Every couple of weeks we’ll showcase one of the fine residents of the Backfabrik, Wooga’s home. This week we sat down with Linda, Wooga engineer and co-founder of the Girls Games Workshop which has done great work with game developers of the future here in the Wooga office.
Hey Linda, we’ll start with a crucial question. If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Oh, good one. Taste wise, I think I would go for fries, but since it’s not super healthy I probably would switch that to Thai curry.
Green or red?
Golden.
Where’s home and how did you end up here?
I would say home is now Berlin. I’m originally from West Germany, from Gelsenkirchen. I studied for my bachelors and came to Berlin because they had a Masters in computer science with a focus on gaming.
Could you tell us a little about your day to day work in your job?
I’m working on Tropicats, which is a puzzle game we launched towards the end of last year. It mixes this nice building mechanic with matching fruits. So it’s a fruity match-3. My daily job is working on that core part of the game, implementing new features and things like that. I meet with game designers about new features and then I work on trying to implement them. At the moment I’m working on the logic system for a canon that shoots in 4 directions.
And when you say, ‘working on the logic’, how does that work? Is it an algorithm? Is it…I have zero idea.
We’ve set up this really nice system. You have a level editor where you can paint where the fruits should be. Then you can play and start the level editor and test it. Then, there’s a ruleset. So I can determine whether this ‘thing’ that we are implementing behaves one way or another. Then I integrate that set of rules into the existing system.
And that’s the logic?
That’s basically the logic.
What’s the best moment you’ve had at Wooga?
I’ve been working in the Tropicats team since I joined so to launch the game already has been a pretty great experience. Before I started at Wooga I connected with Glenna who works here, she was searching for help to organise a workshop targeted at girls. We met for the first time at a tech crunch and last year we finally managed to make a Girls Games Workshop. Wooga supported us a lot with the event by letting us host it in the office and having those girls making their games was a really great moment.
If you would have done any other career, what would it have been?
I have always said that if I ever get tired of making games I would go into woodworking and make furniture.
Interesting. How come?
I had this old desk at home I wanted to change, so I just sawed it into two pieces, got some extra wood and made it the shape I wanted to have. It was quite fun. I also think the stuff I learned in computer graphics and modeling could help me create 3D models of furniture I want to build.
Certainly the best answer to that question we’ve gotten so far. What would be your Desert Island Game?
Monkey Island.
Which one in particular?
I was 15 years old when I played Monkey Island 3 and after that I discovered on an Amiga that there was 1 and 2, but I think I fell in love with point and click adventure with the third.
Is there anyone’s work at Wooga you’d like to give a shout out too?
If I could pick someone from our team, it would be Chris, our storywriter. Sometimes when I test play our game I laugh out loud, the story and the dialogue is so good.
If you could be any animal, which animal would you be?
I think I would go for a seal, because then I could catch waves.
Thanks, Linda.
