Episode 7: Deana Galbraith

 [music]

[00:00:21] Ashley Wade: Welcome to All Inclusive, a podcast about game development and the diverse people who make it. My name is Ash, and I'm an environment artist in North Carolina, USA.

[00:00:31] Jasmin Habezai-Fekri: My name is Jasmin, and I'm an environment artist from Cologne, Germany.

[00:00:35] Ashley: Today's special guest is Deana. They are the founder and creative director at Captilight and work with Girls Make Games. Thanks for coming on today, Deana.

[00:00:46] Deana Galbraith: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:49] Ashley: Yes.

[00:00:51] Jasmin: We're so excited to have you. This is one of the rare times we actually got an inquiry to our guest. We were both so excited to see your email and we're like, "Oh my God. Yes, we need to get to on." We're so happy that you could make it so short notice too. Thanks for making the time.

[00:01:08] Ashley: Absolutely.

[00:01:11] Deana: Thanks very much. I saw and just learn about it and from like the House of Peeps discord. I was like, "Oh my God, this sounds so cool. I have to talk to these people."

[00:01:24] Ashley: Oh, that's cool that it's being-- who runs it? It's Dani who runs the server, right?

[00:01:32] Jasmin: Yes.

[00:01:32] Ashley: I love Dani. Dani is a good egg and it warms my heart that she's like sharing the podcast in the server and stuff like that. That makes me really [unintelligible 00:01:44]. 

[00:01:45] Jasmin: It's so nice. Shout out to her.

[00:01:47] Ashley: Shout out to Dani. Really, but again Jasmin said, thanks for coming on today.

[00:01:54] Jasmin: Just to kick off our little talk today, we would love to know how you actually got into the industry. What interested in particular and what were your first steps that got you into the game industry? Made you think, "Yes, I want to be here and I'm going to stay."

[00:02:14] Deana: I guess I've always been around games. My mom, growing up, she loved the Tom Raider series. I watched her playing out on the original PlayStation for a long time. Then eventually I started playing games; really got into like the MMO tech games, like Tera, Guild Wars. I was really immersed in that and then I don't remember if it was middle school or high school, but we had a career day and this woman came in and she was like, "Hey, I write stories for games."

A light bulb just went off in my head and I was like, "Oh my gosh. I could actually do this as a career." It never really came across my mind and then from that moment on, I just planned on going to university and recently got my master's in game development and design. That moment was really a big pivotal moment for me. I don't remember the name of that woman, but she really changed my life.

[laughter]

[00:03:21] Ashley: Bless. I think that that's a discussion that I've seen in game art spaces, is that there's always kind of this conversation about how could we get more women involved in game dev. Your story is a great example of how you do that because I think that even me, I didn't know that I wanted to go into art until someone sat down with a big giant career book and an animator was in the book and I was like, "Wait, you can do that?"

I feel like that's so-- doing game art and art and stuff like that. If you think about it now, it makes sense because it's like, "Of course, someone makes this." Of course, someone spends time and has a job doing stuff like this, but I don't think it's as spoken or shown as an example or whatever to people as much as it maybe could be. I think that sometimes just giving people the opportunity to be exposed to something just opens up more doors. I think then we may realize because you said you-- what point of your life was that like? In high school or when someone came by and was showing you stuff about like game art or like art and stuff. When was that again, Deana?

[00:04:55] Deana: I can't remember if it was later in my middle school years or my high school.

[00:05:01] Ashley: That's pretty hot.

[00:05:03] Deana: It might have been high school. I think high school, they start drilling career information in your head.

[00:05:10] Jasmin: It's interesting that they already offered you something towards even games. In my school, in high school, they would always go with the very typical jobs like doctors, lawyers, whatever, even carpenter and stuff like that, but creative jobs, the thing that's really nice that a school would even recommend that. After that, did you go to university for a game-specific course or how did you continue when you suddenly had that knowledge of that, "Oh, I could go into games. That's actually an option after high school?"

[00:05:46] Deana: I think that right when that encounter happened, I told my mom about it, and she was super supportive about it. Actually, [inaudible 00:05:54]  looked into it.

[00:05:55] Ashley: We'd love to hear it.

