DOO HEE SHOVING US OFF NEAR GHIBLI MUSEUM.

Wowowowowowwowow I can’t believe it! An email just arrived from Square Enix. I actually passed the first interview! :O Somebody pinch me!

I really thought I was gonna fail. The first session was super difficult. Before the actual oral interview, I had to sit for a 2-hour exam, writing my essay-formatted answers for 8 questions in all glorious Kanji-fied Japanese! Apart from coming up with game ideas, the questions ranged from having to write character conversations all the way to drawing storyboards for an opening sequence. All this within a short period of 15 minutes each question :S

Couldn’t expect any less from a company that has “telling a good story” in its mission statement.

I had so many detailed ideas in my head but they were all in English, so having to write it in Japanese means I had to limit my answers to simple vocabs and even simpler kanjis :P Knowing 1000 kanjis is not enough, let alone knowing how to write only half of them! Glad that Square Enix looked past my language skills and saw my actual game design, conversations and storyline ideas.

Super big thanks to everyone who wished me good luck the other day. Couldn’t have done it without you guys :)

It’s still too early to celebrate though. Onwards to the second level, sometime next week. Ikuzo~!

This has been an amazing week for me.

I had a job interview with David Collier of Pikkle last Tuesday. In case you didn’t know, he’s a global expert on mobile social games. He started off by designing Burn:Cycle in the early 90s, an interactive movie game which was the No. 1 hit in the UK at the time. Now he’s busy leading his team in the world’s leading country for mobile revenue (no.1 by a long mile, here are the figures). He has given talks for the Game Designer Conference (GDC) many times before.

In other words, an amazing guy.

It was a nerve-wrecking experience at first. Honma-san of the Management Division was there as well so the whole interview was in Japanese. But it was also a whole lot of fun, as we discussed about mobile SNS games and new social pattern ideas, even now via email! I’m new to all this, and I have to say I’m super impressed with the mobile game industry in Japan.

Then came another email. My job application to Square Enix few weeks ago was finally answered! My job interview with them is set to be next week *gulp*

I’ve been left out from the Playstation generation since PS2, but my mom did the nicest thing by buying a PS3 for me :D Also a suit and shoes for the interview. Thanks so much Mama! Am gonna nail this interview for sure. Hopefully my passion for games and a nice suit can cover up for my lack of Japanese language ability!

At least I have two official testimonials for my so-called Japanese skills :P

First, I passed JLPT Level 2! Woohoo! Did better than I expected too.

And I won the Japanese Speech Contest for my school, that’s two years in a row hehe :) Big thanks to my teachers (especially Nakazawa-sensei above, my homeroom teacher) and classmates for helping me out!

Oh yea, also Daim recommended me to his company’s boss to be a project manager for animation projects. This is Polygon Pictures I’m talking about here, the guys behind the Street Fighter IV visually-stunning intros! Just had dinner with him to flesh out the details of the company before sending my resume next week. Many thanks, dude!

So for now, I’ll be playing FFXIII and Star Ocean 4, watching other playthrough videos online, studying the company history and playing more Mafia Wars and mobile games. It’s gonna be an all-out game weekend!

Yup, life is good. And may I have your PSN ID? :)