that I had to leave.
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