Plaidophile

Sounds like you got a canned response. I wonder if a real human being actually took the time to read over your resume. But, so is life in the tech world. =\
From what I hear, it's like this for a lot of talented programmers(I wouldn't know, since I'm not American).

But, I guess the more you stack onto your resume, the more impressive it looks to HR droids? Hehe, this is the part where I recommend being a bit creative with your resume. But I haven't seen it to begin with, so that's your call. ^_^

Either way, good luck.

Yup. My rule is that if I can get up to speed on something in a week, and fake my way through knowing it on a interview, it goes on the resume.

BTW: under normal conditions, getting one interview for every four resume submissions is extremely good.

I've packed as much into one page as I can. I use creative (but non-obnoxious) formatting. But the thing is that Alien Skin is a fairly small company, that mostly makes Photoshop plugins. But I don't have anything which shows off the various graphical effects I've made, at least not on my academic website, because it's yet another case of where the attempt at separating my online and offline identities causes trouble (because all of the stuff I want to show off is associated with my online self), but if I were to try to bring the identities back together again that'd cause more problems, mostly with being harrassed and also with not being hirable by the not-so-creative types who don't want to consider people who actually have odd outlooks on life, gender, and aesthetics.

I think a big part of the problem is that my work experience doesn't really match what I want to do, but what I want to do requires that I get work experience doing it. Yay for catch 22.

I just noticed that in the 'skills' section of my resume I totally forgot to mention my 2D/3D graphics stuff, aside from OpenGL as a skill. Meh.

Why not take a chance and show these people what it is you really want to show them? Who cares what they think of you or your art? I know you've dealt with harrassment in the past, but is that very likely to happen coming from a professional company you're applying to work for? I mean, that's illegal, for one thing.

It's a shame you should have to hide your identity like that. I mean, If they can't accept you for who you are, are they really the kind of people you want to be working with? Who you are as a person is very much part of your creative talent/vision. Hiding that means casting aside a large body of work that defines your style. It's what sets you apart from Joe Candidate.

Granted, I've never had the kinds of harassment problems you've had. So I can't even imagine. But, I run a server on my home computer with personal things on it. Things that are for me and a select few. Art that I wouldn't have the guts to explain the true meanings of to my best friends. But when I need to disconnect myself from that, I use the webspace that came with my internet account. It's simple enough. My problem has less to do with hiding myself creatively than it does with hiding my written identity. People who see my sympatico page don't know who I am, and I can't be connected to that, short of breaking into the server and leeching account info.

btw, one thing I forgot to mention in E-mail - The very first thing I thought of when I saw your demo video was Nights into Dreams. An old Sega Saturn game where you could fly around in 3D space, and the music was relaxing. Best game they ever made for that console. =D

You mean there were other games for that console? ;)

Anyway. It's not harrassment from the employers I'm worried about, but Internet denizens. But employers supposedly don't want to see the personal stuff I have on trikuare.cx because it supposedly makes me "unhirable," or at least according to the bread-and-butter sorts who try to help me get a traditional job with traditional advice. So, I'm going to link my academic website back to trikuare.cx. Honestly, I'd never gotten harrassment from people I knew RL when they did see the link, so I think the link going the opposite way would work okay anyway.

I should really just totally redo the structure of my academic site and turn it into a proper portfolio, actually.

Heh, I think they made a few Sonic sequels, but I don't remember much beyond Nights. ;)

There is a local game company(Silicon Knights) that has a great way of looking at things. They think of themselves as a guild(I know, AD&D Dork alert ;). Each member has a talent that contributes to the group, of course. While each person has a job title and responsiblities that go along with it, they can contribute anything that will make a game better(meaning, if the 2d art guy has a cool guitar riff in his head, the guys in multimedia will actually listen to what he has to say and vice versa). They're like a family in a sense. A giant melting pot. And 'personal stuff' very much comes into play because it's what defines the artists/programmers that work there. It's what sets them apart and introduces diversity into the group. There's no limit to what they can do, because there are no strict boundaries on what a work relationship should be.

The company in question has been responsible for a few hits, like Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for PC. So they must be doing something right.

Personally, that's the kind of company I want to work for. Something laid back, and very open-minded creatively. The problem I've always had with jobs was being a cubicle monkey who is more of an employee number than an integral part of the company. I can't flourish in that kind of environment.

I also need to work on my sentence structure, judging by comment #670.

Yeah, they sound really cool. Too bad their website layout sucks and I can't find their "how to apply for a job" page. :)

Never mind, found it. Under 'apprenticeship,' which itself was hidden under mouseovers which put the text somewhere else entirely. Guh. I hate mystery-meat navigation.

I just sent a cover letter and resume (including a link to trikuare.cx, eek!) to Silicon Knights. Even though they're in Canada. Meep!

lol, yeah. I was never very keen on the layout of their page. Even if it is going to be glitzy, it should still be simplistic and easy to navigate.
Still, they seem like very cool people. A very good friend of mine is related to the guy who founded the company. He offered me a foot in the door years ago, but I was just a newbie animator at the time. If you read through their site about their work ethic, they're very much like that in real life from what I gather. I knew their sysadmin in highschool too, lol.

*sigh*

My kingdom for a good contact. How do you prove you can do esoteric stuff like game engine design and architecture as *well* as simply "programming"?

You make a portfolio which includes a finished game. Which means spending many months on thankless work to produce an unphenomenal piece of crap which will never be used again but only shows that you can, in fact, write finished code. :P

Hooray. Maybe I'll get to do actual work shortly after my 50th birthday.