My first experience with games

I was always a big fan of computer games. My first experience with the games was when I was 6-7. My parents presented me with a Nintendo Famicom console with the legendary Turtles, Mario, Mortal Kombat games etc. I remembered for the whole of my life how I played Duck Hunt with my grandpa, and those were some of the best memories of mine. 

When I was around 9 years old, my Dad bought our first computer, downloaded the world famous games, like Doom II and I played with my friends. 

Then games receded into the background and I started to write stories. My first story was when I was 11, and it was a horror one :D.   

From 17 to 22

The school finished, and I already knew what I was going to study at: the dept of Foreign Languages, English and Mandarin Chinese in my home town Ulan-Ude. I was still writing stories and publishing articles on ecological issues in the local newspaper, magazines and two of my books were published. Mainly there were short stories of philosophical nature. 

I graduated from the University already working part time as a teacher of Chinese, but felt that I was missing something in my life. That made me move, when I was 22 years old, to St. Petersburg and started working there in some sales company which also gave me the experience of managing people and building relationships with partners. 

I should say that I tried quite a lot of different things in my life in terms of job experience. I was a volunteer working with disabled children. I worked to earn some money in promotion, even tried life-size puppets and handed out leaflets on the street. All that helped me easily find the needed approach in communication with different types of people and carefully plan my activity. Still my longest experience was individual teaching, I taught for 10 years. 

First Game Dev Job

I am that kind of a person who likes to improve my skills and try something new. Four years ago I decided to study the Game Development course which took 1 year and finished with the graduation project which we called The Frosted. It was our pet project which was decided to continue. It opened a new world of conferences, showcases and acquaintances. I formed a new team which is now 10 people. We are still working on the project in our free time. 

Second Game Dev Job

Last year I made not an easy decision which was a little bit scary and unknown at some point – to find an official gamedev job. I worked in a couple of companies trying to understand what I want and where I can apply my gained skills best. 

First was a project manager at a small company working on hyper casual projects, the second was as an art producer. Both were interesting experiences, but not exactly what I searched for.

Currently

Then quite by accident I met an HR manager of Magic Media group who offered me an interview with the Starloop team. That was definitely the providence. I successfully passed all the interviews and my big journey in this company started. 

I have been working on a mobile puzzle game, match-3, VR, simulation projects, porting from the proprietary engine and currently working on the MMO strategy game with NFT elements. That is a perfect scope to be always highly involved in different genres of games and gain an infinite amount of experience. I found what I was looking for, the circle is complete. My writing skills and fantasy have found an outlet in the gamedev and producing together with all my previous background as a manager. It is a perfect match between creativity and technical side, that’s why I love my job so passionately. 

And in general, I love Starloop because this company has great people. I have had several teams of different sizes, and all the teammates are awesome! I face challenges and do my best, but I always know that the management will also support me if it is needed as well.