Congratulations on your Payload anniversary, what’s been the highlight of the past two years?
Wow! Where do I start? The biggest highlight is the people; I love being part of the team and being able to contribute. Seeing what we’re creating unfold and being part of that is exciting, and that makes me wake up with a smile. It’s fantastic to be part of a great company.

What does your role entail?
As a senior artist, I get to do anything related to art, from a simple model of a rock to putting a scene together in the game engine. I help team members with any problems and solve any issues.

What’s the best thing about working at Payload?
Working with a friendly team who are just as enthusiastic makes me happy to be part of a team like this. It’s great having the freedom to express myself daily and work with different ideas.
I like the work ethic at Payload; they care about people, from the main guys to the director, team leads and colleagues in the battlefield of the art universe creating the game.

What are you excited about for the future?
I’m most excited about being part of a growing company and the adventure of making a very nice game that I do enjoy contributing to every day.

The post Meet a Payloader: Oliver Bermejo Hidalgo (Senior Artist) appeared first on Payload Studios.

How have you settling into life at Payload?
My first year at Payload (and the games industry) has been fun! Everyone is nice and welcoming. Especially now that we are back in the office, it was great to meet people in person again. I particularly enjoyed joining some of the after work tabletop RPG groups and exploring places around our office.

What does your job involve?
I touch base on all sorts of things around the Tentacle Zone including our residents, workspace, events and the incubator programme.
My daily routine includes working with our facilities team to make sure residents in our office have what they need, schedule weekly virtual events and plan different types of socials in the office.

What’s the best part about your role?
We have run the Tentacle Zone Incubator Programme since 2021 which aims to help game developers from underrepresented backgrounds around the world. Being part of a team who cares about others with the goal to make a difference in the industry is one of the best feelings you can get at any job.
Besides this, I also get to use my creativity and throw some themed parties for our Tentacle Zone residents. It was fun and challenging – the best part was to hear people say they enjoyed the events!

What’s the hardest part of your job?
This is my first year in the games industry and starting to bring back in-person events after such a long time can be challenging! At the same time, most of our residents were also planning their return to our co-working space so there were a lot of things that needed to be considered and handled with thought.
I am very lucky to have Nisha guiding me through the process and receiving the greatest help from our facilities team. We were able to host a number of different industry events and visits to the studio throughout the summer!

The post Meet a Payloader: Karen Yun (Events and Games Hub Manager – Tentacle Zone) appeared first on Payload Studios.

We were thrilled to have you join the Payload team last year, but what brought you to the studio?
I was looking for the next challenge for me to grow and learn in my career, and I saw Payload Studios as a perfect place for that! After applying for a Design role and being in contact with Kris [Payload’s Lead Designer], I was adamant I had made the right choice. After passing the interview process and meeting the team, I became an honorary Payloader!

One of the awesome things that gravitated me to joining Payload, was the people! Each of them with their own experience they’ve accumulated in the industry, to which I would be able to learn from and pick their brains on various subjects.

We’re happy to have you on the team! Can you tell us a little bit about what you do at the studio?
I’m a Junior Designer and I’ve been working on the game design aspects for future updates for TerraTech – starting from the early stages of brainstorming to documentation, implementation, and fine-tuning/balancing.

What does a typical day look like for you?
I’m up at 6 AM in the morning for the gym! This gives me enough time to get my creative juices flowing before I kick off the day. The mornings usually start off with stand-ups with the feature teams I’m on. We can catch up on the progress of the sprint and see what tasks are being handled by everyone.

Typically, my afternoons are usually filled with design tasks, e.g. game balancing, feature implementation, or reiterating feature documents based on feedback from the team. Also, there are the odd meetings that happen here and there as well.

Can you tell us a bit more about what your typical daily tasks involve?
My daily tasks for any given day are dictated to making TerraTech the best game it can be! One day I’m writing up concepts and ideas for potential features, working with other team members to focus on the vision for a system/feature to ensure that our goals are clear and headed in the right direction with it. Another day may involve fine-tuning attributes within the game, such as speed, damage, and other forces that dictate how things move and react when the game is played.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Payload?
I love working with so many different types of people. It keeps the job fresh, interesting, and challenging and allows me to learn from each individual on the team. I love the process of starting with an idea and being an important part of how that can become something potentially a lot of people can experience and enjoy.

The post Meet a Payloader: Taku Mavhunduke (Junior Designer) appeared first on Payload Studios.

Roseanne has just had her first Payloadaversary (1 year working at the Studio) and we wanted to get her thoughts on how it’s gone so far and what she’s looking forward to. So let’s take a look.

Congratulations on your Payload anniversary, you’ve been here for over a year! What’s been the highlight of the past year?
Getting to meet everyone in person once Covid restrictions ended and we could return to the Office. It was strange starting a new job but not actually getting to meet everyone.

What does your role entail?
I look after the building, facilities and everything that goes with it from alarm systems, furniture, keys, events and bits like making sure we have tea and coffee and watering the plants

What’s the best thing about working at Payload?
There is a mix of people from industry veterans to people in their first gaming job. There’s a good combination of experience

What are you excited about for the future?
I’m excited for the studio to grow and for new people to join.

