I arrived after my time at Howard University — pretty much the same year that I graduated. I got to the ETC at the same time as another Howard alum, Nigel [Randall]. We showed up at the ETC together, and also stayed in the same house together — all that stuff. That was my camaraderie there. I think in our year, we were the two black folks in the cohort that ended up coming.
While I was there, my focus was on game design in particular. I had a programming background from computer science, and I wanted to develop my design skills and learn how to do more entertainment-related things and more creative, artistic things with technology. That was my whole goal.
What’s your favorite ETC memory?
In BVW [Building Virtual Worlds] we made an actual physical controller. We named the project Book of Fate and it was an actual book — a magic spell book — that you could use as a controller to cast spells. It came together with a lot of trial and error — it was a little ambitious for what it was — but it was a lot of fun. We ended up getting an offer to take that to the GDC [Game Developers Conference] which was awesome.
Do you have any advice for current ETC students?
Make efforts to grow your relationships with your other classmates — including not just those in your current class but also the people in the years before and after you. You’ll be surprised how nurturing those connections may help you in the future.
Also, stay curious. Be open to applying your growing skills in different ways. Now more than ever it’s important to be creative in how to apply your skills in these creative and technology focused industries. Don’t just pigeon-hole yourself into games, because there will surely be a time for you to pursue that area as you continue in your career.
What are you working on now?
I’m really excited about some of the work we’re doing with the Black in Gaming Foundation. We’ve partnered with other organizations like Latinx in Gaming to start doing more events and setting up more structures to support younger developers. We want to create ways to guide people who are in college and high school into the industry and into the creative work they want to do. And figure out how we can help them flourish even though times in the industry are chaotic right now.
And with Melanated Game Kitchen, we have a game jam coming up this summer that we’re hoping it will be a really big one. We’re also planning to provide more offerings from our indie collective, like consulting on localization efforts for languages as well as cultural consulting for studios trying to bring other cultures into their games.
