IGDA Students Podcast: Games Industry Career Advice & Resources for Aspiring Game Developers

AMA #37: John Smith (Slide20xl), Composer & Sound Designer

August 08, 2018 19:06 - 1 hour - 85.8 MB

John Smith is a composer and sound designer based in Seattle who works under the name Slide20xl. His credits include music and sound design for the VR title Rec Room, the neuroscience game EyeWire, and an upcoming rhythm game which will feature music from Grant Kirkhope and other big-name composers. Check out his website and ... Read more

AMA #36: Gideon Gyabaah, President and Technical Director at Illuminia Studios

July 28, 2018 16:50 - 1 hour - 84.7 MB

Gideon Gyabaah is an indie game developer who grew up in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. He currently lives in Canada where he attended university, then worked as a web developer, a game development instructor, a developer at GameTronics (they make electronic slot machines), a localization engineer at THQ. Today he runs his own indie company ... Read more

AMA #35: Coraly Rosario, Senior UX Designer at Scopely

July 25, 2018 01:53 - 1 hour - 85.2 MB

Hailing from the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, Coraly’s adventure started over 12 years ago when she first took interest in graphic design and teaching. Later, her innate interests naturally evolved into a love-affair with UI/UX in games, working at startups like Beyond Games, Fingerprintplay, and continuing to teach others about user research and experience ... Read more

AMA #34: Mike Sellers, Director of the Game Design Program at Indiana University

June 26, 2018 23:02 - 1 hour - 92.2 MB

Mike Sellers has been in the games industry for decades. He was the lead designer for Meridian 59, the first 3D MMO game. He’s also worked on The Sims 2, Ultima Online, a mix of indie, AAA, retail, and F2P games, and he once worked on AI for DARPA. He is currently teaching at Indiana University, where he is ... Read more

AMA #33: Elaine Gomez, Game Designer & Content Developer at E-Line Media

June 21, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.5 MB

“I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I love story-driven, adventure, puzzle, and platformer games. I’m a big horror fan. My Twitter handle is @chulatastic, and my company’s website is elinemedia.com.” Elaine works at E-Line Media, the company that created Gamestar Mechanic and they worked with Upper One Games to publish Never Alone. Elaine works as a game designer/content developer, ... Read more

AMA #32: Taro Omiya & Frederika Edgington-Giordano of Tech Valley Game Space

June 17, 2018 22:02 - 1 hour - 82.9 MB

Taro Omiya and Frederika Edgington-Giordano run the Tech Valley Game Space. TVGS is one of the largest non-profit gamedev communities in the Capital Region of New York founded on the principle that games and game-making are for everyone. Taro and Frederika are the directors who handle the co-working office and the educational hub of TVGS respectively. ... Read more

AMA #31: Luke Dicken, Director of Central & Strategic Analytics at Zynga, Chair of the IGDA Foundation

June 15, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 95 MB

Dr. Luke Dicken is Zynga Inc’s Director of Central and Strategic Analytics, where he leads teams in driving innovation across the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, and Data Science, with a particular focus on applications to large-scale business problems. He is also Chair of the IGDA Foundation, a charity by game developers for game developers. ... Read more

AMA #30: Ryan Treadwell, Senior Producer at Certain Affinity

June 07, 2018 19:27 - 57 minutes - 79.5 MB

“Hi! My career journey took me from customer service on World of Warcraft to Senior Producer on AAA development teams. I work with multidisciplinary teams to create awesome game experiences.” Ryan Treadwell has worked on a variety of games, including Dragon Age: Inquisition, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Remastered, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and World of Warcraft. He’s worked ... Read more

AMA #29: Mattias “Ditto” Dittrich, Creator of GoNNER

May 31, 2018 19:00 - 1 hour - 84 MB

Ditto is a programmer, game designer, and artist whose indie studio Art in Heart created GoNNER. Follow Ditto on Twitter. This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Mattias “Ditto” Dittrich, hosted by the IGDA Student SIG. If you’re interested in doing an AMA with students, you can sign up here.

AMA #27: Anthony Garcellano, Environment Artist at Hardsuit Labs

May 20, 2018 18:13 - 1 hour - 89.5 MB

Anthony is an environment artist at Hardsuit Labs, currently working on an unannounced game. He’s been working around games for about 10 years now, originally starting out as an animator and eventually transitioning to environment art. Some projects that he’s worked on include: Desert Bus VR, he made one asset for Lawbreakers, and a variety of indie games listed on ... Read more

AMA #26: Jaycee Salinas, Creative Director at Ask An Enemy Studios

May 11, 2018 06:38 - 1 hour - 99.4 MB

Jaycee is an indie developer currently working on A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher for Xbox One, PS4, Steam, and Nintendo Switch. His personal motto is “Make Games Not Excuses.” His indie studio is called Ask An Enemy Studios. Follow Jaycee on Twitter: @askanenemy. This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Jaycee Salinas, hosted by ... Read more

