© Aify

Meeting the worldbuilders — Aify

bilbo pingouin
Published in
4 min readMay 6, 2016

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This is one out of a series here on Universe Factory, where we look at the people behind the Worldbuilding. We present a number of short interviews with people who have been using our site to try and get some insight into who they are and how it is being used. Today, we receive Aify.

Hi Aify, thank you for agreeing to that interview.

No problem, anytime. I'm happy to have the opportunity!

Before we get more to your link to Worldbuilding (WB), we'd like to know a bit more about the person behind the user Aify. Could you tell us in which part of the world you are and what do you do for a living?

I'm from Canada, and I'm mainly a programmer, but I also do graphics design and website design contract work on the side.

From your profile, I believe that you joined the Stack Exchange (SE) Network through StackOverflow (SO)? Is that correct?

Absolutely correct - I was browsing some links on SO one day and I noticed a Worldbuilding link on the side. Many of the questions seemed interesting, so I joined up. I also joined up with the Puzzling.SE that way as well.

I have seen that you have joined a few various communities within the network, however you are only active on 4 and on one of them, you just asked a single question. Are you actively lurking on those sites, or did you just joined once?

WB and SO are probably the two sites I visit the most, but I'm also actively working on a set of puzzles Puzzling.SE so I haven't been lurking as much as I should. The single question I asked on Chemistry.SE was actually a WB related question as well, so I wouldn't really consider myself active on Chemistry.

That you are active on, let's say, 2.5 sites, is it because of a dedication? Or a limited time?

I'm definitely limited by time, as I think most of us are, but I'm also dedicated to finishing things I've started regardless of how long it takes, and following through ideas that I get. For example, I'm doing a creature design question for WB similar to my other questions - but to do that, I'm using Sculptris to create a 3D model so I can take screenshots, and that can take a very long time. I keep adding stuff to my creations as well, which makes me look a lot like an inactive lurker...

You mention a creature design... are you building a world for that creature to live in?

My approach is actually a bit different from most - I wanted my creatures to be the main attractions in my story, so I've been making the creatures first, and plan to make the world fit the creatures later. Each creature I create relates to each other, and eventually I'll have a complete food chain for the world - all that's left would be to mold the world into something manageable, but that shouldn't be too hard, what with all our awesome worldbuilding tutorials.

In fact, I had followed one of the tutorials already for landmass creation, and then modeled the world roughly using Sculptris - so I already roughly know what the world will look like, it's just the details I have to grind out later.

And do you know already the story? Or that will come whence the world is done?

Actually, I'm planning to use the world in a game later, so there isn't really a story... Creatures first, build world later!

Which genre?

Open-world 3D game. Players will be playing as creatures and not as humans, so I'm giving each creature species very detailed backstories and attribute explanations.

That sounds like a lot of work! Looking forward to see it on the market, then. Now, it might be related, but from your profile on Worldbuilding, I get the impression that you have some expertise in Weaponry?

I've been doing a lot of different martial arts since I was younger, and I have done some firearms training before. I build a lot of weapon-type things at home in my free time, as designing things (especially weapons that I can test out) is really fun for me. Everything I build is functional - if it's not functional I tweak it until it is. For example, I once built a cut-proof glove out of a golf glove, tin scraps, copper wire, craft foam, and superglue.

All I had to do after was strap on something akin to brass knuckles, and I was punching watermelons and catching knives like nobodies business.

Among your own, what are your favourite question and/or answer?

Hmm.. I think my favorite question that I've asked so far is definitely my weaponizing jellyfish question - I had a lot of fun reading the responses, and it does seem to be my most popular question.

My favorite answer has to be my two-elbowed creature answer - I got to design and theorize about an exotic weapon, as well as how it would be used.

It is slowly time to come to the end of the interview. Is there anything you would like to add?

I can't think of anything to add except for a big thanks for this opportunity!

Well I thank you again for your time and accepting to tell us more about you.

No problem, anytime for the WB community!

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