Clear As Mud

Giovani Magana- Sr. Environment Artist At Respawn Entertainment

Giovani worked tirelessly, working two jobs and attending school to realize his dream of working in 3D art. After eight years of giving himself unconditionally to his craft, he broke into the industry at Skydance Interactive.
This led to him working at Sony's Santa Monica Studio on God of War: Ragnarok and now for Respawn working on Jedi Survivor. Hear how he proved that no matter what stage of life you're in, nothing beats unbridled resolve.NOTE: Mild spoilers are discussed in this episode relating to God of War: Ragnarok.
 

Darren Yeomans- Studio Director At Atomhawk Design LTD.

Darren has worked in the game industry for over 30 years as an artist, an outsource teams manager, and now a studio director. 
We talk about the differences between working in the industry in its nascent stages compared to now, Darren’s experience working on 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand, and how Atomhawk has established itself as one of the premiere game development outsource studios in the world having worked on games in the FIFA series, Halo and PUBG.

Fabio Corrirossi- Technical Director at Third Kind Games

Fabio had to teach himself programming in order to carve out a career in the industry. He had no idea how to make games or what a game designer actually did. But curiosity, ambition and determination led to him diving fully into the world of engineering to realize his dream.

Aaron Hamilton Cook- Producer At Bioware

Aaron takes us through how he works collaboratively with a team and touches on the core events that shaped him as a producer. We then walk through a hypothetical game pitch that Aaron breaks down and delves deep into how as a producer, he would make that game become a reality.

Seth S. Smith- Senior Game Designer At Riot Games

Seth Smith comes on the show to discuss his work on Riot’s tactical shooter VALORANT, and his goal of creating a multimedia franchise that spans games, novels, comic books, film and TV. We also talk about  // Hello, World an inclusive social mixer that Seth spearheads, designed for anyone who champions representation in tech and entertainment. 

Matt Wright- Environment Art Director At Bad Robot Games

Matt has worked both in the film and game industry. On the film side he worked on a ton of different movies including the Harry Potter franchise and the 2003 seafaring period piece, Master and Commander. 
On the games side, before he was at Bad Robot, he’s worked at Amazon, Microsoft, and Valve. We dive into Matt's experience working in film, creating the weather effects for Forza 6, his time at Valve, and his experience with being on both sides of the interview process.

Martin Annander- CEO and Co-Founder At Spagank!

Martin has worked as a designer, a teacher, a leader designer, and a design director and now has started his own game studio. We discuss Martin’s approach to running a studio, game development, and systemic design in all its forms. 

Shaun Bell- Art Director At Bonfire Studios

Shaun Bell takes us through his time as art director for Treyarch. He worked on numerous Call of Duty: Black Ops games from 2011 until last year.
We unpack a ton of information in this episode including what it’s like to make a multiplayer map in Call Of Duty, how Shaun guides younger artists, diversity in the game industry, and how his team overcame the COVID 19 pandemic during the development of Black Ops: Cold War.

Matthew Medina- Advanced Narrative Designer At Arena Net

Matthew has worked in the industry for over 30 years now as a QA tester, 3D Artist, Narrative designer, and Mission Designer. In addition to working at Arena Net, he's also worked at Ubisoft and EA.
Matthew breaks down the greatest qualities and detriments of narrative in games, what a Narrative Designer actually does, and how integral they are  in the creation of a game that features a narrative. 

Agata Inventio- Senior XR Designer & Design Director at FitXR

Agata takes listeners behind the curtain of developing games for VR and Mixed Reality, the challenges of dealing with people’s negative preconceptions of VR, and how Mixed Reality could take us into a brave new future that goes beyond entertainment.