The Development of an Intern

“I’m the devs nightmare. As the QA, They must really hate me LOL” - Daniel Porciúncula, QA and Junior Developer at Bet 2 Games.

Hello, our fellow beats! Today I talked to Daniel “Dani” Porciúncula, our young intern who recently has joined the Beta 2 Games team permanently. A shy young man with a bass voice who’s moved to Sumaré, state of S?o Paulo, a few months ago. But I’ll let him talk now. Hi, Dani, tell us your story. How did you get here?

I think just as Lucas 2, I finished high school and was, let’s say, the most available a man can be. Then we had that international health crisis and pretty much everything was online. You could almost eat online. So, why not study coding??

(Daniel called Lucas Avila as "Lucas 2" because of an in-joke, since we have another Lucas who joined the team first.)

I know people get into college and study that, but you can also do it by yourself. And since the world was online, there were a lot of possibilities to be a self learner.

How did that go for you?

Not very well, actually. It requires a lot of discipline. But I managed to overcome it. I had to.

It doesn’t get any easier when you put a lot of pressure over yourself, you know?

Yeah, but I couldn’t just give up. So I pushed it. Managed to learn a thing or two. My mom and my godfather helped me get a new pc and when the doorbell rang that day, I started implementing the things I learned. It was then when I felt I was really making progress.

You used to study that without the practical stuff?

Oh, no, no. I had to use my mom’s old laptop. It was a pretty bad one. Anyway, I had already known The Boss before all this and he was looking for an intern for QA and offered me the job.

And that was my first contact with the video game industry. I mean, as a game creator, not a player. I tested our Lovecraftian story, Mythos Chronicles and another NDA project.

But there were times I didn’t have much to do, especially when we were far from any deliveries, so that’s when I started to practice some coding.

The Boss tested me with this game where I had to light a light bulb. I took a bar from those golf games that measures the strength of the swing. It had to hit some random number and that was a good catch.

Then He gave me some assets from a game franchise that belongs to a major company just to practice implementing actions such as attack, defense, hp bar…

After all that, I got to do some tasks with Vanessa and Lucas 2. It was a calculator, where I had to develop all the code.

Oh, and there was this school year exercise. I had to generate the grade in 4 semesters of 10 students. Then I had to make it do the math and determine which students passed and which ones had to do those, how do I say that, last chance exams? Something like that.

Finally, I took those who had to do the exam and assess how much they needed to score to pass. For that, I had to generate a random grade for each one and see if they passed. It was really hard work.

It sounds like it really was! But you did well, didn’t you?

Yeah, but it got worse first lol. They said “oh, that’s cute, but what if we add a new variable: Frequency?” For God’s sake, it seemed I had never left school.

How did you get to permanently join the crew?

Vanessa and Lucas 2 tested me first. I had to make a 2D beat ‘em up. There I learned how to implement many other things, like, audio, menu, levels, jump, shoot (I love youtube!)

Then they gathered all the devs to check my game. I passed and here I am! Now I’m one of the devs of the Prince Island project!

But I am still the QA, which is great, because I really like that. I’m the devs nightmare. As the QA, They must really hate me LOL! I have this passion for breaking the game and seeing everyone going mad.?

Considering this and everything you told us so far, how do you feel working for Beta 2 Games?

Everybody is so respectful, you know? The mid-level devs and the seniors are always willing to help. The Boss respects the time it takes me to do some task.

Lucas 1 is always worried with everyone, in the way of trying to help and get the best of you.

Gabriel (spoiler: he’s our next guest) is incredible! It’s really impressive the passion he has to teach/help us with the most bizarre things coding can have.

Lucas 2 always gives me excellent tips. Plus the connection we have. It’s a good friend Beta 2 Games has given me.

Vanessa is another fascinating person. She is REALLY patient, and I’m kind of dumb lol. But she always finds the right way to explain something.

About those two, man, working with them is an incredible experience. They are really demanding, but they were never rude, or blunt, you know?

The Boss is great. I mean, sometimes he asks for something that is almost impossible to do lol, but we end up managing a way to do it. The best part is that he listens. On that NDA project, for example, there are a lot of ideas that I suggested. ME, the junior! He listened! And we actually implemented them. Man, that is something you don’t see everywhere.

Have you been, or are you currently an intern? How did it go for you?