Ascenders’ Log #12

Fellow Ascenders, we were testing some mechanics of the game when suddenly a new transmission came in! The timing couldn’t be a coincidence. And indeed, the transmission that came in was from one of our Technical Game Designers, Daan!

Who is this?
Hey Hey. Daan here. Technical Game Designer and/or everyone’s best friend.

What got you into games?
I grew up playing a lot of board games with my family, as well as video games with my older brothers. I think this ingrained games into my soul as a way to spend time and bond with people. When learning about a good games academy near my home, it just made sense, you know?

What is your role within the Ascenders team?
As a Technical Game Designer, I’m working in the game engine to prototype and create mechanics to figure out how we can give players the best experience (AKA I’m doing all the fun parts :) ).

What about your usual day-to-day work?
Aside from never-ending design discussions with my Design Lead about what the game should play like?

It can vary a bit depending on the stage of the project. Parts of it are writing documentation on the mechanics as we’re figuring them out. Other parts include making quick versions of mechanics (such as combat) so we can see if it actually works the way we envisioned it (and cry when we learn it doesn’t). There is also a lot of playing the game and looking for ways to make it feel just that little better to play.

Most enjoyable thing within the job?
I always love the moments when everyone’s work finally comes together and suddenly it’s better than the sum of its parts. When you finally combine the animations, visual effects, sound effects, environment and the established programmed mechanic, and you suddenly realize you’ve made a game together.

What did you do before you joined Ascenders?
Everything.

I’ve worked as a gameplay programmer on VR games for a while. I’ve had short run-ins with Hangar 13 as a world designer, and CD PROJEKT RED as a quest designer. I’ve also worked on an independent VR Horror experience where we experimented with artificially extending the boundaries of the physical VR play area through some spatial trickery.

So, hopefully I can use all this combined experience to help make an awesome experience for all of you wonderful people :).

Any final words of wisdom to share with the community?
This question makes it sound like I’m going to be assassinated after this blog post, so please send help.