We introduced them briefly during the first Crowfall Live! event and thought you might like to know a little more about these talented young men and women and how they got here.
Michael Barre, Programmer Intern
Michael is our only intern alum. He was one of a handful of summer interns last year, and we were pleased when he accepted our invitation to spend another summer with us. A recent high school graduate, he plans to attend the University of Texas at Dallas in the fall although he hasn’t decided on his ultimate career goal. “I'm not sure yet if I want a full career in the video game industry, but working on a game that I plan to play seemed like a fun way to spend the summer, as well as a way to get some experience in a professional environment.”
Favorite games: League of Legends, Rocket League, The Witcher 3, Dishonored
Tools of his trade: Unity, Visual Studio, and a search engine
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Knowing how to use documentations can save time and make life a lot easier.”
Sam Fisher, Software Engineer intern
Sam came to ArtCraft from Singapore with a long layover in Pennsylvania to pick up a master’s degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. He chose to pursue a career in the video game industry because it presents far more interesting challenges than standard software development - and playing awesome video games, of course.
Favorite food: Extremely spicy foods (e.g. scorpion- or ghost pepper-levels of 3 mil+ Scoville Heat Units)
Tools of his trade: C++/C#, Visual Studio, Git/Mercurial/Perforce, Unity/Unreal/Custom Engine
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Don't be afraid to try. Always keep learning and practicing, including just making games with friends. Global Game Jam is a good place to start.”
Aaron Hamilton, Environment Artist Intern
A native of Augusta, Kansas, Aaron attended the University of Kansas in addition to Southern Methodist University Guildhall. His father introduced him to Super Mario World when he was very young, planting the seed that would grow into a desire to create virtual worlds in the video game industry. He was ‘discovered’ by Melissa who spotted his online portfolio when she was scouting for potential interns.
Hobbies: Gaming, drinking good beer, hiking and illustration.
Tools of his trade: Maya, ZBrush, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Unity
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Develop good artistic fundamentals for color, composition and form. Have knowledge of digital modeling, sculpting, and texturing. Build a scene within a game engine. Focus on creating awesome personal work that showcases clean geometry and style. Post that work online on a personal website and ArtStation.”
Jared Jackson, Web Development Intern
When Jared, a graduate of Lamar University, visited the Crowfall.com website, he was merely looking for more information about the game. Out of curiosity, he checked the Jobs page where he spotted the opening for a web intern. A fan of many of the games that members of the ArtCraft team had been involved with, especially Star Wars Galaxies and EVE Online, he jumped at the chance to work with them since gaming is what drove him into programming in the first place.
Favorite movies/television: Any Star Wars movie, V for Vendetta, Dumb and Dumber, Superbad, Cosmos (with Neil deGrasse Tyson)
Tools of his trade: JetBrains products
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Don’t be scared to reach out. I applied as a shot in the dark.”
Aislynn Kilgore, Visual Effects Intern
At some point in high school, Aislynn realized she needed to justify the multitude of hours she was spending in World of Warcraft. Making games--and, particularly, creating visual effects--offered the unique blend of artistic and technical creativity that would allow her to combine the things she loved into an actual career. She learned about the ArtCraft internship through the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy (DSGA) at University of Texas Austin where she was participating in a two-semester program.
Favorite bands: K-Pop... Just a lot of K-Pop (And I'm only a little ashamed of that).
Tools of her trade: PopcornFX, Unity, Photoshop, AfterEffects, MonoDevelop
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Work hard, find what interests you, and be kind to people.”
Max Lancaster, Producer Intern
Max is a great example of the importance of networking. At Indiana University, he studied under Mike Sellers. Mike and Gordon and worked together at Maxis. After an introduction from Mike at GDC, Gordon and Max met for breakfast and it wasn’t long before Max interviewed for (and earned) an internship at ArtCraft. It’s the first step in what he hopes will be a long, steady career that will allow him to be part of “a storytelling medium that, unlike books and movies, is truly interactive -- where the participant can make decisions that have a significant impact on the way everything unfolds.”
Favorite games: StarCraft, Mass Effect, Fallout 3
Tools of his trade: Excel, JIRA and Git
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Attend local game-related gatherings and establish meaningful connections with other developers. Show them what you're working on, ask for critical feedback and be receptive. Nurture these relationships long enough (and keep building your portfolio behind-the-scenes) and one of them will almost certainly lead you to a job.”
Lars Olson, UI/UX Intern
At the age of 9, Lars got his first game system, a Gameboy Advance SP. “When I saw the worlds that other people were able to bring to life inside that little box, I had a goal of someday creating my own.” Like Aislynn, Lars was pursuing that goal by attending the DSGA program at UT. Gordon invited the group to visit the office and it was then that Lars heard about internship possibilities.
Favorite food: Pizza, as long as it has pineapple
Tools of his trade: Adobe Creative Cloud, in particular, Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Know what it is that you want to do, and don't lose sight of that. Also, know how to balance your work so you don't burn yourself out, which can be easy to do in this industry.”
Akshay Ramesh, Programmer Intern
Like Sam, Akshay was a student at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center when he learned of the ArtCraft internship from one of his professors. Without telling each other, both applied. It wasn’t until both had been accepted and were apartment hunting in Austin that they found out they would be working on Crowfall together. And, like many of his fellow interns (and members of the game industry at large, really), it was a childhood love of playing games on early consoles that sparked his interest in making games. “I was curious about how virtual worlds were built, and how these large 3D games could fit on cartridges and disks. I am still fascinated by how they are designed and engineered.”
Favorite movies/TV shows: LOTR, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad
Tools of his trade: Unity, Visual Studio
Advice to other intern hopefuls: “Explore and read about different topics that interest you, then implement what you're learning in personal/group projects. Keep up to date with tools & software being used to make your favorite games. Attend conferences like GDC, they're great to meet other creative people and learn about new techniques being discovered to push boundaries in games.”
Susi Windeler, Software Engineering Intern
After earning a degree in Business Administration, Susi took a job at a Silicon Valley education technology start-up. Two years later, she realized it would be more fun making games than marketing them. So, she returned to the University of Colorado for a BA in Computer Science. A Crowfall backer, she spotted the job posting in the weekly newsletter and, voila, landed her first official game industry gig.
Hobbies: Skiing, traveling, hanging out with my dog, Euro board games, escape rooms, lots of computer/video games, painting war miniatures (like Warmachine and Warhammer)
Tools of her trade: Unity, Visual Studio
Advice to other intern hopefuls: In the games industry, there are more positions available for artists and developers than anything else. If you have your heart set on being in the games industry, I would pick one of those and get really good at it.