On 12th of October we celebrated Ada Lovelace, known as the first computer programmer, and all the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We had a chat with our AR/VR project manager Riikka Kilpeläinen for the occasion.
Tell us something about yourself?
I’m a project manager at our B2B department, so I handle our VR/AR/gamified projects at MeKiwi. When I’m not doing project management, I’m most likely doing Unity programming. I’m also involved in VRKiwi’s porting and publishing side. I’ve been working at the company since late 2020 and I did my internship here as a VR Unity programmer
What led you to this field?
I’ve played games as long as I can remember (like many people who work on games) and even if game development, or even software development wasn’t my first career choice, I’ve always been interested in computers. When I was studying fashion, I was really interested in computer graphics and drafting patterns digitally and such. So it was really a no-brainer, that if I decide to switch my plans for the future I’d end up in software development. Eventually I got into an university of applied sciences that had a degree in game development, and the rest is history. I like everything (okay, most things) about game development, production, art, programming, publishing, marketing, and I have to say I love the process behind the making more than anything. So as long as I can make some sort of interactive, possibly game-ish software, I’m happy.
What are the challenges you face/faced?
Feeling a bit lost at times, for sure. When everything seems exciting and something you’d like to learn more about and try out, it can be hard to know what’s really your thing. I’ve had to accept that being a generalist is also a position that needs to be filled in many companies, and it’s especially useful to know a bit about every area of game development as a project manager.
What’s the coolest project you worked on?
This is a hard one, since every project has its ups and downs and all of them have something cool that’s completely unique to the project. But I’ll have to say my favorites are always the ones where we overcome some obstacle together with the customer. Since our customers are usually not game developers themselves, they’ll have a completely different skillset and I get to learn something completely new about a different industry. Which might not help me with my generalist “problem”, I get really excited about whatever industry we’re working with and I’d like to indulge myself in that for a while!
Outside my work at MeKiwi, I worked on multiple games, mostly at KAMK. Each of those taught me so much about game development and especially about teamwork. I feel that the project I’m currently working on is always the coolest and my favorite, so it’s hard to give an unbiased answer!
What’s your dream project?
I like limitations set by hardware or other factors, which is one of the reasons I ended up working with virtual reality. I also like heavily stylised graphics and the challenges their workflows bring. So my dream project would be a real artsy-looking game, that heavily focuses on the artstyle and leans into the strengths of the style. I’d love to get to work as an art lead again or a technical artist of some sorts. A diverse team is a must, with everyone bringing their expertise and past experiences to elevate the project even further. As you can see, I’m more of a process-oriented person than someone who’d like to create a game in a certain genre or platform, haha.
Any tips for anyone who’s interested in this career?
You’ve probably heard this a million times but if you want to be a game developer, you just have to make games. This doesn’t mean that you have to have a big team and a company behind you, just that you need to create. My portfolio is full of tiny games I’ve made by myself within a weekend, so game jams are a great way to get motivated. One big part many people forget about game development is that you’ll need to finish your games eventually, and game jams are a great way to learn that as well! So if you’re a complete newbie, jams let you experiment on a small scale and hopefully make some connections along the way.