Ziba Scott

Name: Ziba Scott

Twitter: @popcannibal

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 1/1/1982

Title: Owner

Company: Popcannibal

Some games that you have worked on: 

Girls Like Robots

Elegy for a Dead World

Website: www.popcannibal.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I've always loved programming, theater and the world of ideas.  I worked for years in web development and educational IT support.  But, topically, it separated me from people.  Games lets me work with ideas that fascinate everyone.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

The creativity of others.  The simultaneous complexity and simplicity of nature.  How many feelings people have and how often we do or do not experience them.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

Resources aren't the main problem.  (Not that I have tremendous resources).  What's difficult is knowing how to effectively use resources.  Words are free and everybody can use them to incredible effect. But it's really hard!  I would use unlimited resources to train myself to be a better artist (in all senses of the word).

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

Knowing when an idea and/or execution aren't good enough and putting them behind you to start something new.  I'm still having dreams about finishing a game I stopped working on.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Share! Test! Limit my scope and then cut it some more!

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Listen to your testers. Don't correct them.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

Most people are in it for the love of it.  So I get to interact with passionate people who are very much alive and chasing dreams.

It can be hard to recognize your own successes if you compare yourself to the hugely successful outliers all the time.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Make small games and share them.  Learn. Rinse. Repeat.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Whatever your skills are, you need to be brutally honest with yourself about your own strengths and then find a way to fill in your gaps by either being more diligent or bringing in the right people.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

ALL OF THE GAMES AND BOOKS.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

Better treatment of women who make games and the depictions of them in games.  Less effort from brilliant minds poured into psychological tricks to make people pay for free-to-play stuff.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

I spelled my own name wrong on a name tag at an important networking event.  BEFORE drinking. Walked out of there with 5 lbs of candy.  Good night.