After enjoying the remote-work brought on by lockdown and wanting to spend less time commuting and more time with his family, Abbas sought out remote roles and applied to be a programmer at FuturLab. He joined us in November 2023 and worked on PowerWash Simulator before moving onto PowerWash Simulator 2.
How did you get into the games industry?
“Skip back about 15 odd years to a much younger and more sickly version of me in school. I was off sick once one day and just playing video games and I started wondering ‘how exactly are these games put together’? At the time I was playing a little simulation management game on my phone called Game Dev Story and fell down a bit of a rabbit hole of ‘how do you make a mobile game work’, as a starting point?
“Carried on Googling for a fair bit, watched a couple of YouTube videos here and there and then, give it about 8-9 months later, I managed to put together a little Noughts and Crosses game that I published on the Android Market.
“I'm dating my age here a bit, but back then, smartphones were relatively new, so mobile games weren’t as common I didn't think much would come of it, it was a really shoddily put together game but I was happy."
Was it free to play or did you make a bit of money from it? Or did it cost you money?
“Oh, the missus always says to me ‘why did you not charge anything for that game?!’. I sold 250,000 units and in total, I think in the end in total I made about £150 from an experiment I ran to learn an advertising SDK!”
Abbas' Noughts and Crosses game, which sold 250,000 units (left)
Another of Abbas' mobile games: ‘Steve the Snake’ (right)
What came next in your journey into game development?
"I parked the mobile game development and went down the academic route with A-Levels and then studying a Games Programming degree at the University of Gloucestershire. After graduating I spent about six months applying to anything and everything trying to get my first gig. Lots of horrible interviews because of nerves and lack of practise! But managed to land my first job in the industry at Playsport games who make Motorsport Manager and other sports related games.”
How was your interview for Playsport?
“So on the day of the interview, I'm rocking up at the train station about two hours earlier than my scheduled train because, yeah, again, nerves and I want to be ahead of time. I get to the train station and lo and behold, train cancelled (we love our UK train system). Take a look on the trainline app and see they’re cancelled all day.
“I end up ringing up my dad and hopping in the car and driving from Oxford down to Guilford. That’s about a 2-hour drive, and I had 2 hours until my interview! We rocked up about, I think a minute before my interview and I literally ran into the reception.
“From there it was a standard interview with a programming test and general questions. Guess I must have said something they liked because they offered me the gig!”
Abbas in his final year at the University of Gloucestershire
Do you have any advice for programming job interviews?
“So my advice, I'll be honest, is probably really counterintuitive compared to what everybody else would say. I know a lot of people focus on super-efficient code and optimising and that kind of stuff.
“But that kind of goes against my philosophy of programming. I’m much more in the mindset of get something basic, get it working. Computers these days are really powerful and if your optimisation is the difference of a couple of milliseconds, you can worry about that at a later time. Games are iterative, you go through phases so it’s fine, you can always optimise it and clean up and stuff later.
“But my advice for programming job interviews and test is to just stay relaxed, and whatever the problem is just break it down. Get a base functional version of whatever that task is first. If you have time afterwards, great, you can optimise it. If not, you'll have a chance to talk through your code and you can say how this is a first iteration of it, and how you would optimise it with more time."
Are there any skills you gained alongside your degree that helped you get into the games industry?
“A lot of my experience came from that time when I was making those games as a kid. I think the main thing is just practise, really. The more you do it, the sharper you get!
“I know a lot of people think of programming as magical wizardry or something, and I always explain that it’s just a language. You learn new languages by just doing it, and really programming is just the art of reading and writing. You might not speak in a programming language, but other than that it’s pretty much an identical experience of learning where to put the punctuation and how the grammar works.”
Is a language learning another interest/skill you have?
“I'm not sure if it's a universal programming thing, but I do definitely enjoy language learning. I used to be able to speak three different languages at one point. I’m down to the two now, though. I gave up, gave up speaking French a while ago!”
Abbas at his graduation
How did you hear about FuturLab? What made you apply to work here?
“I played PowerWash Simulator on and off with friends and enjoyed it as a cosy game to hop on and clean stuff with friends and have a chat and a catch up.
