Hey everyone! I’d like to take a moment out of this amazing internship to write about this amazing internship. This is a day with Criss, publishing’s newest team member.

Criss in her first appearance with the Video Game Music Choir

Two weeks have gone by since I began working at this amazing studio. My first day began on Wednesday – I was introduced to Aaron, Christine, Jessa, and the rest of the Publishing team! Aaron gave me the grand tour, stopping by to say hi to all of the different artists, developers, programmers, and engineers who we passed. We found ourselves at the end of the building in the live room where Harmonix records their podcasts and hosts livestreams. Everything was Disney themed in preparation for our newest release, Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved. There were Mickey Mouse gloves, Fantasia Sorcerer hats, and even a stuffed Mickey plush sitting on the couch! Meeting people during this tour was super informative, and I got a well-rounded view of exactly who and where people are in the company.

Afterwards the Publishing team went out to lunch and got some delicious burgers, which we rapidly destroyed upon returning to the office. I started to set up at my new desk and got familiar with the accounts that I would frequent on Harmonix’s sites. After everything was good to go I joined Aaron and Dave for a weekly playtest of one of our in-progress games. I had a bunch of fun hanging out with the devs and chatting to them about the features and content within this super-secret game.

I came in next on Friday, got settled at my desk, and before long it was time for Weely, our weekly company meeting. Here at Harmonix, the entire company gets together every Friday to eat lunch together in the main room, or what we like to call the Freq Pit. We went over announcements, updates, and some sneak peeks of upcoming games. Then the floor opened up for announcements from the rest of the company. Immediately Aaron, who was sitting to my right, jumped up and proclaimed “This is our new Publishing intern, Criss!” to which the entire company turned my way and applauded. Of course, as fate would have it, that was also the exact moment that I had taken quite a large bite of my lunch. So now there were over 100 talented game developers looking my way as I desperately tried to chew and swallow before even thinking about smiling and nodding. What a great way to be introduced to the Harmonix team!

This past Wednesday I came into the office and had a few meetings in the morning about content on our websites and my role as the Publishing intern. I found a lot of resources online, such as blogs and press articles, related to Harmonix’s vast array of games. It was an eye-opening experience to see not only what the press was saying, but what the gamers were commenting as well. After that was another meeting with the playtesting crew to try out some new features since last week's get together! Even after a week of work the controls, features, and overall playability of this game was much improved, and super fun as always.

This Friday was the last Friday of the month, and you know what that means...Final Friday! Final Friday is Harmonix's own treat to everyone in the office - this is everyone's opportunity to take a trip around the office and demo our in-development games! I had a lot of fun being able to check out some of the other games that are being worked on and meeting the different teams in charge of the projects. Some of them made me laugh, some of them straight up blew my mind (thought luckily not literally). Some were just starting new stages of development while others are getting ready for their alpha and beta releases. It's amazing the kind of specialized work that goes on at this studio - what a treat!

And speaking of treats, this past Friday was also Halloween! A bunch of people had some pretty sweet costumes on and were showing off their attire around the office. I had another meeting with Jessa, one of our wonderful Product Managers, and afterwards we got to take a group photo and celebrate the holidays in style! I hope you all had a safe, happy, and super fun Halloween weekend.

And here I return, back at my humble desk this Wednesday. I also just happened to celebrate my birthday yesterday! So many exciting things are happening all at the same time. All in all, I am incredibly grateful to be spending my days here at Harmonix. I had the best two weeks getting integrated into the community and meeting some great people. Can’t wait for more to come!