DesignSessions: Notes on Game Dev is written by guest authors, including game industry professionals, educators, and writers. Posts include news, industry interviews, career advice, how-to’s, and technology topics related to game art and design.

Authoring for DesignSessions is by invitation only. New authors are added to our masthead each month, so visit again to see who has been added to our list!

Nic Berry [ Read all posts by Nic ]
Writer, Notes on Game Dev

After graduating highschool with his eyes set on journalism, Nicholas Berry took a slight detour into the realm of video game design. Now at Vancouver Film School learning the ins and outs of the industry, journalism reared its head once again as Nic began to see his two interests coincide with several fortunate encounters. No longer torn between the two, Nic continues to study all that is game design while exploring the possibilities of writing on the matter.

Phaedra Boinodiris [ Read all posts by Phaedra ]
Serious Games Product Manager, IBM
www.womengamers.com

Ms. Boinodiris is currently working at IBM as their Serious Games Product Manager developing games for corporate training, point of sale, and extending brand reach. Before that, she has been an entrepreneur for 10 years- first with Atlantis Internet Technologies, an IBM business partner focusing on WebSphere technologies and then with WomenGamers.Com. WomenGamers.Com is a C corp started 7 years ago and is now one of the largest women’s gaming portals on the Internet. She was recently recognized by Women in Games International due to her efforts spearheading the first US scholarship for women to pursue degrees in game design and development.

Adam Capone [ Read all posts by Adam ]
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Texture Artist
www.caponeart.com

Two and a half years ago Adam moved from the UK to the Netherlands to join a game partnership studio. Before this he spent several years in education attending both graphic design and videogame art courses. He chronicles his development and offers tips and ideas through his blog site at caponeart.blogspot.com. Adam has been fortunate enough to work on a dozen games so far including Gears Of War, Unreal 3, and Overlord.

Ee-Leng Chang [ Read all posts by Ee-Leng ]
Project Coordinator, Bluetongue Entertainment
thegamersdiet.blogspot.com

In 2005, Ee-Leng Chang started her career in the games industry as a tester at Melbourne-based Bluetongue Entertainment. After a year and a half in the QA Department as Lead Tester, she was promoted to the newly created role of Project Coordinator. Her responsibilities include overseeing and assisting in the management and production of Bluetongue games. Ee-Leng spends her free time musing about the games industry and food on her blog at midget-giraffe.blogspot.com. She plans on being the first winner of Project Runway that can’t sew.

Ciro Continisio [ Read all posts by Ciro ]
Game Designer and Programmer, Visual CS
ccontinisio.blogspot.com

After a false start in Computer Science, Ciro realized that Design was his only way into the gaming world. He is currently employed at Visual Creative Studio in Rome, trying his best to open new routes for games both in Italy and in his own life. His first real released game, UFHO, turned out to be an interesting concept although it didn’t achieve critical success.

Chris Crawford [ Read all posts by Chris ]
Game Design Veteran
www.storytron.com

Chris Crawford is a noted computer game designer and writer, responsible for a number of important games in the 1980s, for founding The Journal of Computer Game Design and for organizing the Computer Game Developers’ Conference. Since 1992, Crawford has been working on Storytron (originally known as Erasmatron), an authoring tool for interactive storytelling.

Abby Goldsmith [ Read all posts by Abby ]
Artist, Black Lantern Studios
abbygoldsmith.com

Abby Goldsmith is an animator and writer located at Black Lantern Studios in Missouri. Since 2001, she worked her way up to the role of a senior art manager at WayForward Technologies, a game developer that specializes in Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, and other handheld systems. Her job encompasses art direction, recruitment, animation in 3D and 2D, modeling and rigging in 3D, and a touch of project management.

Joseph Hatcher [ Read all posts by Joseph ]
Development Director, Hatched Now
www.josephhatcher.com

Joseph Hatcher is currently working as a QA Localization Tester/Tech Support Specialist for a game company as his day job. Previously, he has been an arcade game technician, QA Tester at EA on 16 titles for a few years, cameraman/boom operator, production assistant, indie director, and voice actor for games, to name a few. He has been dabbling in the indie game dev scene since 1996 and currently does so through Hatched Now. He deeply feels that video games are art but, people haven’t realized it yet. He hopes to help change that.

