What’s your role at FlatPonies?

Hi! I’m one of those weird people in the company who likes math – in other words, I’m one of the programmers. I’m mainly responsible for supporting our audio designers and wrangling our game camera systems, along with all the other tasks a programmer has to deal with in a small team.

What makes a great work environment?

To me, a great work environment is all about the people I work with. I became a programmer to help creative people bring their ideas to life, so having a workplace where I feel I can trust the people around me to make something cool and/or interesting is really important.

Another aspect of a great workplace is stress management and workload. I care about the quality of the work I do, and I’ve found that I always do my best work when I can spend my time thinking about how to solve a problem, instead of constantly worrying about whether I have the time to solve it. Of course, game development needs to move fast, so there’s a balance to be struck here.

What excites you most about our current project?

‘Scratch The Cat‘ is such a throwback to the games I played as a kid, and I still really love a good 3D platformer. It’s always fun to work on something I’d want to play myself.

On a purely selfish note, I love that the game allows me to work with audio systems as much as it does. It’s really fun to bring some of my personal passion (music) into the project.

What’s been the biggest ‘aha’ moment in development so far?

Sometimes you need distance to let solutions come to you. You can spend days thinking hard about a problem, and the right solution almost always arrives when you stop thinking about it for a little while.

What’s a fun or unexpected fact about you that your teammates might not know about you? 

I’m really into singing and writing music. I even played in a band when I was a teen.

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’d probably pick the day I first played ‘Flower’ (by Thatgamecompany). I played it during a slightly tumultuous time in my life, and the experience really clicked with me. I credit it – along with games like ‘Fez’ (by Phil Fish) – with expanding my idea of what games could be, at a time when my only exposure had been big-budget AAAs.

Tell us about your pony—why is it designed this way?

Not much of a story behind this one. When I first got hired, I was told to provide a reference photo with a fun prop for an art thing. I was in the middle of moving at the time, so I just grabbed the closest thing I could find and had a friend take a picture. That turned out to be a small plant I was growing at the time.