Game Maker's Notebook

Ted Price chats with Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol from Moon Studios about the Ori series, remote development, workplace culture, and flat hierarchy. They discuss the impact of platformers, outsourcing in the industry, work-life balance, and gratitude in game development.

Chelsea Blasko, Co-CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios, chats about her journey into the gaming industry, organic growth and diversity in projects, the importance of feedback and support, and culture and values in a studio. They also discuss spreading joy with balloons during the pandemic, fashion and reflection, and the power of inspiration and supporting others.

Ted Price chats with David Cage about maintaining balance at an independent studio while juggling multiple responsibilities, his philosophy on writing and directing video games, Quantic Dream's new publishing arm, and what they look for when evaluating pitches from independent developers. David Cage founded Quantic Dream in 1997, with the ambition of using interactivity as a new means of expression. Quantic Dream has released several award winning titles including Detroit: Become Human, Beyond: Two Souls, and Heavy Rain. Recently, Quantic Dream began to publish titles such as Jo-Mei's Sea of Solitude. Follow us on Twitter @Official_AIAS, Facebook or visit us at interactive.org.

Jonathan Blow, independent designer/programmer behind Braid and The Witness, talks about deep puzzle craft and creating a new programming language. He explores personal expression in games, the nature of true "aha" moments, building vast combinatorial level systems, and using commercial projects to validate engineering tools.

Robin Hunicke chats with Dr. Mitu Khandaker about her journey around the world and into the games industry, finding her feet at teaching, building games from the ground up rooted in diverse cultural experiences, and about representation issues facing the games industry and ways to help financially support creators of color. Dr. Mitu Khandaker is CEO & co-founder of Glow Up Games, a new mobile free-to-play games & creative tech studio building systems-driven games for diverse audiences. She is also Assistant Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center, where she teaches game design and development. She holds a PhD on designing games for immersive interfaces such as VR, and has a background in computer engineering.