Valve has a history of slurping up talent from the fan/mod community – Adam Foster, creator of MINERVA, now gets his paychecks from Valve. So does the team that created the popular Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients, a game I never really got into. Also scribe Erik Wolpaw. And we’d be remiss not to mention the jewel in their recruitment crown, the DigiPen Institute student team that created Narbacular Drop, a senior project that would eventually become a game called Portal.
Today sees the release of a new machinima called The Jacknife Chronicles, and danged if it doesn’t look hand-made to attract Valve’s attention. Behold its 12 minutes of gore and running around beyond the click.
Jacknife Chronicles shows some serious skillz with Garry’s Mod as well as a number of other tools and techniques. It incorporates elements of Mirror’s Edge, all the Half Lifes, Splinter Cell, and a number of others. This is not something created by a newb in an afternoon.
Of course, the machinima scene is driven by passionate people who really enjoy just creating this stuff, often only for themselves. But if you wanted to work at Valve, getting noticed through this community is one of the best ways. The creator of Jacknife Chronicles is going to get noticed, due to how viral the video has gone, but whether it catches Valve’s eye (or the creator cares) is another story.
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This is a very strong technical piece of machinima, but am I the only one left feeling cold?
I’m a jerk so I’ll be a reductive jerk: I started planning bingo cards. Music cue card with spaces for strings and guitar and clanging drums. Parkour card. The Card of a Thousand Grunts. Video Effect Overlay card. Kill Move card. De Palma’s World of Cheese camera shot card. (Can play that bingo with every video game cut scene and trailer, alas.)
Willingly breaking INTO Aperture = masochism. I’m not a masochist, but I probably have less than a full load of “sane”. I’d be likely to bite.