“I believe adding this mechanic allows for a broader-range of player choice… I mean, what kind of gamer DOESN’T like the option of dual-wielding?” The game programmer spoke with sophistication and hint of lightheartedness, his tone alone verifying his vast knowledge of game-design, as well as his humanly passion as a gamer. His emerald eyes looked up from the cherry wood conference table, littered with papers and charts of algorithmic concepts, in an endeavor to find at least one pair of supportive eyes. The conference room itself was slender and quite small, so he didn’t have to look too far in his search. On the wall to his back, “Square Enix” was handsomely painted across the wall.
The programmer’s eyes ultimately met mine, and at that moment, a subliminal covenant was forged – I’ll respond to his concept. After an earnest smile, politely scanning the men in the room first before speaking, I replied to him, “Being a lead writer for this project… I’m not entirely sure if dual wielding will fit well with some of the characters. But I can possibly rework some of their biographies to make it work, somehow!”
As I leaned back into my office chair, I tenderly listened to the men converse between themselves about how our development team could conceivably integrate dual wielding in our current project: the next game in the Final Fantasy series. My eyes meandered over to the Square Enix logo, leaving the discord of voices behind as I drifted off into my memory.
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I remember sitting on a standard computer chair in the digital arts classroom, the light of the enormous Mac desktop hazily illuminating my distressed, weary face. Having classes from 9:30am to 9:30pm was exhausting, but I tried my best not to let it affect me – I wanted to take this graduate “Advanced 3D Animation” course, after all. The professor of this class even encouraged me to take it. Despite my opposition, my traitorous eyes glimpsed over at the student’s computer next to mine, filling my heart with angst once again. His attempt at making a virtual room using the 3D modeling program, Autodesk Maya, was already halfway finished. Returning back to my own computer screen to witness my own progress, all I had was a hollow, bare, abnormally rendered box that not even a homeless man would want to live in.
“Okay, so now we’re done with the lamp, we’re going to add some chairs to place along the table,” said my professor, walking past my computer. A weight occupied my chest again as I feverishly began looking through the hundreds of convoluted menus of Maya, trying to the best of my ability to catch up with the rest of the class. Maneuvering this program felt as through I was roaming through a maze with countless dead-ends and no clear path. My heart was anticipating the answer to my problem to appear in front of me if I clicked through the menus enough, but the overwhelming new terms and phrases was enough for my brain to tell me that I needed my professor’s help.
With deterrence, I raised my right hand from my corner of the classroom before looking over at my professor. The sudden movement of my hand raising above the series of computer monitors made him look directly at me, and then immediately away again as he continued to speak, “Alright, so everyone click on create, polygon primitives, plane and set the ratio to 40 by 30 pixels…” He turned his back to me and rambled on in this odd language of Maya-speak, which I started to believe that there was no hope of me ever learning it. After three minutes, my fingers tingled from the deficiency of proper circulation and I lowered my hand down, superficially in defeat, and upstretched my left hand, permitting my other one to rest. My eyes, once again, insisted on self-harming my confidence as observed the neighboring student’s computer again – his room was now furnished with one chair and he was already working on his second one.
My grief quickly transmuted to frustration, and soon found my mouth forming words without my permission, “Professor, I need your help.”
He regarded me for only a moment before turning away again, slightly annoyed because I appeared to have interrupted his class. “I’ll help you in a moment.” Some relief eased off my chest as I persevered with my project, recommencing to fiddle with this delicate, $800 animation program.
Before long, twenty minutes went by. My attention now appeared drawn to the clock, which read “8:34pm” as my lungs let out a shaky sigh. My professor was now instructing the rest of the students in my class about how to add texture maps to the tables and chairs, which made it arduous for me to even look at my dysfunctional box. Despairing for help, I upraised my hand once again, “Professor, I still need your help.”
“Right, I’ll be with you in a moment,” he retorted once again, his tone plummeting from an upbeat amiability to a passive irritation whenever he spoke to me. It was as if he felt like I was a lost cause in his class; honestly, I started feeling that way, too. After a few minutes, my professor made a wonderful proclamation to my class. “Okay, so I’m going to go around the room and check on each one of you to see how you’re doing.” At those words, I sat up in my seat in exhilaration. Finally, he was going to help me! Even though I was tremendously behind the rest of the class, I didn’t mind giving up lunch hour tomorrow to work on my project – I was accustomed to doing that by now, anyway.
He made his way across the classroom, devoting about five or so minutes with each student. Before long, I heard his voice reverberate in my right hear as he beheld at the student’s project next to mine, helping him complete whatever he was working on. When my professor was finished with that student, I beamed and looked at my computer, prepared to explain to my professor what I was struggling on for the last two hours.
That’s when he skipped me and went to the other student next to me.
I looked at him in disbelief as I watched him continue to assist the remainder of the students. Feeling alienated, I rose from my cushioned seat and stridden out of the classroom. Distress and frustration filled my entire being as I ventured into the girls’ bathroom and tried to calm down. I was certain my professor was going to notice I walked out of his class – he noticed me when I did something wrong, always. Maybe this was his way of telling me that he felt as though I didn’t belong in a graduate class.
I didn’t surrender, though. Everyday after school and during common hour, I would return to his classroom and work on my projects. Sometimes I would forget to eat while I worked, but I was prepared to sacrifice what I had to, to do well in his class. His office was right next to the classroom, so at first I thought I would be able to ask him for aid while there were no classes going on. After a exasperating amount of times of him telling me he’d “help me in a few moments” -- where after a half hour of waiting, discovered him in his office reading the newspaper -- I gave up relying on my professor for help. With the help of Google and YouTube, I educated myself about Maya and was able to finish my projects.
At the end, he ended up giving me a “B-“, despite my hard work and devotion to the class. His reasoning? He felt as though because I had the flu in the middle of the semester and my doctor literally demanded me to miss two classes (I had the doctor’s notes), I “missed too much class” to get a higher grade than that.
The experience I had with my professor, despite its unpleasantness, taught me a valuable lesson: I am capable of achieving anything I want to, even if someone wants to hold me back. Seeking a career in game design as a woman is difficult enough as it is, so I couldn’t permit this professor to stomp all over my dream. After that class, I continued taking graduate Game Design courses and received exceptional grades in all of them. If I allowed my professor to fully discourage me back then, I wouldn’t be where I am today.