Rob James [ Read all posts by Rob ]
Flash Game Artist
www.robotjam.com

Rob James has made games for a living for the past 12 years. He has produced art for BBC, Sony, Eidos, Lego, Coca Cola, and numerous others.  He left console game 4 years ago and since then has been working in digital media/advertising by day, while by night he is his alter ego robotJAM Flash game maker. He has released 14 games in the last 18 months with combined plays of over 40 million.

Wes Jenkins [ Read all posts by Wes ]
Artist/Director
www.wesdotcom.com

Wes Jenkins, B.A., B.F.A and a D.U.I., has been an imaginary cowboy since the 50’s. In addition, he is a friend to all animals. He is also Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent… Wes Jenkins is an artist-writer-director hyphenated kind of guy with a 30-year career in Interactivity, Print, and Broadcast. He has 6 Years with Lego Products, 6 Years with Mindscape, 6 Years with Stanford University, 6 years in radio comedy, 6 years of Freelancing, 3 with California Academy of Sciences, 3 with Winterland/Bill Graham Presents, and 1 year with Neil Bush. After all of that, he is now semi-retired and presently freelancing.

Amy Jones [ Read all posts by Amy ]
Writer, Notes on Game Dev
www.amyajones.com

Amy Jones is currently a freelance artist and painter with a life-long love of video games. The journey from a degree in Archaeology to present day has been a tumultuous road which has lead her through several independent online game review sites, UNC-CH video game oriented research projects, working with the editorial staff at Ziff Davis Media, becoming a freelance illustrator and eventually setting her sights on combining her love for games with artistic ability. She won the 2008 NoGD ‘Award for Aspiring Women Artists’ and looks forward to taking her education and ability to the next level with the guidance of Sessions Online School of Game Art.

Jon Jones [ Read all posts by Jon ]
Outsourced Art Production Manager
www.thejonjones.com

Jon is a seven year game industry veteran and has been a contract artist for ten years. Recognized as an expert on the topic of art outsourcing, Jon is a speaker at industry events and maintains a popular blog devoted to helping other studios build and manage successful outsourcing departments. Most recently, Jon was the Art Production Manager at NCsoft on the critically acclaimed free-to-play casual MMO, Dungeon Runners, where he singlehandedly established a new art pipeline and built an entire art department on outsourcing, turning around a troubled project and helping the game garner an 89% review score from PC Gamer. Prior to joining NCsoft, Jon was one of the key members of the art team at Ready at Dawn on the award-winning, multi-million selling PSP title, Daxter.

Ryland Loncharich [ Read all posts by Ryland ]
Environment Artist, Snowblind Studios
rylandsart.com

Ryland Loncharich specializes in the Game Industry as an Environment Artist. He recently graduated in May 2008 with a B.F.A. in Interactive Design and Game Development from the Savannah College of Art and Design and is currently employed by Snowblind Studios. Ryland has worked on multiple student projects while attending college including the MMORPG known as Avatars of the Arena. He is taking his artistic skills to the professional level with Snowblind Studios and is working on their upcoming Fantasy RPG game. Ryland also recently won first place in the 2008 NoGD 2D/3D Environment and Character Art Competition for his 3D Environment submission.

Marc Mencher [ Read all posts by Marc ]
Founder, GameRecruiter.com
www.gamerecruiter.com

Marc Mencher is a specialist in game industry careers who has helped thousands of jobseekers land positions with the hottest gaming companies. Before founding GameRecruiter.com, he worked for such game companies as Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose, and 3DO. Marc is the author of “Get In The Game!” — an instructional book on careers in the video games industry. He has been an Executive Producer on several games. He is a curriculum advisor to colleges offering Game Development degrees. Marc speaks at many of the Game Industry conferences around the world. His firm, GameRecruiter.com focuses on unique and un-advertised game industry jobs.

Doug Oglesby [ Read all posts by Doug ]
Concept Artist, Red Storm Entertainment
www.redstorm.com

Doug Oglesby is a founding member of Red Storm Entertainment, and has worked on eleven game titles in some capacity, nine of them at Red Storm and four as Lead Artist. He received his degree in Communication Arts, with a focus in graphics and illustration, and worked for five years in television, during which he received an Emmy and five Emmy nominations, as well as three international awards from the Broadcast Designers Association. Mr. Oglesby has also worked as a freelance illustrator, a potter, and a children’s book illustrator, and is currently in pre-production for an unannounced tactical action console game.