[00:05:56] Deana: I always heard stories of parents sometimes are always super supportive. She mentioned "Oh, you might not make a lot of money because creative stuff has that stigma," but she was always super supportive, which is awesome. I looked into different schools. Luckily, Florida has some of the top-rated schools for game design. We have Full Sail, University of Central Florida. I was living in Tampa at the time, and UCF wasn't too far. It was a city that's like two hours north. I looked into that, and finished high school, and went there for my BA.

[00:06:42] Ashley: I think support [chuckles] because I had a similar thing with my parents. I was always a creative child. If we were to go from the very stereotypical left and right brain sort of thing that is not really like science. If we're going to use that for two seconds, I was always very much a right-brained child. I was into music and choir and piano and art and love glitter glue and red crayons and stuff.

I think there was always a sense that I would want to do something creative, even though I had other skills elsewhere. It was nice that my parents were supportive of it. When I think about it, my mom was like, "You can pick whatever you want, you just have to pick it and know that that's your choice," if that makes sense. It was like, whatever [inaudible 00:07:59] comes with, you have to navigate it, because I would have to navigate it myself.

Not having pushback makes a world of a difference because having family members or parents that kind of pushback against what you want to do can be really damaging, especially in your young formative years, even though I still think that I'm in my formative years. When you're a kid, and if you're the type of kid especially who just wants to make their parents proud, it can be hard if your parents don't get behind what you want to do.

[00:08:46] Jasmin: That's a good example to hear for all three of us because my mom was the same. She was very supportive, was probably because she was also from a creative field and went for architecture and she got like some pushback back from my grandparents because they were worried that it's also not a job where you earn money. It's a big issue probably that parents especially are scared that their kids are not going to have security and it's a valid reason, I think.

You don't want your kids to just be out there in the world working hard and not getting any compensation for it, which can happen. It just [inaudible 00:09:19] how she wasn't even that wrong, probably. It's good to have that support anyway, even if there is the risk of it not working out or anything. Just having that security from home and having people that want you to pursue what you're passionate about makes the biggest difference. I hope that we, maybe also as parents, at some point in our life if we want children, I'm not saying that we have to but that we just carry on that kind of sentiment in our generation into too.

[00:09:49] Ashley: You can do it aside from if someone decides to have children or not. You can just cultivate that in your community too if you're around a niece or a cousin.

[00:10:03] Jasmin: Exactly.

[00:10:05] Ashley: Like someone's friend's kid brother or something [inaudible 00:10:09] and they're interested in doing artistic related things. I don't know, I think just being supportive of kids' dreams in general is just going to be more positive for them. Always trying to build a positive community, positive spaces for your children.

[laughter]

[00:10:40] Jasmin: When you then went to university, Deana, what was it like for you there? Did you know straight away in what field within games you want to go into or did you just try different aspects of game development out? Some courses give you the option to try different things out and I'm not sure what it was like in your course. Could you maybe describe to us how that time was for you?

[00:11:06] Deana: Yes, I think the program was under the digital media program, you can pick a track and they had the game design track, and that's what I did. There's a lot of general theory type of stuff around game design, but they also teach you a little bit of everything like the 3D modeling programs, photoshop, all that good stuff. Yes, I always knew I wanted to do something in game design or level design.

As much as I love drawing art, I wasn't good at it, and I tried learning programming on my own, it just didn't really click with me. I tried to look into stuff that I might be okay, not 100% I'm doing those things and I specialized in doing my classes and stuff. I really like doing the world-building and wireframing, user flows, all the stuff. I made sure to gear myself towards game design.

[00:12:11] Jasmin: That sounds good. Did you already back then have the ambition to go further in a sense that you have your own studio or that you lead in a way? Did you already experience that kind of position in your maybe student projects, or is that something that came later after you finished university?

[00:12:35] Deana: It really came later. A lot of my projects, I mostly took on the role of designer. Yes, actually, I never really thought in my head of having my own studio. I finished school and I wanted to stay in Florida and we don't have a lot of AAA studios or anything here. I had the expectation that I might be mostly working in indie games or startups and that's where I've actually been sticking towards.

Yes, when I finished my BA, I was like, "I'm done. I'm not going back to school. I'm just going to work from home." [laughs] Then six months later, I was like, "No, I really miss learning new stuff and being in that learning type of environment, where you could just mess up and learn new things and stuff." I ended up going back for my masters at SCAD, but I did it online because I didn't want to have to move out. [unintelligible 00:13:37] That was really nice.

