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Interviews: Anastasia Interview

Interview: Anastasia (Amateur Scenario & Level Designer)
Interviewer: GeekWoman
Download Age of Empires Demo from FilePlanet

Geek Woman: Please, will you introduce yourself to our readers?
Anastasia : My name is Anastasia, I'm an amateur scenario and level designer for Age of Empires II (RTS) and soon Age Of Empires III. I am a proud member and Head of Tsunami Studios, a scenario design team established in 1999. I'm also a dedicated moderator and staff writer for Heaven Games, Age of Kings Heaven.

Geek Woman: What is scenario and level design?
Anastasia : Scenario and level design is the creation of scenarios, levels, maps, mods, and AI scripts (artificial intelligence), that are the stages, missions, game-plot or other venue of player interaction for a given game. This is done with scenario design or level editors that either are packaged with a game, or provided as an aftermarket product. These editors and other tools such as 3D Studio Max, Maya, and XSI are special software developed for the purpose of creating scenarios and levels.

Scenario and level designers are the directors of the game-play experience, or as Cliff Bleszinski at Epic Games put it the "digital architects." A game succeeds or fails here, and this makes the scenario or level designer one of the most important members of the game development team. It can also make the amateur or fan designer important to their game's community of players.

Some games that either ship with level editors and/or have some third party editing software are; Age of Empires II, Age of Mythology, Empires - Dawn of the Modern World, Star Craft, War Craft3 and Command and Conquer for RTS. -- Half Life, Unreal Tournament, DOOM 3, and Quake for FPS. -- Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind for RPG. This is just a sampling and there are many games with design software.

Traditionally the term 'scenario design' has applied to the creation of games in the RTS genre, and 'level design' to FPS and RPG. However, scenario and level designing is needed in almost all but the simplest computer games, and for the most popular games we can be sure that these designers have played a great role in creating our player experience. It's only been in the last 10 years or so that the actual job of level and scenario designer was defined as a separate role on the Game Dev Team.

Geek Woman: Is scenario design, gaming?
Anastasia : Yes, if we consider the hardcore player and scenario design enthusiast in a comparison, there is little difference in the passion for gaming and knowledge of games they both possess. However, scenario and level designing at the fan or amateur level is done to create new player experiences, to expand, enhance, and reinvent the game's world and the objective challenges for a game. Players use their mental and physical talents to form creative and effective strategies for winning a game, and designers use their artistic and technical talents to create the winning player's experience. Moreover, I don't know of any successful scenario or level designer that isn't a hardcore gamer first. It is a cliche in my design circle to say, "I am a scenario designer because I suck at playing," but it's more like the saying 'break a leg' is to actors, and designers are and must be good at playing games.

Geek Woman: Are scenario and level design fun?
Anastasia : It's great fun, and extremely satisfying to create games from game editors and have thousands of gamers play your designs through file sharing, or tens of thousands if your scenarios are featured in a gaming magazine, and up to the professional level where potentially hundreds of thousands will play the designs that ship with the game.

We are competitive at the amateur level and often will enter contests and vie for player recognition and high review ratings in our game's community. We form teams that are somewhat similar to clans, yet they are modeled after Game Development teams. Of course the way we compete with each other through friendly rivalries with other teams and within our own team's is really just a sharing of inspiration. There is a competitive atmosphere at the professional level too, but of course this is tempered with a professionalism to be expected. When we design scenarios we are the Wizard of Oz, only the goal is to never let our Dorothy see behind the curtain or make it back to Kansas!

Geek Woman: Are scenario designers self taught, or do they have college degrees that lead to game design?
Anastasia : Most of us at the amateur level and even the professionals I know, are to a great degree self taught. However, the need for a college degree in some related course study is increasingly becoming a requirement. I guess like anything, if one is extremely talented in a specific field of expertise and gets the chance to demonstrate this, they will land a job. A college degree, or other certification can convince an employer to give the chance to demonstrate a talent. In any event, the designers I admire the most, are educated and also have some form of creative writing and/or art in their backgrounds. These two skills are essential to scenario and level design. At the fan level we can rely on our own research into written communication, game design and game theory online. I created an educational board game before discovering scenario and level design, and it seems I've always been interested in games.

Geek Woman: How can young women enter this field, or simply do it for the sheer fun of it?
Anastasia : Stay in school, play games and design scenarios and levels for games in your spare time. There are many games with editors that also have scenario and level design communities, where they can learn the basics and get feedback from players and reviewers. Seek advice from professional level designers and accomplished amateurs, also play-test or review their designs if the opportunity should arise. Here is an excerpt from a current want-ad I found from a major game developer:

* Proven first-rate scenario design skills required; be prepared to submit a scenario that is creative, polished, and balanced, and does more than demonstrate that you can use a scenario editor.
* Strong interpersonal and written communication skills—you must work and play well with others.
* Comfortable with the dedication and long hours it takes to produce a great game.
* Interest and some background in historical topics a plus.

Also, I suggest that young women set their sights even higher, and on a degree in game design. There is many accredited colleges offering game design courses now.

Beyond the "career day" questions, scenario design can be fun and satisfying for women of all ages. At the amateur level we can learn and design at our own pace. Open up the level editor that's bound to be in one of the games around the house, play with it for an hour or so, and you'll know if scenario designing is something you want to do. Level and scenario designers seem to intrinsically know who they are, anyone of us who ever took charge of the rules to board and card games, played with car and train sets, held puppet shows, made their own comics or stories, or just imagined great things, is a potential scenario and level design enthusiast, even someone like me who was born with the knowledge that Secret Spells Barbie with the magic dragonfly beats GI Joe with M-16 always.

