About

The most fascinating aspect of making games is the multitude of areas that get poured into a single piece of harmonizing work. Roughly speaking, the media “computer game” encompasses music, narrative, visuals, and computer science and turns all this into an interactive experience for the players. My favourite part in this? Right in the middle linking the diverse resorts as producer.
When I am asked about my occupation I often say “I am the maker of coffee”. Although this is meant to put a smile on the interviewer’s face, there is a lot of truth in it: The main task of a producer is the encouragement and mediation of communication within the team – and having a cup of coffee together helps a lot.

Qualifications

Production

From 2011 until its release in 2014 I was producer for Zeppelin Studio’s Schein. Apart from juggling charts and schedules in MS Project and Excel this meant mediating a diverse team of five to ten people, managing relations with external companies, encouraging regular exchange, leading daily communication in personal meetings or through Skype or Google Hangouts and keeping the spirits high.

Game design

The main focus in the design process of Schein in 2011 was to weave the game around a simple mechanic. Starting from there we left out features that only served as fillers instead of actively increasing the game’s fun. The result: No sophisticated physics, no enemies blocking the way, just the player, the swamp and the magic light. Since then the game design document was kept up to date throughout upgrades, changes, and players’ feedback and served as a great companion up to release.

Programming

Coming from a study program with strong technical emphasis, programming was my focus for many years. I started off with Java development, learned C++ and OpenGL by making games for both PC and mobile, and finally topped it off with the collaboration on the in-house engine for Schein built in C++ and DirectX.

Level design

Starting with paper prototyping, followed by prototypes built out of LEGO® (as further described here), further transferring everything into the level editor and finally polishing it with testers’ feedback – this was my job as sole level designer for Schein. The puzzles and challenges I created are the highly praised core of the game: „It’s thoughtful, well written and acted and provides new challenge regularly.“ – Rock Paper Shotgun

Tools and scripting

Tools tend to make our life a lot easier. Thus I created multiple scripts and tools that simplified asset pipeline processes for the development of Schein. These ranged from MEL scripts for Autodesk Maya, such as the level editor or model exporter, to tools for the game engine itself built in C++ or even Windows batch scripts.

Rigging and animating

After the 3D artist finished the models for Schein it was my job to build appropriate rigs and finally to breathe life into them by creating their animations. This ranged from the main protagonist, the young father, to monstrous swamp insects, malicious tentacle beasts and shape-shifting snakes.

Working Experience

Education

Technical Qualifications

Languages

Awards

Projects