Wevr fanart / blog

The major days that need coverage from the top of my head.

June 7 (Prelude)

June 19

June 27

This page will be slightly different from the others. It's VERY informal. VERY improper. And in many cases where I had to tell someone, many times I had to be told to calm down, or stop being creepy. Only two people have enabled me, though that is two more than enough. No one should enable me.

If you see this drawing on the right, it is a sign that I feel something viscerally and have recounted a certain detail many times.

June 7 (Prelude)

This was my very first playtest. It's actually the most lowkey of the bunch, and despite having the most people on this day, it was a good introduction to what Wevr was and their newer projects - I met playtesters, shared Linkedins, and properly introduced myself without doing too bad with my filter. You could tell everyone was focused on making an impression and making connections. There's not even a single piece of fanart that I've made yet. But I just look back and think how different I acted compared to later.

What simple times.

The latter playtests with The Little Prince were hard. Not only did the environment have to be adjusted constantly due to space restrictions, but I kept breaking the game with environment bugs. As Chris was scanning people in with a tired expression, I felt bad and said to him, "I'm sorry. Everything I touch or be a part of, I break." He responded, "That's just being good QA. We'll write that down."

Wow.

June 19

I was surprised to be invited back - It was volunteer, so I had the assumption that this was going to be some sort of "vibe check" for a potential on-site interview. The play testers who came in with me also had that assumption. For the first half of the day, I was a nervous wreck because of this idea.

To calm myself down, I treated myself to an early morning drive around Burbank and Hollywood, getting a strawberry crepe and visiting the Mount Sinai Cemetary.

Needless to say, this crepe photo was the last photo when I was sane.

Familiar faces come in and one of the play testers is thankfully Vu, as well as Chris Morales, Jane, and Louis. I haven't met Moe until this day, and he was actually a very pleasant person to talk to.

Chris debriefs us, and as he does so, he's shooting glances left and right. "Sorry, I just recognize some faces." Uh huh. As we talk amongst ourselves and get to meet the attendant - Nate Snow (sick ass last name) - something very strange happened.

There was a new guy. A new guy I haven't really seen at the previous playtest. But he's no play-tester or student. He's carrying a camera stand, and he just passes on through.

He seems very important, I think to myself. I snapped out of it once we were called over to the large studio area to test the Little Prince again. But that was very odd.

Uh. So while we were playing, he set up the camera and was recording everything. At a certain point, we reached the second elevator, where a Snake would appear and speak to us. I said to my play tester group, "I remember this! This is the part where the Snake with the hot voice comes on."

So I usually speak like that with my play-tester friends. I forgot how odd that must've sound, so I hear the man's voice for the first time.

"You know I'm recording this, right?"

Oh great. Great first impression. If he was part of the hiring team, I would've just run out the doors immediately. But I guess I normally feel the need to run out the doors in general.

Once the playtest was over, us play testers were putting back our headsets on the cart in the large studio, and we conjured in a circle to talk to each other. I was unfortunately situated in front of the hallway, down to the small studio, where I witnessed the man round the corner and come directly up to us this time around. He just stands like this.

#1

Why can't I breathe?

"So you are all play testers, right? What VR consoles are you guys using?"

"Quest" everyone but me answers at the same time.

"O-oculus" I (tried to) say. What the fuck? I fucking stuttered?

"Ah, okay. What titles do you guys play?"

"VR chat. Beat saber." Very acceptable VR titles, that the others bring up.

"P...pizza simulator..."

WAS THAT THE BEST THING I COULD COME UP WITH??? FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA SIMULATOR???
I then realized I was forgetting to breathe the entire time. That's probably why I couldn't say anything. But that doesn't make sense. I proved to myself that I can speak to strangers. I can at least act professional when I need be, and I know how to establish a first impression. Looking back, I've done nothing but mess up my impression over and over again whenever I had the chance to interact with him.

The conversation went by in a blur. I must've disassociated, hard. I think there was talk about VR chat. I'm not sure. I'm just standing there, thinking...

How is that even possible?

Us play testers return to the chairs and wait for our next instructions. We spend this time to get to know each other more, now that we were 8 of 20 or so playtesters who got to come here. I learned that not only was I the youngest there, but also probably the least experienced. While Moe was sharing his story and his cousin's animations, I shared my enthusiasm and empathy with him. But I could only think of...

"What's going on here?"

...

