Lead Game Designer David Turkiewicz talks about his current role at Phosphor Games, starting in QA, immigrating from Poland as a kid, and how the NES changed his life. Learn how his love for gaming, comics and animation steered him to The American Academy of Art in Chicago. Hear about his lack of confidence held him back from a UI job and decided to start in QA instead. 

Learn the advice he’d give himself in hindsight with 15 years of experience, along with the initiative he took in QA to use Midway Games’s wiki to learn about game development. His thoughts on the importance of learning and developing games, even if they’re small, and about having passion. Hear advice for mid or senior-level designers, why you need to challenge yourself, and the power of YouTube.

Hear about his first designer project on Stranglehold, his indie release SARCOPH, and the challenges of the game market. Learn why he loves the Switch, concerns about the industry, along with what he’s excited about. Learn from his experience in the AR/VR space and working on location-based games, like Predator VR. 

Hear how I gave him advice which helped him focus on being a designer, later working at a studio on a Facebook world builder that pivoted to social casinos. Learn what it was like during the shift from Facebook gaming to mobile, what games he’s playing now, and how he got his nickname. Hear their thoughts about the importance of creating content, putting it out for the world, getting feedback, and doing it again. 

Resources:

*Turk Twitter

*Phosphor Studios website

*Alex Ross website

*IGDA website

*Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Wikipedia

*Midway Games Wikipedia

*Unity3D website

*Unreal Engine website

*John Woo Presents Stranglehold Wikipedia

*Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy Eurogamer 

*SARCOPH App Store

*GameSpy Wikipedia

*Predator VR Steam preview

*Spooky Cool Labs VentureBeat

*Discord website

*Slack website

*Top 15 Game Design Podcasts You Must Follow in 2019 website picked Game Dev Advice at no. 8!

*Level Ex website - we’re hiring for all kinds of roles

*Game Dev Advice Twitter

*Game Dev Advice email

*Game Dev Advice website

*Game Dev Advice Hotline: (224) 484-7733

*And thanks to Charles Dike Production podcast editing 

*Don't forget to subscribe and go to www.gamedevadvice.com for full show notes with links

About My Guest 

David Turkiewicz is a Game Designer living in Chicago. He started as a QA tester at Midway Games, working on games like Mortal Kombat, NBA Ballers, and Blitz the League. He’s now a Lead Game Designer at Phosphor Studios helping other Designers, Programmers, and Artists work together to bring awesome game worlds to life. Over his career he’s contributed to a diverse list of game including: Predator VR (LBE), Damaged Core (Oculus Rift), Heroes Reborn: Gemini (PS4, XBOX One), Wizard of Oz (Facebook), The Dark Meadow (iOS), Tony Hawk Shred (PS3, XBOX 360), and John Woo Presents Stranglehold (XBOX 360, PS3, PC).

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