LucasArts day 572. Last Friday was my last day at LucasArts. It’s been a fantastic time, but now it’s time for me to move on. During my time there I got to lead a design team working on experimental games focused on creating new IPs. As a designer and programmer having worked on both small and big this was an amazing opportunity to really focus on rapid prototyping and building things ground up. It’s surprising how similar and different things are when you work on 6 month projects versus 2 year projects. As we are constantly reminded nowadays, the games and entertainment industry is in rapid transition and it was a luxurious opportunity to be able to touch some of the fronts of that from within the hallowed halls of Lucasfilm.
As you might guess, this didn’t last. Once big games were back into focus, I was charged with developing a new AAA concept. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be the creative lead on something that would reach the masses, change the world and really have the resources to pull it off. Sounds like a dream, right? While the reasons for me resigning are complicated and I can’t go into details, I can sum it up with that I’m a builder. Building games is my passion and I know the things I want to build and I know how I want to build them. When that doesn’t match up, it cease to be fun and instead of investing 3 years into something that you don’t fully believe in it was time to move on.
While my next plans are a little bit unclear, I’m definitely in no rush to move to the next thing. First and foremost I need to get on top of all the things that fell off the radar while I was working at Lucas. There are so many projects I wanted to pursue but didn’t really have time for and now is my window of opportunity to do that (soon out is the long-awaited Colors! revamp). Finally, I’d like to thank everyone at LucasArts for the amazing time. There are some ridiculously talented people there, and I’m sad that I won’t be able to work with them anymore, at last not for a while.
Now I’m off to build something new. Something shiny…
I’m glad you decided to do what you wanted instead of staying just because. That’s something I’m afarid I wouldn’t dare to do. I wish you the best of luck with whatever you do now (as long as you keep updating this!)
And again, I’d like to thank you, without you (and of course Josef) I would not be where I am now. Thanks!
Nice! Tour of duty completed!