Behind Massive Screens - a Game Development Podcast

In our second episode of the Behind Massive Screens podcast, we sit down with Lead Game Designer Fredrik Thylander to discuss game design, how it works in practice and how you approach designing a new game from scratch. And how do you, with various tricks (and cheats), create fun, second-to-second gameplay?

Welcome to Behind Massive Screens, a new podcast from Massive Entertainment! In this inagural episode we meet Lead Data Scientist David Renaudie, who will tell us more about how data science can help us understand our players and our games better, and what it means for future development.

With all the puzzle pieces that make up a AAA video game, how do you make sure that those pieces are put together in the correct way and at the right time? This is where Associate Producer Lisa Kretschmer and her team comes in! How do you project manage all the different development teams in an efficient way? How do you plan the sprints – and what even are sprints? What is SCRUM and agile developm...

In Episode 11 of the Fika Sessions, we meet UX Designer Izzy Martin to learn more about user experiences at Ubisoft Connect. How do you make sure that the users get the best experience possible? How is the design work done? What does the process look like, and how do you make sure - and test - that the user flows make sense? How do work with accessibility? Izzy answers all these questions and more...

In this new episode of our Fika Sessions, we meet Daniel Gonzalez, Build & Infrastructure Engineer at Massive Entertainment, to discuss details about what it takes to get the actual game to your machines. So you have all the graphics, audio, animations and gameplay programming. How do you get all of that into one package you can play on your console or PC? Enter the Build Engineers. Daniel and his...

The Fika Sessions are back, this time with Gameplay Programmer Natalia Belova, to discuss programming and how features come alive in a video game. How does the process look to get a feature into a game? How does a programmer work together with the design team? What does it take to make a character pet a dog? Natalia answers all of these questions and more, as we dig deeper into the world of gamepl...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, we meet Communications & Event Manager Emilia Drakeus, to discuss the inner world of corporate communications. What does it take to communicate to both employees and the outside world on a studio level? How do you become a communicator? What is the best way to get information out to the studio? Emilia also gives us practical tips on how to start writing. And i...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Luca Buonamici, Lead Lighting Artist at Massive Entertainment, gives us an insight into how you work with light and lighting in video games. Compared to the 2D planes of a movie screen, how do you light up a scene that can be viewed from 360 degrees? During the show, Luca shares his knowledge about how light affects mood, guide players and how it makes "the be...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Andrada Greciuc, Lead Game Designer at Massive Entertainment, joins host Petter Mårtensson to answer the question "What is Game Design in Video Games?". While the phrase "game design" might seem a bit abstract, and the job of “game designer” being one of those easily romanticized, Andrada makes her role easy to understand as she gives us the details of her cra...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Petter Mårtensson sits down with Alex Riviere, Audio Director at Massive Entertainment, to discuss audio direction for video games and his unique journey into the gaming industry. How do you create a sound? And how can a sound affect how we play and feel about a game? These are some of the many topics that Alex walks us through as he talks about his role as an...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, Petter Mårtensson sits down with Océane Näsström, Character Artist at Massive Entertainment, to discuss the ins and outs of Character Art and 3D modelling. A Character Artist transforms 2D concept art into fully fledged 3D characters and bring them to life in the game. They master a wide range of artistic and technical skills, and seamlessly move between diffe...

In this episode of The Fika Sessions, host Petter Mårtensson sits down with Ólafur Waage, senior programmer at Massive Entertainment, to discuss programming and how to get started with it. In the games industry, there are not only game developers – there is also a support structure to make sure that the games end up in your hands. Ólafur will not only give you an opportunity to learn about program...

In this episode of the Fika Sessions, we meet Michael How, Lead Level Designer at Massive Entertainment, to find out more about how levels for video games are made. How do you start putting a level together? How do you make them fun and meaningful? And how do you work with the other game development teams to bring it to life? And perhaps most importantly - what pastry did Michael bring for the fik...

In this inaugural episode of the Fika Sessions, host Petter Mårtensson sits down with Anna Megill, Lead Writer at Massive Entertainment, to find out more about how writing stories and narratives for video games works. What makes writing for games different from other forms of writing? How does a game writer work together with the other development teams? What kind of material is a writer on a vide...