Lionheart Games interview questions

The initial interview process was less about testing competence and more about testing culture fit. The recruiter was very transparent about the company culture, how they operate, and how they are not a great fit for everyone due to employees voluntarily working long hours out of passion.

The interview process for Starmi which is Lionheart Games is excessively long. HR tried to convince me this is normal but the process has been at least 5 months which is the longest I’ve heard of for a 3d artist. They didn't make an offer but they did not decline. They put me in this limbo of excuses that that someone hasn't gotten back to them. This stringing along has gone on for 3 months at which point I've moved on. The process started out normally however I encountered many concerns that suggest the problems described by former employees might still be at play. HR interviewed me which felt somewhat normal however I noticed they had really no track record and have been working on an indy game for years which still is not released. They asked for 50 hour weeks and explained the extra 10 hours was for meetings. I thought this was strange for an artist. I completed an art test that was mostly reasonable however it missed details. It described how they wanted you pick a character out of 4 AI generated images and model and texture it in a Genshin style. It did not say please research how MioHoyo creates their assets. Just suggested replicating the style. I provided the test within their time limit. They provided about 3 sentences of written feedback. One was “improve the character's profile”. It was not the best way to convey feedback in my opinion to a visual topic to probably a visual person. I made the changes and they liked it enough to move on to an interview. The interview was slated to be with 4 people in the art / design team and the ceo. The CEO never did show up or was part of it ever. I researched the 4 team members before the interview and found their experience to be 13 years combined. The interview with the team was broken into 2 groups of 2. One member in the interview had about 6 months experience and I thought it was odd they were brought into an interview and away from their work. That person didn’t even talk the entire time. Their character designer gave me the impression he might be difficult to work with, misunderstanding at one point what it’s like to work with a healthy team applying a situational solution to potential longer term problems. I asked both groups if they have a lot of meetings. Both groups told me the only meetings they have are on the floor and are not formal. So it tells me their communication is probably unorganized and HR probably wasn’t upfront about the extra hours required. It was quite obvious that their team lacks experience and they demonstrate this with the questions they ask and how they operate. This is why they are looking for more experienced members. However it will be a problem going forward if they don’t have experience to attract or understand what to look for in an experienced team member. I seems they want Miohoyo employees to land in their lap and be located in the US. I'm just not sure how they plan on that working out.