Remember when making games was actually fun? I'm talking 10 or 15 years ago in the prime time of originality, new studios, endless possibilities, and modding. Do you remember the time when working in games seemed like the coolest job on earth? I want you to think back on some of your most fun moments you've ever had working on projects you loved. I often think back to this time when I put a trail sparks on every bullet tracer in the game no more room in hell. We playtested it, and though it wouldn't make it in the game, it was absolutely hilarious and really cool to see these sparks filling up the entire world. It was creative, a little ridiculous, and truly fun. When is the last time you've actually felt that spark of joy? How long has it been since you've genuinely had consistent fun at your job? We work in what I'd call the coolest industry on earth, and yet your mental health's marble jar has been broken. You're treated like shit with crunch and the fear of layoffs. And it's probably not even fun anymore on most days. Most of the fun is sucked out of your jobs by people who are enforced by "The Board" or some shit to squeeze out more productivity from the team. And after the 27th straight week of staying late, you get a pizza party. It makes me angry. At a previous job, it wasn't uncommon to hear someone shout "FUUUUUCK!" from across the office when their software crashed and corrupted a few days worth of work. Not only did that mean they'd have to do it over again.. they were going to have to start staying late again. We generally used ancient tools and ancient pipelines within tools that weren't even meant for games in the first place. I don't know how to solve the key problems at the forefront of the industry right now. I'm hopeful that the industry will change and become healthier. I think we're seeing that happen slowly with more companies investing in mental health services for workers, anti-crunch policies, and the like. The one thing I am die hard committed to helping with, because it's the only skill I have, is helping you have just a bit more fun at your job. One of my primary frustrations when i was full-time in games was the tooling. Politics aside, when i was on my own island doing my own thing, the thing that angered me the most was crashes, corruptions, bluescreens, bad UI/UX, slow software, and overall trash cobbled together. The tools we are making (Hey FX artists!), and are planning to make (looking at you environment artists!) are fun. They are designed and will be designed to unleash your fun side as an artist. We want to provide you with a stable toolset, hopefully free of bad UX decisions, that allow you to cut through the funk and make what you need to make. The tools need to be real-time so that you don't have to wait all day and can iterate as needed. They also need to be purpose built for games so that you don't have to bend a tool to fit your workflow in some weird way. And they need to be easy to learn without having to invest a lot of time into educating yourself about them. This is all a very hard task, but we're up for the challenge. At JangaFX, we are truly lucky. We have a heck of a lot of fun at our jobs. We want to share that positivity with you through our tools. We want you to have fun at your job again and want games to actually be fun to make. Having fun means a couple more marbles can be put back in your mental health jar. We can't fight crunch policies directly, but we can help curb its prevalence with tools that are conducive to saving time. We truly think we can help with proper tooling made specifically for your job, and that's where we'll start. It upsets me so much what's happening in the industry right now, and this is the only way I know how to help for now. If you are an artist that has been laid off recently and need our tools (EmberGen: Fire/Smoke for Flipbooks, or GeoGen: Terrains) to help you update your portfolio, please reach out to us so that we can give you a few months free of charge while you look for another position. Email us at layoffassistance @ jangafx.com with a message about where you were laid off from and the last time you had fun in game dev. - @nickseavert Founder & CEO @JangaFX #gamedevelopment #gamedev