Mentoring Breakfast at Unity Technologies

I went to Brighton, UK to take advantage of an opportunity to finally get inside a Unity Technologies office. Say it like that and I sound like some kind of spy. No, I'm just a fangirl. 

The mentoring breakfast went well, I was able to exchange some contact information with both Unity employees and a few attendees. If I stay in Ireland after I graduate, the contacts will be useful. If I go back to the States, maybe not so much. I did make some friends though and hung out with a few girls at the Develop conference going on. Unfortunately I only had that day to explore; can't take too much time away with thesis really gearing up!

But I was salivating a bit over some of the workshops and talks going on. Well, there will be other conferences in the future! I did a lot of playtesting at the conference and received some design inspiration so all's well that ends well!

Unite 2017

I went to Amsterdam to earn my Unity Developer Certification and enjoy Unity Technologies large conference Unite2017! I admit that I went to the talks and tried some games, but honestly, I was stressed about my test and so relieved after that I didn't really take it all in. I also spent two lovely days in Amsterdam afterwards, enjoying all the stroopwaffle I could get my hands on (okay, in Ireland they sell it in the Starbucks, but it tastes better in Amsterdam because...well, you're in Amsterdam). 

I am very happy to say that I passed my exam and I got some cool to swag to show it off too. As for the talks, I have to say that while some of them were really interesting, I really would have enjoyed a long training session. I've watched many Unity Live tutorials, and I was disappointed that they didn't have one. Or maybe they did, but I somehow didn't see it on the schedule. 

There was, however, an interesting talk about a VR refugee experience. I wrote a paper on dark tourism earlier this year and went in hoping to see some discussion about it, but mostly everyone just thought it was a 100% great idea. I'm actually in favor of dark tourism (most of the time), but I'm not ignorant of its faults, shortcomings, and well, darker side. It's morally dubious nature is sort of what I like about it; it's not something that is purely bad or purely good, it is nestled in the in-between. The presenter seemed so nervous though, I didn't want to spook her, so I just let it be.

I also went to some talks about performance optimization, a discussion of recent VR breakthroughs, and a talk about women in the gaming industry (and yes, there were men there! Men supporting women :) ). I can't say any of the talks really stood out to me, but I'd go again and definitely make sure to pre-book some more lectures and plan for the longer ones. 

Overall, not a bad first conference experience! I don't think I've ever been to one before and I look forward to going to more. Especially if the food is included in ticket price. I was very well-fed for three days haha.