The post Meet a Payloader: Roseanne Robinson (Facilities Manager) appeared first on Payload Studios.

Last time we introduced you to Andy, our Senior Designer. Now it’s Grace’s turn to talk about settling into life at Payload Studios and giving us an insight into some of the awesome things she gets up to.

Grace Carroll, Lead Community Manager at Payload Studios

How have you settling into life at Payload?
Really well! It is funny now that we’re back in the office, because even though I’ve been here since September, it still feels really new! I’m getting used to learning where the meeting rooms are and it’s really nice seeing people face to face. I’m especially enjoying all the social activities at Payload – everyone is so friendly, and it’s nice to have some fun at lunch or after work.

What does your job involve?
Lots of things! Currently there’s a lot of planning – we’ve got a lot of things down the pipeline and I’m trying to make sure that we have the best plans in place to make the most of them. I also spend time in meetings with the development team – even if I don’t often have anything to contribute, it’s important to me to make sure I’m keeping on top of what’s going on in the game. Other than that, I try to keep up with the latest updates on social media platforms, work with my team to make sure we’re engaging and communicating with the players, and anything else I’m needed for!

What’s the best part about your role?
When we get to share something new and exciting that we know the community will love! It’s really nice getting to share in their excitement about what we do, and showcase the hard work of the development teams.

What’s the hardest part of your job?
Not being able to talk about everything straight away! We’d always love to be able to share the cool new stuff we’re working on but sometimes it’s just not ready. Sometimes making plans feels hard, because looking at a blank Excel spreadsheet is always intimidating, but that just makes it more satisfying as the cells start to fill up and the plan comes together!

Congratulations on being included in the She Plays Games 100 List, what does that mean to you?
It’s really great to be included among so many cool women! It sounds silly now, but when I was younger I didn’t see a path into the industry because I couldn’t see any women working there. I’ve been lucky enough since then to work with a lot of amazing women who have been inspirational to me, and become close friends, and I think having the visibility of something like the She Plays Games list is very important.

The post Meet a Payloader: Grace Carroll (Lead Community Manager) appeared first on Payload Studios.

Last year we welcomed several new Payloaders, including Andy Harmon who joined us as a Senior Designer. In this month’s post we’ll be talking to Andy about why he joined Payload and what being part of the studio is like.

Andy Harmon, Senior Designer at Payload Studios

We were thrilled to have you join the Payload team last year, but what brought you to the studio?
I had been working as a consultant for a few years but really missed caring about the project I was working on and having something to pour my passion for games into. A trusted recruiter suggested I speak to Payload and after chatting to Kris [Payload’s Lead Designer] and Russ [Payload’s CEO], I had a positive impression of the studio and the feeling that a move to Payload could work out well.

Not only did the project fit my sensibilities, the aims and goals of the studio outside of just making games fit my own. These include a desire to help lift up people in the industry and, create a community around making good games, balancing life with work and mentoring those just starting out. And it has worked out great – I’ve got the project to make my mark and invest my passion in, a company community that is supportive and interested in my wellbeing, and opportunities to give back and share experiences.

We’re happy to have you on the team! Can you tell us a little bit about what you do at the studio?
Design at Payload Studios covers a lot of different opportunities. Shepherding designs from inception into production and brainstorming new goals for the systems and gameplay make up the majority of my time, but there are plenty of opportunities to share my experiences with other disciplines. As a Senior Designer I am also supporting the other designers with feedback and mentorship.

TerraTech, Payload Studios’ Flagship Game

What does a typical day look like for you?
As a morning person, I’m up early and getting started early. The couple of hours of focus time I get before our standups kick off are some of my most productive. I spend that time getting ready for the rest of the day – making sure that all the documentation and notes are ready for the day’s meetings and feedback. Then I meet with my feature team for us to catch up and go over the sprint progress and catch any tasks that have popped up.

The afternoon is usually split between meetings and implementation tasks. I really enjoy the opportunity to get into the development environment, make changes and see them immediately. It keeps me close to the project and breaks up the day from just talking about things to actually doing them.

Can you tell us a bit more about what your typical daily tasks involve?
I would say that you can separate the work I’m doing into three groups: ideation, implementation and iteration. At any given moment I have something that is being thought up and discussed within the team from a framework of goals, a design that is being implemented and an existing design that is being spruced up with improvements and experimentation based on feedback and playtesting. It can feel like spinning plates but it also keeps me happily working on things in different stages of development.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Payload?
My job is all about communication, whether to the player in the form of design and intention, or to my colleagues in the form of where we are going and what we are doing. One of my favourite aspects of working at Payload is the company culture of feedback and respectful communication which helps to make my job fulfilling and obstacle free.

A big thanks to Andy for answering our questions! If you’d like to hear from more Payloaders then watch this space.

We’re currently hiring for the design team! If you’re interested in finding out more about working at Payload and the current opportunities to join the team, check out our careers page here.

The post Meet a Payloader: Andy Harmon (Principal Designer) appeared first on Payload Studios.