Roll Call

[Jeff]

My name is Jeff (hey just like my forum name)

I co-own a company called Clickteam and run the entire USA part of the operations.
The other owners and founders of the company are based in Europe. We have been around for over a decade and our founders go back 20-30 years making video game development tools.

Mainly my focus now is introducing our tools into the education sector - We have seen great results so far.
So many schools from middle schools to university are picking up our tools due to the fact anyone can create a very complex and interactive 2D game using our products. They are a great stepping stone into programming but in my opinion the vast majority of people don't need to go into "traditional programming". If a product can be developed that is completely visual, completely object orientated and provides a powerful interface why would they?

I am also the developer of countless games in the causal sector (freeware only) and have written many tutorials, articles and conference sessions spouting the benefits of getting students interested in computers thru having them create video games.

But I am speaking the the believers here.

I am a card carrying IGDA member and been hanging around Pagdig since it started, but am usually too busy to make the meetings I am glad to see we are moving to a forum system over the Yahoo system.

[SalvadorsDolly]

Hi. My name is Marisa Cole. I was raised in Portland and graduated from Portland's Pacific Northwest College of Art with a painting and drawing degree. In now live in Seattle.

I have been published and or worked with publishers in print media off and on in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Even more, I enjoyed extensive gallery exhibitions in NYC, Seattle, Portland, DC, Manila, Vancouver and Bangkok. Here I tend to go more cerebral and consider myself a surrealist. I have shown along side H.R. Giger, Mark Ryden, Ernst Fuchs, Marion Peck and Eric White. These were in group shows.

Sadly, I did not pull in money like Giger. Originally painting under my given name Maurice and being TS, I decided after my last show in 05 to give up painting and go back to illustration but this time for games. This was due to increasing medical financial concerns.

I am now a 3d modeler, uv texture map painter and concept artist. I have had since 06 two professional employments via contract positions. I have worked with Irony of Fate and Aptus Games.

I am currently looking for either contract or fulltime work if lucky. Both fine art, Game Art and editorial comix can be found on my site, which is http://www.marisacole.com

Incidentally I will be showing 3 paintings at the Crypticon Horror Convention this weekend in Seattle. http://www.crypticonseattle.com/index.html

[adfellin]

I've probably lurked around on here way too much to not have posted anything yet...

I'm Aaron, currently a CS student at PSU who got "dragged" to the April PAGDIG meeting. My game experience so far is sadly mostly on the playing end of the spectrum, so I'm excited about the LearningProject1 as a chance to observe and hopefully interact with the development of a game. I've hacked away at a couple of little projects of my own, but nothing that could really be considered close to "complete" (some of them could barely be called "started").

Partially aside from games, my interests include AI and machine learning, as well as math and algorithms. Completely on the side, I also enjoy languages (in general; Spanish and Japanese in particular) and I fence (swords, not stolen goods).

[ragansi]

my name is Gilberto DeSousa aka D.

I am a graduate from the Art Institute of Portland, in video game programming. I just moved back in to the area last month. I have a great love of video games. I am currently working for a company out of tigard that does various development type projects. I am looking forward to comming back to the meetings and getting back in the loop on what things have been going on .

D

[Corvus]

Heyo! My name is Corvus Elrod and I will be moving (back) to Portland at the end of September, 2008. I am a Freelance Storyteller, with a traditional and improvisational performance background. I began incorporating what amounted to game mechanics into my shows in an effort to give the audience a greater sense of participation in the the performances and it was only a matter of time before I decided to reverse the process and begin exploring incorporating my improvisational skill set into game mechanics. It's been an awesome journey.

I now find myself self employed and writing for video games to pay the bills while I blog extensively on the topic of video games as a narrative medium and dedicate my studio (Zakelro Story Studio) to the exploration of Participatory Storytelling, which is our term for where Story, Play & Community come together. Once we're in Portland, I hope to expand the studio's creative output to include live performances that challenge the audience to rethink their passive role and fully realize their importance to the events unfolding on stage.

I've lived in Portland twice before and I suspect I'll be staying for much longer this time around. I enjoy nursing a hot cup of coffee or a room-temperature pint of stout. I know some very talented local Irish musicians, so the chances of finding me at a pub with the latter in my hand are probably pretty high.

I'm very much looking forward to meeting you in person (those I've not already met at GDC), getting involved with the group, and making my skills available for your projects. See you in a little over a month!

[Antraxx]

I've also lurked, time to introduce myself to those that don't know/don't rememebr me.

My name is Brandon Salcedo, I'm an artist/designer/musician focusing on anime-style character development and pre-production ideas for games (which is just a fancy way of saying I want to make games, using my talents). I also do a whole lot of conceptual and graphic design.



My musical background conists of 10+ years self-taught keyboard skills, and 7+ years sequencing. Here too I focus on the game industry, having written several of my own old-school compositional pieces (less orchestral and more chip-oriented). I have developed several styles within this area of the industry and know how to craft a good, catchy unique tune.

It's probably no surprise that I'm obsessed with playing games, too, and love to talk to others about them. I own every console except PS3, and have a library of 70+ titles for the PS2 alone (mostly purchased used).

I've sparsely visited PAGDIG's meetings, but I hope I can visit more in the future (part of the problem is commuting). I have witnessed the passion and drive of this community, and I know we do well to feed off eachother's experiences and advice. At the end of the day, there's just simply a bunch of good people here wanting to make a difference in some way. I'm so impressed and proud of the independent gaming community here, and wish the best for Oregon's fledgling gaming industry, and hope to some day be a part of it.

So if you guys know of any local jobs looking for character/concept artists, hook me up (Doesn't even necessarily have to be in games).

Nice to meet everyone new here, look forward to seeing you at a future meet-up.

[bcthompson]

Hi all,
My name is Brendan. I've lived here about a year, and I enjoy 3D modeling of buildings and environments. Professionally I come from the architectural angle, doing massing models and renders of building designs for a firm in Monterey, CA. Up here I've found the architecture field hard to break into, but I've always been a big gamer (mostly PC) and I'd love to design environments for sci-fi or fantasy games but am also conscious of how hard it is to break into the game industry and how poor the pay is when you're just starting out. Anyway this group looks like a way to meet some people in this area and bounce ideas off them. My brother is actively working on a pretty cool game and he lives in this area, so he's interested as well.