“Splinter Cell: Blacklist” lead game designer Richard Carrillo recently spoke with Elon’s students at the “Game Dev Talks” event hosted by Elon’s Game Design Minor.

Richard Carrillo, the creative director of Sledgehammer Games, sat down virtually with students from Elon’s Game Design Minor program earlier this month to shed some light on the design and development process.

On September 16, Carrillo presented the lecture, “Landing Your First Job in Game Design”, to Game Design students.

Carrillo has over 15 years of experience in game design. He has developed his skills at studios across North America, including EA Tiburon, EA Chicago, EA Redwood Shores, KAOS Studios, Ubisoft Toronto, and Sledgehammer Games Toronto. Notably, Carrillo worked as lead game designer for “Splinter Cell: Blacklist” and was the game director for “Starlink: Battle for Atlas”. Armed with this knowledge and experience, Carrillo has dedicated himself not only to creating great games, but also to improving hiring practices, improving design culture, and developing the skills of game designers across the industry. Carrillo is also the author of “The Role of a Great Game Designer”, a book that focuses on honing game design skills.

In the virtual lecture, Carrillo shared his thoughts on portfolio preparation, the demands of a game designer, and the expectations of the game industry. Assistant Professor of Computer Science Pratheep Paranthaman moderated the event and several students from Game Design Minor asked Carrillo about his experience in project management, the roles and responsibilities of a creative director, and collaborative work.

“Through the Game Dev Talks event, we aim to create a platform for students to interact with game industry professionals and learn about the game development pipeline and related challenges” , Paranthaman said.

In the talk, Carrillo highlighted the importance of understanding the process of creative problem solving in game design.

“It usually boils down to what you hear in the industry, it’s the 80/20 rule, and the 80/20 rule is that the first 80% of development takes 20% effort and the last 20 80% of the development is 80% of the effort. Getting it over the finish line is the hardest thing you’ll do in game development,” Carrillo said.

Former minor game design students Mohammed Al Fadaam ’23, Logan LaMont ’23 and Dylan Pfeifer ’23 also participated in the event. Al Fadaam is the co-creator of “Harmony Overture”, a rogue-like action game, which he completed as part of the minor game design cornerstone.

“It’s very interesting to see how game development teams always have very similar issues due to lack of communication which causes issues and how to resolve these issues which end up causing more confusion because everyone starts to propose solutions without discussing the main problem,” Al-Fadeem said.

Logan LaMont ’23 mentioned that he was able to associate instances of his Game Design Minor project capstone with several points mentioned by Carrillo in the Game Dev Talks.

“Hearing about the two main issues, creative problem solving and pitching and selling, was very interesting thinking back to our project that we did in the cornerstone. We ran into some of those issues and it’s cool to to see someone who has solved these problems on a professional level in order to create great products. Overall, I found the experience great and very educational,” said LaMont.

LaMont is the co-creator of the post-apocalyptic visual novel “The Man-Eater and the Golden Professor”, which was released on Steam in May.

“The Game Dev Talks are a great way to get insider insights from the perspective of people in the video game industry. This talk was specifically about getting a job in the industry, which I found it especially valuable as someone who will soon be looking for a job outside of college,” said Dylan Pfeifer ’23, who finished minoring.

Pfeifer is co-creator of a horror survival game “Soul Caretaker”, which his team completed as part of the Game Design Minor capstone project. In this project, Pfeifer worked as level designer and environment designer.

Elon’s Game Design Minor program takes a multidisciplinary approach to the art of game design. The program welcomes students from all backgrounds to study, design and implement games. The minor includes a disciplinary sequence as the basis for a number of roles a student might play in a game creation team.

To learn more about the Game Design Minor, Click here.