Hello my drillers within Kozan or Gensokyo. If you’re reading this article and you’re trying to get involved in the development of an indie game, whether it’s made for PC, consoles, or even the very old Commodore PET or 64, you can learn what I did wrong when I tried to apply for the composer role for The 8-Bit Guy’s game Attack of the PETSCII Robots.
If you want to know about my background, I am a game composer, programmer, and graphic designer who has created at least three titles and am currently working on a fourth one. Since my eSports handle is “Driller” and the central protagonist’s nickname in Chuhou Joutai is also “Driller,” I call myself the Prophet Driller to better distinguish the two.
I have provided music for two Touhou Project fangames. I find it fun to compose for other peoples’ projects rather than my own. I am a subscriber of The 8-Bit Guy’s YouTube channel, and I’ve been watching his videos as early as 2016. I’ve followed the development of his Planet X series and watched every one of his behind the scenes videos. When I heard about him recruiting people to work on Attack of the PETSCII Robots, I saw this as an opportunity to get into the fray and immediately fired him an email about his request just moments after watching his introductory video of the game back in September 2020.
While he did not recognize me at first, he asked me whether I was writing code or music or not. What he mentioned was programming the music into the game. The problem was dozens of people request the composer role, and what he was asking for was if he was looking for a programmer to program the music into the game. The bad news was I don’t code in BASIC and I was pretty much out of luck. It’s important whenever you’re getting a job or signing up for a role within a movie or video game is to check the requirements thoroughly and if you think you fit the requirements, you can apply.
Drillimation Systems 