I'm a published game designer!

I interned at Trine Games for 3 months. I enjoyed my time over there thoroughly because it was exactly what I needed at the right time - I have serious interest in game design and I needed good industry exposure to see what its like out there. I like the way game design teases the interaction designer in me - making me create gameplay that keeps the player interested all the time. I also like telling stories, so this role playing game design project was pure bliss for me. I got to sit and, literally, write the story of the main character here. The entire terrain was laid out in front of me and I could play around with it - creating buildings, quests, characters, weapons, powers and playing with the larger storyline as I wished. It was one of the most exciting projects that I have done till now - and it feels great now to know that the work bore fruit. The game was published! My work with the studio came in a difficult time when they needed a designer on board desperately, They requested me to extend my term of work there and in return, they gave me the wonderful gift of credit. The game has been published crediting the design of the game to me. I am really grateful to Trine for this. I also am grateful to Jaydev, who mentored me for most of my time at Trine.

Apart from the fun I had writing the story for the characters in the game, I really did learn a lot about gameplay. Not only did the story need to be engaging and interesting - it needed to touch upon the themes that this game has been maintaining for the last two editions, including some pretty old protagonists and antagonists - I also needed to ensure that the quests I designed really were challenging and sensible. The quests also needed to anticipate the level the player would've reached in terms of the character's experience, skills and powers (role playing games are all about those) and they needed to match in seriousness, the progress the player had made until now. I could not ask him to hunt a boar when he has already fought a serious battle. And of course, there were the times when we would take a break and go into the gaming room to play games. This was quite fun too - nobody could yell at us for playing games because, well, that was our job!