“So I knew about FuturLab from that, and then it was shortly after the lockdown and the wider industry was grappling with the returning to work/hybrid models of working etc. But the lockdown made me realise that I liked working remotely and I liked being close to my family and my kid.
“Before Covid I was going into the office five days a week with a 2.5 hour commute each way. I realised I was maybe spending a little too much time commuting and in the work environment, so I decided to have a look around and saw that FuturLab were hiring a programmer so I threw my hat in and here I am!”
What's been your favourite part of working on PowerWash Simulator and PowerWash Simulator 2?
“As a 13-year-old making mobile games, I always had aspirations of working on a title that was on a Nintendo, PlayStation or Xbox console. So, in terms of PowerWash Simulator it was great to work on a project that did end up on those platforms, albeit I jumped in after the Warhammer 40,000 DLC. It felt like my ‘mama I made it!’ moment. I think that’s been my main highlight for PowerWash Simulator.
“Moving on to PowerWash Simulator 2, I’ve enjoyed the entire project and being involved from the beginning with the planning and prototyping phases, right the way through to wrapping up features and bug fixing.”
Abbas at a social at in his previous role at Playsport
What is something a lot of people misunderstand about your role?
“Outside of FuturLab and the games industry, I think it comes back to seeing programming as magic wizardry. I don’t think it’s that difficult and going back to the language learning analogy, I think if you can learn to read and write then you can learn to program. At least, that’s how I think about it!
“I think it’s more a mentality thing, really. If you have the willingness to persevere and problem solve, you can get through programming relatively easily. It’s less about writing code, and more about troubleshooting. There’s lots of courses online that people can use to give it a go! Within FuturLab people could use their development days and spend a day coding, if you fancy giving it a go. If you need a hand, feel free to grab me!”
What advice would you give to someone who's interested in getting into a programming role?
“In terms of learning the skills, the internet and specifically YouTube has basically everything you could need to know. You can learn the basics and then build on top of that with the engines like Unreal and Unity. I think with the blueprints system, you can get away with not even programming! So get stuck in, I think that’s the best way. It’s a bit like a box full of Lego: just tip it all out and see what you can build.
“In terms of getting a role, I’ll be honest, I don’t think there's any easy way of going about it. My tactic for it was always just apply for everything you come across and eventually someone's going to say yes. There’s only so many times they can say no!
“But I do admit with the current state of the games industry in particular, competition is going to be a pretty fierce unfortunately. With all the layoffs, there’s a lot of very talented programmers looking for roles. So if you’re coming in as a junior, maybe expand your pool to adjacent industries so you can get some experience.”
Is there anything people can do to make themselves stand out, like making a game?
“I mean, for sure, the more practise you can get, the better. If you have the time though, I know in this economy it can be difficult if you’re working or have other commitments, you might not have the time. But even doing small game jam projects show you can work to deadlines and deal with problems.”
Balatro, the rogue-like deck building game that has been Abbas' favourite recently (left)
Jet Set Radio on the Dreamcast, Abbas' dream game to make a come back (right)
What's the best advice you've ever received?
“For the workplace, I'd probably go back to a bit of advice I received from one of my lecturers: don’t be too precious about your work. This was more about the art and design side of things, but going back to the whole idea that games are iterative – the more attached you get to your work, the less willing you are to scrap and rebuild or modify things.
“For sure take pride in your work, but at the same time be willing to modify and update your requirements. It’s pretty key with games because things change every 5 minutes!”
What's your favourite game of all time?
“Favourite game of all time? I should know the answer to this...
“All time favourite is difficult. I'm going to go favourite game recently - I've been heavily addicted to Balatro! It has taken over my life and I have about 90 odd hours on Steam. I did every stake on checkered deck and I’ve been enjoying the high-card strategy, it’s so much fun. I like the rogue-like and strategy element to it and crafting your deck to get to a specific thing, it’s very satisfying.”
What is your dream game that doesn’t exist?
“Recently there’s been rumours of a new Jet Set Radio, I would love another game in that franchise. My favourite Jet Set Radio game was the one on the old Dreamcast, I always go back to the soundtrack.”
Thank you Abbas for sharing this with us! More FuturLab Features will be coming soon. To keep up to date with the latest FuturLab game and studio news, please subscribe to our newsletter.
