for the experienced designers in the room: I'm in the process of trying to rebuild a portofilio comprised of everything I've ever worked on - much of which doesn't exist any more. it'd be useful from people who know what they'd want to see if they were evaluating me as a potential hire
(shares are fine but please do not reply or comment on this if you're not in a relevant industry and are just speculating)
It obviously depends on the specific job, which level it is, the studio, the context of the hire, etc. But a few things I think are important:
- A playable sample of something. Could be a piece of interactive fiction, a demo, etc. Something that shows off finished, polished work in an easy to access format.
- Perversely, I think this matters more for writer portfolios - because there's a substantial difference, when hiring, between someone with interactive experience and someone with writing experience but no real games experience.
- Process examples that show solving specific problems or dealing with specific questions in the field, specific genre knowledge, etc.
- These can be excerpts from actual process documents (design documents, etc) but they can also just be a presentation that goes over what you did, how you solved a problem, etc.
- Similar but not exactly the same, examples that show experience with different formats, levels of narrative 'fidelity', etc. Have you worked with VO, for example? Have you worked with cutscenes and animation? Have you done work that was restricted to mostly text?
- Writing samples that are accessible and readable. This doesn't matter for every narrative designer job but the reality is that a plurality, perhaps a majority of narrative designers do end up writing; sometimes this is ancillary writing, sometimes 'narrative designer' roles are 50%+ just writing.
- For writing samples, I want to know that you have a certain level of craft but also that you can work to a brief, that you can tone/theme match, etc.
I think a really good portfolio for a designer is probably more like a presentation or walkthrough than simply a collation of past work. Something that gets into reasoning and process and not just end results.