Of course, I had to be seated in the chair to the right of the kitchen door, where this guy just pops out of. Moe, who is seated to my right replies confidently, "this is an animation that my cousin made over music. Because he is autistic, he expresses himself best with drawings. I think it's really beautiful."

"Oh, that's really cool."

He's looking at the phone closer. I'm sitting here in the middle of the two like a dumbass because that's just where I happened to be seated. I find an opportunity to move away and stand behind the chair circle, where I wouldn't be in the way. But I inadvertently get a closer look at this man.

I'm nodding respectfully along the conversation. I'm maintaining eye contact with the people who speak. But deep down, I'm not absorbing anything.

"You know, in the game I'm part of. We have these little animals that just talk to you. You put in all of your player information, and then the animals come up to you and become very interested in learning who you are. It's really cute."

Woah. woah woah woah.

The conversation then goes into storytelling and AI. Moe talks about his work as a high school english teacher, and he's sick of getting student submissions that are clearly written by AI. He says it takes the soul out of them.

"No yeah, I hate AI. You take so much individualism and work out of things."

"Oh, I love AI," A passing Chris K. says. "It does the things I don't wanna do."

The man ignores him (haha). Jane starts talking code smarts with Chris and the man.

And he's about to go out again once Chris keeps talking about the bugs he was able to fix with AI. I tried to contribute to the conversation, but...

"I think AI is okay once in a while especially if you're stuck with a bug in a sea of code. There was this one time my programmers were really stuck on a bug, and AI gave us some niche ass code, like...... window.display...."

Jane scoff-laughs next to me. I made a fool of myself because that was on the fly and that's actually a really basic function, so not only does it make me look stupid but the perceived intelligence of my programmers must've been worsened...

"Oh yeah haha. It does give you some unexpected solutions."

He finally leaves. The rest of the play testers are talking like normal, so it was time to disassociate again and become embarrassed of my previous interactions.

The rest of the day was solid. We tested The Emperor as well. The man seems to playtest titles in the other unoccupied studio with another intimidating person. Our final playtest was in the smaller studio, and upon finishing this one, I pull off my headset and I'm greeted with this guy again. I think I might actually suffer from asphyxiation. Chris just leaves with his big'ol backpack and the guy's like, "Oh, Chris, you're leaving?... Chris?"

I finally talk up. "Oh, so that's his name? The depressed guy?"

"Chris? Oh no, he's not depressed."

............................. "oh. Do you want us to clean these [headsets] up?"

"Ah, don't worry about it."

He passes on through and the playtesters finally say goodbye to each other. My final conversation was with Moe and Vu. Moe is very good at formalities, so he says goodbye in a very Linkedin manner, going up to the table with Sopisey and the Guy, shaking their hand goodbye.

He's so gutsy, going so close to... whatever he is....

Neville was greeting us as we finished up. "When Sopisey plays, it's like a child playing the game just because of how short she is. Comparing to our Art Director,

I just... said. "oh, is the art director that tall, handsome one?"

"Haha, no. That's our Producer. Dave is the art director, he's the tall and ugly one."

"He's not ugly!!!" I laugh. That was very unexpected, even if he was just kidding. But, the guy's a producer? How come I didn't see him on the Linkedin people's page?

The only thing I could do was a "Goodbye!" and a wave. The guy does a very simple "🖐️".

.......................

#2

Fast forward to Motto Tea Cafe in Pasadena where I'm waiting for my Moonlight Peach Matcha Mochi 25% sugar drink, I realize that I can't focus on writing my feedback right now. I have to draw him, or else I'll forget what he looks like. I don't know his name besides his role... I don't even know the name of the game he was talking about.

I was pissed because no matter how hard I tried and remembered individual details about him, it only kind of looked like him, but it was never as impressive as him. Because how was I supposed to capture that kind of aura in paper...?

If you were there, you'd feel just how important it was to have him there. You can tell he had every type of life experience under the radar, yet somehow he wouldn't shove it into people's faces. You could also just tell how taken he was, both profession and relationship wise. He moves with such purpose, it's actually very intimidating - slow and methodical steps.

He looked young as hell. But mature as hell too.

And that was only the beginning....

#3

I never post often on Instagram stories. But on this day and for the days that followed, I started to do it more often. Most of my play tester friends were on there, and it was nice to engage with them. I figured, because I couldn't find this guy anywhere on the Wevr links, I might as well just talk about him like he doesn't exist. This was my best recall of what he looked like at the time, but it was only 50% accurate to my memory.