Why did you choose your career?
I am mainly a game writer, though I do concept art too, to help out with the team when needed. It's fun, and I grew up in a family of people who tend to start their own businesses and stuff. I guess the best reason why I'm doing this, instead of something like working as a scientist for instance, is because I'm one of those people who tend to like to challenge myself to do better. You get some things like wanting to be a perfectionist, but this is more like saying "I think I can do better" and challenging yourself to do so.
What kind of education did you have to complete for this career?
I did a double major, first one going to a business administration degree, and the second to an English Literature one with a minor in creative writing. Business administration helps a lot when it comes to running things, the experience with accounting for instance helps out with crunching numbers as much as learning about how to manage a team or company does. English Literature was amazing for learning how to research properly, as well as be able to criticize my own stuff better. So when I was studying, I also made sure the take electives in the right things. For instance taking screenplay electives, or digital art, or taking a few courses to learn more computing languages. The kind of people we hire are Jack of all trades, and a master of a few. This helps out tons when it comes to working as a small team, especially when one person can mess up, but have the right community in the team to make sure the mistake doesn't cost us the project.
How is math related in this career?
It is pretty important, in pretty much everything you can think of. Art, it helps with scaling stuff or getting a rough estimate about the amount of sprites you need on a scene. The business aspects, for instance creating excel sheets, or crunching numbers, it helps a lot. And math is fun, all it needs is practice so don't disregard it kid. You would be surprised when it pops up in your life.
What would a day in your normal life in this career typically look like?
I would get to the office at around 9 or 10 am, and then whatsapp the employees to check up on them. After that, I would go over what work was finished the previous day, and write down on the desk what needs to be done for that day, and start. The desk is cluttered with arts and crafts stuff, and books too. I tend to make paper models for things I do, so it gets a bit messy towards the end of the day. I'd grab lunch at around 2 or 3 pm, then continue working till around 9 or 10 pm. Every couple of hours I'd go outside to smoke a cigarette, or to refill the coffee cup, go back and switch tasks to something else. Towards the end of the day though, it's more of the business aspect of looking over what everyone else did and talking to them. Since we are all spread apart, we usually talk to each other with skype, or whatsapp, and stuff. By then, if I'm not going out to see friends, I'd go home, do the home stuff, and work a bit more before sleeping at around 1 or 2.
Every few days though, I would go out to one of the universities here and audit a lecture to see what they are working on, or to double team the class with the instructor sometimes.
How do you dress for this career?
Depends. Suit up if I'm visiting a client, otherwise it's just a semi-formal shirt and pants.
What is your favorite part about this career?
You have one of the best pickup lines ever. That and I really enjoy going out and interacting with people, as well as knowing that the time you are clocking in is going to what you want it to.
What kind of games do you create?
We gamify education and advertising with games. I don't mean that we make educational games, but that we make games and then put in the educational aspects into them. Same goes with advertisements, like making sure what you are playing will keep a decent user retention, make you want to continue playing the game, and make it into an almost ongoing advertisement. The advertisement is good for contract work, as it gives us money to help with costs, is great with practice, and we had the luck of having a good deal of control with the games we make.
All in all though, our games are stepping stones for the previous games, so that we can eventually head off to the bigger games we want to make. Our start-up is relatively new, we turned 1 year old a month ago, but it is pretty rewarding.
Hope this helps!
Let me create worlds, and I'll let you imagine they are realities.
