This is a C++ cover letter for the Mid II - Senior Software Engineer, Live Operations application at Second Dinner. If the code is compiled and run, it will run like the gif above, outputting the text for why it would be exciting to work at Second Dinner. It also asserts that the normalized desire to work is greater than a given threshold.
When setting out on a journey to build my dream game, I made the classic mistake of attempting to make my first title a competitive multiplayer game. A solid two years later, several complete rebuilds, a host of referenced GDC talks, and I had my own hybrid rollback/authoritative server networking solution. The biggest takeaways from the time I spent studying and working on that project is I find a lot more value and satisfaction tackling difficult engineering problems, optimizing code, and building a scalable and maintainable foundation that others can build off of as opposed to gameplay development. I had this idea of a game that I wanted to bring to life and found myself designing the systems needed to build the game more than the game itself. The idea of working with designers, artists, and other engineers to optimize networking and making a multiplayer game feel as close to a LAN experience as possible would be a dream, because given the free time to work on anything, this is what I enjoyed the most and poured my time into.
I was quite excited to see Ben Brode in Second Dinner’s introduction video. I recognized his face from my time playing Hearthstone, and Second Dinner’s success with Marvel Snap comes as no surprise seeing the backgrounds of the executive team. With such incredible talent, I’m excited to see the description of the position pushing collaboration and even mentioning mentoring. It appears that Second Dinner is built on the foundation of creating an open and engaging environment for its employees, and I like how this is further encouraged by building time into the schedule to bring the team together in person a few times a year. The most valuable resource I had while pursuing indie game development has been Discord and the several communities I have found there. Keeping in touch with other developers and artists has provided a solid network where we can consult each other whenever a wall has been hit or to show off a technically challenging or clever solution. I also really appreciate that Second Dinner encourages collaboration across departments. It can be incredibly valuable to learn more about what goes into each portion of game development, and I would be thrilled to learn about how the technical artists at Second Dinner are able to make Marvel Snap visually pop so much.
Marvel Snap has a ton of features that make me excited not just from a gaming perspective, but also from a technical perspective. The thing that I enjoy the most about Marvel Snap is the incredible amount of juice that is packed into every part of the game. There is so much weight conveyed with each action that the player can take which makes it feel like more than just another card game. With such large effects and interactions between cards, it is also incredibly important that any client side miss predictions are smoothly handled or large events are only triggered after server verification. I’d love to work with gameplay developers, designers, and artists to make sure that the features they want to bring to a multiplayer title can work seamlessly and gracefully handle network fluctuations. When it comes to a live service title, being able to monitor not only the stability of the game but also what leads to player retention is vital, and it would be a satisfying problem to study what effects players find most rewarding and tend to drive them towards or away from certain cards and playstyles.