Geek Woman: Which platform do you use? Do you need a fast cutting edge computer to design scenarios? Can you tell us the specs?
Anastasia : PC is the platform I use, but my game of choice -- Age of Empires II, is also a cross-platform game with Mac. We are gamers first, so a fast cutting edge computer appeals to us like it would any gamer, but we only need the average system specs required for the games we design scenarios for. I have the best mobo, chip, video card, and all the ram that I could afford.

* (939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 3200+ CPU
* MSI RS480M2IL ATI Radeon Xpress200 Chipset SATA PCIE w/Video, LAN, USB2.0,I EEE-1394, & 5.1 Audio
* 1000 MHz FSB
* 1024 MB (512MBx2) PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR MEMORY(Corsair Value RAM)
* Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM Serial ATA 150 8MB Cache
* ATI RADEON X700 128MB 16X PCI EXPRESS VIDEO CARD

I am disappointed with the Mobo, in that MSI isn't supporting it with Core Center, their standard over-clocking technology.

Geek Woman: I understand that you consider yourself an "amateur," is that because you haven't found a job in the industry?

Anastasia : *laughs* I'm the self appointed spokesperson and proponent of scenario and level designing for the sheer fun of it; as a hobby, as a pastime, as a hardcore enthusiast. I want to be the one that is the first to tell the women gamers out there about the great outlet for creativity that scenario design is, and tell them about the satisfaction they'll experience, and also get to play all the great scenario's they'll create too! Hopefully we'll play-test for each other, or compete in contests against each other, but more importantly I hope we'll learn from, and inspire each other.

I'm an advocate of team scenario design too, and I'm a proud member and head of my team, Tsunami Studios. There is a social aspect to the scenario design scene that I genuinely enjoy, and it is an interesting and friendly online environment with a focus. Right now the RTS community I design in is predominantly male, but I'm doing my part to change that. I also want to keep the game and software developers aware that scenario designers are a growing sub-culture of computer game enthusiasts, with money to spend.

As far as getting hired goes, I might have the skill by now, but I lack both the time and the will to design scenarios for anything but the fun of it. I have a relatively full life, that includes a job un-related to gaming that I enjoy and don't want to change now. Fan designers consider themselves amateurs because they don't make money or attempt to make a profit from their designs. We do attempt to achieve at the same level of excellence that our professional counterparts do, only it's under different circumstances.

Geek Woman: What is Tsunami Studios? What is your position there?
Anastasia : That's my crew! We are one of the oldest and most productive scenario design teams in our RTS community. Established in 1999 by Inquizative, the then four member team set out to design scenarios for Age of Empires II -- The Age of Kings. The team has come a long way since then and has had well over a hundred members join and help create our team's legacy of scenario design excellence. We have designed primarily for the RTS titles Age of Empires II -- Age of Kings and The Conquerors expansion, Empire Earth, Stronghold, Age of Mythology and The Titans expansion, Empires Dawn of The Modern World. Some of our members have designed and/or play-tested professionally for game dev studios, and some others work in related fields. We have created over 200 designs and other related projects, enjoyed by tens of thousands RTS fans. We host an online library of articles and tutorials for scenario design. The team currently has over 20 active members and we continue to share our great interest and passion for gaming and scenario design. We are also planning to design for two upcoming RTS games Age of Empires III (ES/Microsoft), and Rise and Fall (SSSI).

I am one of two acting heads of Tsunami Studios (TS), and I am responsible for guarding the team's legacy and vision. I am the only woman on the team. As Head of the team I don't rule, rather I'm the trusted guardian of team assets, the greatest being the designers themselves. Team policies are adopted by unanimous decision. So, my work is mostly administrative, but I also help to keep things in perspective for the members, and especially the younger members who are trying to juggle school and other interests by helping them to keep their priorities strait and reminding them our team is for fun. If I may, I want to plug our rivals, Woad Creations and Dragon Game Design Network, that are two even older scenario design teams. If there is any truth that one is only as good as their competition, then these two teams have certainly kept their part of that bargain.

Geek Woman: What is HeavenGames and what is your position there?
Anastasia : HeavenGames (HG) is my online home and the center of my scenario design universe. I'm Cherub AnastasiaKafka there, and I'm a staff writer and forum moderator at Age of Kings Heaven. About HG; HeavenGames operates a suite of high-quality, PC-game-related fan sites and is well known throughout the gaming community for the incredible wealth of content and gaming resources available on the sites. HeavenGames has chosen to focus on a narrow selection of games but with exhaustive coverage of each and every one of those games. This has allowed HG to develop strong communities of gamers and has allowed HG to become a valuable resource for game developers. The forums are a veritable hive of not only fan and HG staff activity, they are also regularly visited by the big names behind the games. Visitors of HG have been able to suggest game enhancements to the developers, usually through the forums, that have ultimately been included into game sequels or patches. Currently, HeavenGames serves as a portal to over a dozen well-groomed sites covering mainly RTS and City-Building genres.

Anyway, our positions and jobs at our respective game sites seem very similar (GeekWoman). Only most of my work focuses on the one game title covered at Age of Kings Heaven. There is only a handful of women involved in scenario design at HG, but like in other gaming communities we seem to have become leaders in the community. There seems to be some trend here, and I've read where women seem to disproportionately earn and take on leadership roles in many gaming venues online. So, I guess in that sense I'm not special or unique. Of course I'd like very much to see more women at HeavenGames, and especially in the scenario design forums there.

* Thanks for this opportunity to explain scenario and level design, and to note some of my experience to your readers. I've been a lurking fan of the many game previews, reviews and other articles here at Game-Vixen, but I hope to be a more visible contributor to the forums here when I visit.

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