FQA Technician

Oh my, oh my. Functional testing. Functional quality assurance. FQA technician... Oh hey, that last one is a me, Mario! Kartyl!

So far I have been working on few projects. Some of them are finished, some of them aren't even announced yet (be excited). On some I was for very long, on some I was only for day or two.
In last few months I spent most of my time on first episode of TellTale's Michonne (I still didn't play second and third episode :P) and Homefront but I also was on some mobile projects like FPS.

I WON'T SHARE ANY DETAILS SO DON'T BOTHER ASKING

It is great to see how games evolve. Few times I was able to make a change. Not simply report a bug but have some kind of influence. Sure, it never was anything really important but it feels great to know that something in the final product looks how it looks thanks to me. However on most projects we aren't allowed to create suggestions.

But real fun, at least for me, begin in databases. We have access to the same databases that are used by developers. Sometimes, when I had time to fool around a little, I was looking for some cool informations. You won't belive how games can change. I mean, yeah, actually you can, it's not a secret that many games change during their creations, but actually see how they looked two or three years ago is something really amazing. Why? Because I know that I saw video clips from early builds that probably will never see daylight. I, and maybe 100 or 200 people on whole world saw that videos, old screenshots or forgotten tasks.
Sometimes database is created only for one game. Sometimes, however (i like that word), you can check other games. Can you imagine what can be found there? Projects that was never announced, and never will because they were cancelled. But they are still there!
Think about it in that way: you are working for some car manufacturer. One day, you are wandering around some old warehouse. You see window so you decide to take a look. And then you see it - a car that never was finished. Something that was meant to bring fun for people but now it slowly die, forgotten, never to be seen. And there you are! You are one of few people that saw it. For me, there is something really cool about it.
Also, imagine how many games were cancelled before they were announced. Imagine one title that you would really love to play. Now think that maybe at some point this title had a working build but due to some decisions it was dropped.

I can't say that I know some cool secrets. I can't say that I have access to secret databases or that I can look into files of biggest developers to see all this great things. I can only take a peek, stick my eyes to the closed window for few seconds before someone will tell me to go back to work. Still, I can see things that most of people will never see and I can learn about things that many would love to know, but again - never will.

And you know what really sucks? The fact that I'm not allowed to talk about it with other people who would share my excitment.