Artist Interviews and Career Fair

Hi everyone!

So this week has been packed with the reviewing of artist applications and a bunch of interviews. We were still getting applications until the 25th (when the applications closed), and continue to get them even though the window is meant to be closed.

Doing art interviews was an interesting experience that none of us had ever done before; trying to get a feel for a person's way of working, aspirations, and personality in a formal interview setting is a difficult thing to do, so we're learning as employers how to do this.

We also included an art test (which we won't talk about because there are other applicants who still need to take it). An art test is a short task given to the person applying for the job that gives interviewers a sense of their ability to fit with a given style, to work under a time constraint and to present their work in a meaningful way.

We're still going through applications and figuring things out, but hopefully we'll have a new member of Clever Endeavour Games soon!

Next up, I wanted to mention that Rich (the person writing this) was invited to a career fair at a local high school to talk about the company / my job.  I'm pretty excited to introduce grade 10-11 students to the jobs in the game industry and explain why it's so awesome. 

I often rant to other people (friends, family) about how amazing the industry and how many opportunities there are, so I'm really happy to be able to share that with people who are looking to open their minds to different career paths. There's room to go in-depth with this, but I'll end it here and maybe report back next week.

IGF "Excellence in Design" Nomination

Woohoo!

Ultimate Chicken Horse was nominated for the Independent Games Festival "Excellence in Design" award this year! You can see the announcement and nominees here.

The IGF was established in 1998 as part of the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco as a means to highlight the indie community and give some exposure to the smaller teams that didn't have the budget to compete with the massive presentations and expo booths of the big AAA studios. It includes the IGF game pavilion, the awards ceremony, and Indie Game Summit, which is a section of the conference which is open to holders of a special (cheaper) pass.

The IGF prize has gained quite a reputation and it seems that even being nominated is enough to put that information in promotional videos. This year, we're really happy to be nominated for the design prize, alongside some amazing games. Just being mentioned with games like Inside, Overcooked, Hyper Light Drifter, Event[0] and others is a huge honour and we're really proud.

Last year, an amazing game called Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes won the design prize, and it was masterfully done. The game is played by one player holding a real life, physical paper manual and another player (in VR or not, but better in VR) trying to navigate their way around defusing a bomb before time runs out. They give info to the person with the manual, who searches furiously for information and helps the in-game player defuse the bomb. Very cool!

Anyway, we're really grateful for the support we've had and the continuous feedback that what we're doing is somehow working, so we really appreciate it. Thank you world!

Clever Endeavour Games is Hiring an Artist!

Greetings world!

We're on the hunt again, this time for a talented 2D / 3D artist that can join the Clever Endeavour team. If you know anyone who is looking, has a portfolio and lives in Montreal (or is willing to move here), please forward them the job posting listed here.

The decision to hire an artist has come from the demand for more content that we've seen from the community, and the success that we've had so far. 

Growing the team is not something to be taken lightly, as has been seen with the many warnings against scaling too quickly (link). It's important for us that we hire someone who is multi-faceted in their skills, someone who can grow with the company, and someone who will help shape the face of the company as we continue to exist. 

We're going to be posting the job on several places including Gamasutra, LinkedIn, Facebook and others but any help spreading the word (particularly to more insular art communities) would be much appreciated :)