This article was originally published on Geek Party on December 25, 2014.

The last thing I expected to do when reviewing an “only okay” game about an intergalactic janitor/flyhunter was reflect on my life.

Flyhunter Origins is nothing special. The only thing it really does well is deliver on the visuals. And the company distributing the game, Ripstone, must know this, because every piece of copy I’ve read about it mentions the “top-class cutscene animation” and that someone from Pixar worked on it.

Because of the odd obsession with graphics that surrounds this game, I researched the team that worked on it. As expected, the Pixar connection checks out; however, the rest of the team is comprised mostly of animation graduates from Ex’pression College.

Reading about them made me think about my own career path.

I graduated college less than a year ago with a degree in audio post-production, and in that short time I’ve been lucky to work on a handful of independent films. Will any of those films kill it at the box office? Maybe, but most of them weren’t made with wide release in mind. Likewise, Flyhunter Origins is a low-cost portable title that most people will play on their phones.

The point I’m getting at is that when I’m hired to work on a film, I have two goals: Do the absolute best I can, and learn something from the experience. I’d like to believe the Flyhunter Origin team had a similar approach.

When I read about the people that worked on this game, I saw myself. If I was an animator fresh out of college, I would kill for an opportunity to work with someone from Pixar. Hell, I’d babysit their kids if it meant they’d look at my reel.

Does knowing this change my opinion of the game? No.

If I weren’t tasked with writing about this game, I would have stopped playing after a few levels — if not because of the repetitive and uninteresting (and sometimes frustrating) gameplay, then because of the multiple game-breaking glitches I encountered that forced me to restart levels. However, in the event that anyone from the team reads this, I want you to know that I’m cheering you on. And, for what it’s worth, the level design of the final stage is pretty cool.