Happy Monday…oops. Happy Tuesday, pizzas!
I’m wrapping up the newest set of Meet the Devs posts. This week we get to meet our amazing UI/UX Director, Rachael! I honestly cannot WAIT to show off her work for Raid Boss. It’s incredible.
Question: How did you end up getting into game development?
Rachael: In elementary school, I would draw my own Sonic the Hedgehog levels, with loops and rings and surprise traps. I guess I started out as a baby level designer. I was an anime kid and drew a lot, so I went to college to learn how to draw anime better, which thankfully also gave me other foundational skills that I could apply to art and design in general. My focus at the Academy of Art in San Francisco was on visual development for animation or movies–there was no “video game development” track at that time. I thought I would graduate and join a Facebook gaming company, since at that time Farmville was huge. Then surprise! Smartphones happened! And so many of the game characters looked like anime! It was miraculous timing.
Question: When did you start working on mobile games?
Rachael: Not long after graduating college in 2011, I was referred for a general artist position at a small smartphone app startup working on games. I had never used a smartphone before… so that was a huge learning curve. Soon after, I attended a GDC conference and brought my (literally printed) portfolio to the Konami recruiting booth. They became my first mobile game studio development experience and I helped port a game called “Dragon Collection” from Japan to the U.S. It was the very first mobile game with gacha mechanics… so I was there to witness THE BEGINNING OF GACHA.
Question: What is your all-time favorite mobile game?
Rachael: I’m a character collector junkie, so for a while the answer would have been “Monster Super League” or “Dragalia Lost”. However, now I would have to say “Genshin Impact”. It is groundbreaking in a lot of ways, and I would have to rate it as my favorite because of its incredible level of polish and implications of where the industry is headed.
Question: What is your all-time favorite video game (non-mobile)?
Rachael: Kingdom Hearts! It was so magical and charming to play through, and Sora is such a cutie pie.
Question: What is the next thing you’re most looking forward to for Raid Boss?
Rachael: I can’t wait to speak with more players on our Discord! Being able to directly converse with people and not have to go through a CS team or legal team is amazing for User Experience designers. While interacting in this way does make us vulnerable and comes with risk, based on the interactions we’ve had with players so far, the benefits are absolutely critical to us making improvements that matter. I want to use these insights to build a truly enjoyable game.
That’s it for our new Pizza chefs…for now! I hope you enjoyed learning more about our team. We’ve got something really special going on at Pizza Club Games and only the best is yet to come.
Stay cheesy pepperoni!