How do you create an interesting game? What is the process for becoming a game developer and the steps for production-to-marketing your own game? The PRESS START! podcast invites us to explore the world of game development. Listen to inspirational stories from players in the gaming industry in this podcast!
Biography:
Mohammad Fahmi is an indie game developer, consultant, and freelance writer based in Jakarta. He was the chief editor of a local Indonesian gaming publication called Tech in Asia and was the director of Coffee Talk. He is currently working on other games while trying to help other indies in Indonesia.
Guest:
Dinia Ridanti — Studio Manager, Rolling Glory
Biography:
Dinia Ridanti is a studio manager at the digital creative company Rolling Glory in Bandung. Her interests and experience in the gaming industry in Indonesia range from being an MC for Indonesia Bermain 2011 (Indonesia Game Festival), being a voice actress for various local game characters, content administrator and model for the text-based simulation game Salah Sambung.
Biography:
Ardhan is a product manager specialized in gamification at Pahamify. He is also program manager at Asosiasi Games Indonesia. He started his career as a teaching assistant at Universitas Indonesia specializing in software engineering subjects and game development. He later became UX researcher lead for an IoT startup to further immerse himself in human computer interaction. He obtained his postgraduate degree from University of South Wales in Cardiff majoring in Games Enterprise (Design & Production) with a focus on animation and VR. Ardhan is determined to support Indonesia’s game developers in general as well as game research and collaboration between campuses.
What to do to Start Your Career in the Game Industry
Guest:
Oscar Clark — Chief Strategy Officer, Fundamentally Games
Biography:
Oscar Clark is Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder at the living games publisher Fundamentally Games LTD and has been a pioneer in gaming services since 1998. He helps developers (and investors) design, deliver and monetize games and authored the book Games As A Service published by Routledge. He also helps find speakers and hosts at PG Connects.
Biography:
Dewa Ayu Larassanti is a dancer, musician, singer and voice actor. Ayu grew up in the Bay Area and in Bali and loves studying different forms of music and dance, including choral music, jazz dance, and hip hop. She is a senior at UCLA and studies World Arts and Cultures, Ethnomusicology, and Entrepreneurship. Ayu trains with world-renowned composers and choreographers and teaches young artists at Çudamani in Bali. She has toured with Çudamani internationally teaching and performing in Japan, Greece, and the United States. She hopes to be able to continue studying and performing with Çudamani and use her knowledge and training to teach young artists all around the world.
Guest:
Lydia Ho — Narrative Designer & Writer, Metronomik
Biography:
Lydia Ho works as a narrative designer & writer at Metronomik, where she is responsible for developing the story of a game. Lydia enjoys various kinds of stories and writing. Her writing ranges from in-game descriptions to marketing copy, crafting narratives, and building worlds. Throughout her career, she has been a game designer and producer among other positions. Her passion is to create while discovering more ways to convey meaningful and memorable stories through games. No Straight Roads, Postknight, and The King's League series are some of the games that Lydia has worked on.
Guest:
Ardita Silvadha Erlangga — Head of Service Operations, Agate International
Biography:
Ardita Silvadha Erlangga started her career in the game industry in 2015 as server head at Min Communications Inc. in South Korea, joining the global publishing service of a PC-MMORPG game, Ran Online, to manage the community. She studied media and digital games at Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany, where she earned her masters in Media and Communication Science. She worked at Travian Games in Germany at service of another MMORPG project before finally becoming Head of Service Operations at Agate International.
Guest:
Astrid Refstrup – CEO, Triple Topping Games
Biography:
Astrid is the CEO and co-founder of Triple Topping Games and advisor to the game fund Kowloon Nights. Formerly, she was Nordic Game Jam head organizer. She was named one of the top 100 Game Changers by Gamesindustry.biz for her ongoing efforts to create a transparent, climate-friendly, crunch-free and family-supporting workplace. She loves game jamming, tax reports, and hotdogs. She hates crunch and is redesigning the startup indie game culture.
Guest:
Azizah Assattari - CEO, Lentera Nusantara Studio
Biography:
Azizah Assattari is the founder of Lentera Nusantara Studio, an intellectual property house that unveils the beauty of local Indonesian heritage. She believes that the uniqueness of Indonesian mythologies derives from the mix of many different world cultures and that this mix represents how global cultural diversity works on a large scale. She obtained her masters in Game and Interactive Media Design from Bandung Institute of Technology. She is also a lecturer at Binus International School of Arts and Bandung Institute of Technology.
Guest:
Lorenzo Pilia — Executive Producer of Maschinen-Mensch & Founder of BerlinGameScene.com
Biography:
Lorenzo Pilia is the executive producer at the Berlin-based indie game studio Maschinen-Mensch, currently working on Curious Expedition 2. He is also the outreach manager at Codecks, a project management tool for game developers, and is responsible for a number of game-related initiatives and events in the German capital, such as BerlinGameScene.com, Talk & Play, the Civic Game Jam series, Join – Local Multiplayer Summit. From 2014 to 2019 he was the program manager for A MAZE. / Berlin – International Games and Playful Media Festival.
Game as an Interactive Medium
Zarisya Aziz (Everidea Interactive) is using games as more than just entertainment. Her projects use games as an interactive tool for brand activation, virtual concerts, online exhibitions and more.
Guest:
Zarisya Aziz — Head of Marketing, Everidea Interactive
Biography:
Zarisya Aziz graduated as a statistician from Padjadjaran University, Bandung, after which she turned her attention to the creative industry. She entered the game development industry with Everidea Interactive in 2018. She went from knowing only a little about game development to being in charge as a Head of IP Character Development for Lembayung Comics. Now Head of Marketing at Everidea Interactive, she is passionate in making an impact through digital interactive work.
Biography:
Valentina Birke works at Super Crowd Entertainment, where she manages the Indie Arena Booth, the world's largest joint booth for independently developed games. Her focus is on curating the Indie Arena Booth to reflect the entire creative and artistic spectrum of indie games. She also manages DreamHack’s digital sister DreamHack Beyond, which is an at-home all-digital free interactive experience showcasing the best of DreamHack.
Biography:
Dito Wangsa is a content creator and YouTuber. His YouTube channel, anak tua, regularly publishes videos focusing on, among others, game reviews. He graduated from Quantum College majoring in Movie Animation in 2011. He is an avid entrepreneur in the event and wedding organization business and in the food & beverage business.
Allan Cudicio (Twin Drums) has designed several games for various studios in Berlin, including Candy Crush. He talks about balancing art and science in a game and how diversity is a super power.
Episode 2 - Season 2 - Press START! Podcast
Guest:
Allan Cudicio — CEO & Game Designer, Twin Drums
Biography:
Allan Cudicio is an Italo-Ghanaian game designer who founded his own development studio, Twin Drums, after about a decade of gaming experience in large and smaller companies. He is currently working on the PC game “The Wagadu Chronicles”, the first Afrofantasy MMORPG. He has worked as a game designer at several game studios in Berlin, including Wooga, King, and Games Academy. Allan's big passions are Dungeons & Dragons, fried plantain, dogs, cycling and justice.
Guest:
Saskya Irena - Senior Software Engineer, Electronic Arts
Biography:
Saskya Irena received her masters of Information Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon University in 2104. She graduated cum laude from Bandung Institute of Technology, majoring in Information Systems and Technology. Originally from Jakarta, she is now working as a software engineer for Electronic Arts in Austin, Texas, where she handles the company's data pipeline. Her previous work experience includes software engineer intern at HDE Inc. Tokyo and CRM analyst intern at Microsoft Indonesia.