AMA #24: Blas Ingiulla, Main Organizer of Argentina Train Jam

May 03, 2018 06:32 - 57 minutes - 78.8 MB

Blas is the Main Organizer of #ArgTrainJam in Argentina. It’s an event similar to the American Train Jam, where game developers go on a long, scenic train ride through the country, all while trying to make a game before the train reaches its final destination. Blas is a game developer who lives in Buenos Aires, and he loves ... Read more

AMA #23: Andrew Glover, Recruiter at Microsoft/Xbox

April 27, 2018 07:52 - 52 minutes - 72 MB

“I’ve been recruiting in the games industry for 14 years, working at Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Microsoft/Xbox for the past 8 years. I have built teams that have developed some of the worlds most iconic franchises, like FIFA, Need for Speed, Gears of War and Halo. You can find me on LinkedIn.” This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” ... Read more

AMA #21: Zuoming Shi, Software Development Engineer at Microsoft’s Graphics Drivers Team

April 21, 2018 07:20 - 58 minutes - 80.6 MB

“I joined Microsoft about 7 months ago. I am currently in the graphics drivers team, and previously was on the Direct3D (DirectX) team. Before Microsoft, I received a Master’s in Game Science at University of Washington. Ask me about work as a graphics industry developer, Microsoft, or academic careers in games. My personal game projects ... Read more

AMA #20: Ed Magnin, Director of Development at Magnin & Associates

April 17, 2018 07:00 - 1 hour - 96.2 MB

Ed Magnin has been working in the game industry for the past 35+ years. Earlier in his career he worked for some of the top game developers of their day – MicroProse, Cinemaware, Virgin Games, and Park Place Productions. Then in 1993, he founded Magnin & Associates and has focused on handheld games ever since — Nintendo ... Read more

AMA #19: Anna Brandberg, UI/UX Designer at EA-Firemonkeys

April 13, 2018 06:24 - 1 hour - 56.1 MB

Anna works at EA’s Melbourne studio, known as Firemonkeys. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram. “I’m a Swedish metalhead living and working in Melbourne as a UI/UX Designer. I’m also a ballerina, skater, typophile, smoothie enthusiast and huge League of Legends dork! Ask Me Anything.” This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Anna Brandberg, ... Read more

AMA #18: Fernando Reyes Medina, Technical Designer at 343 Industries

April 06, 2018 06:06 - 44 minutes - 48.5 MB

Fernando works on Halo‘s multiplayer team. He was born and raised in Mexico City, he graduated with a computer science degree from Tecnologico de Monterrey. Fernando is the founder of Bee Collective, a non-profit game studio focused on creating interactive broadcasting games with 100% of the revenue going to charity. As one of the leads of Xbox’s ... Read more

AMA #17: Brandon J. Huffman, Founder of Odin Law and Media

April 03, 2018 05:17 - 5 hours - 81.7 MB

Brandon J. Huffman is general counsel to IGDA. He is an attorney and the founder of Odin Law and Media, where he works with game developers and publishers on corporate issues, publishing agreements, intellectual property, privacy and internet regulatory issues. He’s also on a bunch of nonprofit and bar association boards and committees and things. Follow him ... Read more

AMA #16: Chris Christodoulou, Composer

March 13, 2018 13:48 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB

Chris makes music and lives in Greece. Here’s how he describes himself: “Award-pending composer of Risk of Rain and a bunch of other titles you haven’t heard of. Eater of dead trees. Audiophile debunker. Favorite software: music theory.” This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Chris Christodoulou, hosted by the IGDA Student SIG. ... Read more

AMA #14: Raphael Azcueta, Sole Developer at LUNARSIGNALS

February 13, 2018 04:23 - 57 minutes - 51.4 MB

Raphael is an indie developer working out of Milwaukee, WI. He’s currently working on hist first professional game The Moon Fields. Follow him on Twitter. This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Raphael Azcueta, hosted by the IGDA Student SIG. If you’re interested in doing an AMA with students, you can sign up here.

AMA #12: Cassie Murphy, Artist at Valve

January 27, 2018 03:44 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MB

Cassie started her career as a graphic/web designer contracting for a U.S. government agency, meanwhile making art and games during spare time with friends. Now she works at Valve. 💪 Follow her on Twitter. This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Cassie Murphy, hosted by the IGDA Student SIG. If you’re interested ... Read more

AMA #10: Terence Tolman, Concept Artist at Against Gravity

January 19, 2018 20:57 - 1 hour - 35.9 MB

Terence is a concept artist working on the hit VR game Rec Room. He also likes to make alternative-controller games, and this will be his second year participating in alt.ctrl.GDC. This is a recording of an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with Terence Tolman, hosted by the IGDA Student SIG. If you’re interested in doing an AMA with ... Read more

AMA #8: Kaylin Norman-Slack, Developer and Music Composer

January 09, 2018 00:00 - 59 minutes - 54.7 MB

Kaylin is a game developer who’s worked on a variety of roles in the industry. He was recently a technical artist for Turn 10 Studios, he previously did customer service for Nintendo of America, and he has also worked on a casual puzzle game called Ghostlight Manor.