Behind the Screens: Meet Our Team!
Behind The Screens is our way of showing you our development process with our first Meet The Team.
Step beyond the flat screens of your phone or computer and into the FlatPonies stables! Here, the only flat thing is our logo and screens — our team is made up of real, 3D-shaped humans. But each team member has a 2D pony mascot, designed to reflect their unique personality.
Giddy up! We’re excited to introduce you to our office culture, what we’re working on, and—because we know you’re curious—why each pony mascot looks the way it does!
Technical Artist
Ameer Khalid
What’s your role at FlatPonies?
Tech artist. I work on a variety of stuff ranging from VFX such as explosions and splashes to procedural generation like rocks and optimization to help the game run better.
What makes a great work environment?
Having a stable environment and hierarchy whilst also having a good amount of freedom to do what you want and improve.
What’s also very important is having nice coworkers to share the journey of development with.
All these things help with motivation and keep progress at an optimal amount.
What excites you most about our current project?
Definitely the concept of the world that we are building with the different levels. A strong concept gives me better ideas for the things I create in the game.
What’s been the biggest ‘aha’ moment in development so far?
These moments for me tend to come from optimising the game. At the moment I’m working on reducing build times and that whole journey has been full of interesting discoveries.
Another thing was when I reduced VFX CPU usage by making a culling script which improved performance quite a lot.
What’s a fun or unexpected fact about you that your teammates might not know about you?
I feel like I’ve lived across the globe at this point. I started off in Skåne – Sweden then Moved to Calgary – Canada, and then back to Skåne. Then I moved to Baghdad – Iraq and then back to Skåne. After that I went to London – UK and then I moved to Gotland – Sweden and then back to Skåne.
Now I live in Skåne – Sweden and work in Denmark.
If you could jump back in time, and play your favorite childhood video game, which one would it be and why? OR What’s a gaming moment from your childhood that you’ll never forget?
I would pick multiple games from the PS2/PS3 era. Jumping from a range of games like Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter with their brilliant storytelling to Modern Warfare 2 with its online feature and raging kids and Minecraft where I got to build stuff with friends and siblings. I feel like a lot of the best stuff are from that era and I miss it quite a lot.
Tell us about your pony—why is it designed this way?
It’s dressed in my default outfit for some time and is carrying the flag of the greatest place on earth, Skåne!
Curious to meet more of our herd? Want to know more about the horsepower behind our pixels? Alright, no more horsin’ around!