Ian Pottmeyer [ Read all posts by Ian ]
Web/Puzzle Designer, Studio Cypher
www.studiocypher.com
Ian Pottmeyer is the chief web/puzzle designer for Studio Cypher. Ian started in sound design but transitioned to working on the front end of web design. The studio’s most recent flash game MILO included light Alternate Reality Game components.

Ian Schreiber [ Read all posts by Ian ]
Columbus State Community College
Ian Schreiber has been in the game industry for 7 years, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on 5 published game titles, including Playboy: The Mansion and the Nintendo DS version of Marvel Trading Card Game. He has also developed serious games to train salespeople at two Fortune 500 companies. Ian first started teaching game design and development in 2006 at Ohio University (although he had been mentoring college students informally long before that). He is currently an adjunct at Columbus State Community College.

Erin Robinson [ See all posts by Erin ]
Writer, Notes on Game Dev
www.livelyivy.com

Erin Robinson is a 21-year-old independent games developer based in Québec. To date she has released two freeware adventure games, Nanobots and Spooks, and contributed art to the casual game Blackwell: Unbound. She is currently developing a commercial title for Wadjet Eye Games.

Molly Sauter [ See all posts by Molly ]
Freelance Game Writer

In 2007, Molly ran away from academia to make video games in Austin, TX.  She  worked as a Lead Writer at the Steel Penny Games and ate lots of tacos.  Molly has won awards for her writing from the Pennsylvania Governor’s School and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.  She is currently running back to academia to get her Masters in Game Design.

Andy Schatz [ Read all posts by Andy ]
Founder & CEO, Pocketwatch Games
www.pocketwatchgames.com

Andy Schatz was the sole programmer, designer, and producer on the company’s first two titles, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa and Venture Arctic.  Venture Africa was built in 10 months on a budget of $8,000 and has sold over 80,000 copies worldwide, while Venture Arctic is receiving tremendous critical acclaim and continues to sell in stores across the United States. As a leader in the world of “indie games”, Andy hosted the 2007 and 2008 Independent Games Festival awards ceremonies, which were attended by thousands and broadcast to 21 million viewers on the internet.

Greg Trefry [ Read all posts by Greg ]
Senior Game Designer, Gamelab
www.gamelab.com

Greg Trefry works as a Senior Game Designer at Gamelab where he leads the game design of Gamestar Mechanic, a massively multiplayer game that teaches kids game design through play. He is also the lead designer on the Jojo’s Fashion Show franchise of casual games. Greg also designs street games, ARGs and serves as the director for the Come Out & Play Festival, a festival of location-based games that runs annually in New York. He teaches about game design and ARGs at NYU and Parsons. In his remaining time Greg wanders about Brooklyn on his bike.

Nina Truman [ Read all posts by Nina ]
Art Manager, Volatile Games, Blitz Games Studios

Nina Truman began work in the games industry 16 years ago, when artists were only allowed to think in sixteen colours, and 3d was but a thing for the future. Starting her career as a junior artist working for Argonaut Software, she has since worked for a number of companies in a variety of roles. After working on everything from Game Boy to next gen titles, from cutesy bunny rabbits to bloodthirsty shooters, she was looking for something new. Currently working as an Art Manager for Blitz Games Studios, she has recently enjoyed the great opportunities available working in their Serious Games Division – TruSim.

Jeremy Vickery [ Read all posts by Jeremy ]
Lighting Artist, Pixar Animation Studios
www.jermilex.com

Jeremy is currently a freelance artist, but has over 10 years experience in animation, film, video, and concept design. After graduating from Full Sail Real World Education in 1997 with a general degree in digital media, Jeremy got his first job as a digital modeler/texture artist and concept designer at Big Idea Productions in Chicago, working on several of the popular kids’ animated videos Veggie Tales. He later worked at Fathom Studios in Atlanta as a CG generalist and became the lighting supervisor. He joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2003 and has worked as a lighting artist on such films as The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille and Wall-e.