[TRENCHES] Thursday, July 11, 2013 - Surplus
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Surplus
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/surplus
Mighty Casey had it easy.
AnonymousIt was my first job in the game biz after graduating from an art college with a fancy video game degree. A big time publisher had two offices here, and I got to work for their console games division. My first assignment? Testing a baseball game on the PSP. That surely had to be fun, right? Right?
QA’ing a baseball game, never mind one on a portable console, is an exercise in mind-numbing tedium. Sure, some assignments were relatively simple and just involved mindless monotony. Testing every field with every grass pattern. There may have been a tertiary condition that involved time of day. I don’t remember and I don’t want to. There were around five grass patterns that I can remember. How many major league stadiums are there? The game might have had the minor league stadiums available, too.
Of course, none of this even came close to a certain task we had to do. The goal sounded simple at first- you have to take into account a few things to realize the torture that lied ahead. The objective? Hit a home run, aimed specifically at the top edge of the outfield wall between second and third base. It required a degree of precision that would make even Golgo 13 blush. Getting the ball to go right where you want it to go is next to impossible in a baseball game. Is a simple toss from Home Run Derby good enough to do it? Does leaning the control stick even WORK in home run derby? Do we have to tough this out in a real match and risk getting struck out as a result, forced to either restart the match to bat again or pitch our way to a new inning? Is the physics engine going to let us do what we want? Is a PSP even capable of this sort of precision guided batting?
Are we just the Random Number Generator’s playthings?
Ultimately, I was a little sad to see the game go gold and get shipped out. We went through so much together.
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Or is this his moment of redemption? Seems like their project couldn't get much worse considering Q's approach.
Counter prediction: Isaac attempts something which looks like it's going to ruin EVERYTHING because of his greed and arrogance, and it ironically leads to the success and redemption of the team. The old guy writer threatens to shoot them both at least one more time.
IIRC, it was about knocking ball out of park (home run) to the right after winning a no-loss streak championship. Which will result in the game crashing or something.
Steam: adamjnet
He does. As QA. He wants on the dev team.
Can't help but giggle at the Tale referring to a baseball "match."
Maybe Q doesn't have a car. He walks from his house to things.
Isaac doesn't have a house. He sleeps in his car.
Waaaaaitaminute. I see the perfect "Odd Couple" roommate setup possibility!
hahaha, I loved that the printer was front and center in the second panel.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
It's not known what Isaac did to get ousted from his dev position, but Steel Coffin reps tried bribing for a good review in the aforementioned PvP arc.
...
No. He said brings two more A's. His name is Isaac. IsAAc.