[00:13:42] Jasmin: What was it like doing your masters? Was it also in game design or in what field was it?

[00:13:50] Deana: Yes, it was in game design. The official title is game development and interaction design and it was really cool because they actually offer a lot of really in-depth game design classes and game art classes. They actually have a class just for game design documentation and that was amazing. I freaking love that class. It's actually where I started some of the initial concepts for a game that we're working on now called Path of Kami. I had its original concepts made around that time.

Yes, it was really nice. I built off of where-- When you're doing your BA, it goes a lot of the general top level stuff of everything for 3D modeling design and all that. Then for the master's, it was really going in-depth on those programs, like [unintelligible 00:14:49] and all that fun stuff.

[00:14:53] Jasmin: That's nice actually, that you decided to go back because maybe for a lot of people as this pressure off to finish uni you should work straight away. Even if you don't feel maybe ready yet or feel like you want to continue learning, it's great to just go back and do that, especially if you have the option. If you have even online classes, that's even better. I think that's great. When you say how much you learned that's helping you now even, that's a great choice where really, everyone should decide for themselves what works best.

We mentioned it in another episode as well, that we shouldn't rush things. Just take your time and do things that you would like to do, and go for it. Don't get pressured that everyone in the industry is-- I don't know, working here or there. Just go your path and learn, grow, and find that time for yourself to figure out what you want to do. It must have worked out great for you because now you have your own place where you're working at and can even use all that knowledge that you got through your studies. That's amazing.

[00:16:00] Ashley: I think that when it comes to-- I don't know how the best way to describe it, but the idea of continuing education is always going to be a good thing. For people-- depending on their financial situation, or living situation, or whatever, it's going to mean something different for everyone. Sometimes we can be so decided that like, "Oh, I should be at the peak of knowledge after our first round of education."

When in reality-- I think not only in art, but in a lot of fields, you're always going to be learning things. You're always going to need more training. You're always going to need to catch up to new techniques and how people are doing things and stuff like that. Sometimes for someone that means like going and getting their master's like you did, or for me, it meant taking classes at CGMA and finding some mentorship opportunities or whatever.

As long as you keep that student mentality of there is a lot of stuff to learn, it's going to only have positive outcomes for a person. There's always something to learn. It is good and we should keep learning as a people.

[laughter]

[00:17:24] Jasmin: [inaudible 00:17:24] a hard time if you're not open for learning. I met people who are so stuck in their ways and they don't want to get out of that. That's an issue when you especially work in such a fast paced industry, where as you said, there's new techniques, there's new programs, there's new ways to do things. You've got to have that mentality, it's so healthy to have so that's a great starting point. If you're already eager to learn, go for it.

[00:17:53] Ashley: For sure. It has something to do with flexibility also, just being open to learning things. That counts as one of those soft skills that we talk about, but aren't really sure maybe how to help people get up to speed with, or whatever. It's just being down to learn things and stuff. Chill stuff, chill stuff. Moving on to topic number two; you founded your own studio, which for a person like me who's very disorganized, I can't imagine.

It seems like a really big feat to take upon yourself. How did you do that? What steps do you go to to make your own studio? What was that thought process like trying to be like, "Oh man, maybe I should do this or maybe I shouldn't do this?" Just, could you tell us a little bit about what goes through your mind when you were thinking about founding your own studio?

[00:19:04] Deana: Actually, I originally Unofficially founded it back in 2018. I was still going to UCF and I had this game idea and I was like, "I'm going to work on this." I'm not a programmer, I'm not like an artist, so it was like, "Oh, I'm going to have to make a team." Then the project didn't [unintelligible 00:19:28] through just cause we're all full-time students. I just used that brand for freelance work throughout the years.

When I went to Scott and started working on Path of Kami, I was like, "No, I'll probably have to officially make it like your actual studio legally and all of that." Through that timeframe, I worked through a lot of indie game studios and startups. I leaned a lot about the business side of it like managing a studio. That helped a lot and it got me connected with a lot of awesome people so I reached out to my friend that's a game lawyer and he helped do all the legal side of things [unintelligible 00:20:14]

[00:20:13] Ashley: Beautiful. Hold on, a game lawyer? Hold on.

[00:20:16] Jasmin: Damn, that's interesting.

[00:20:18] Deana: Yes.

[00:20:19] Jasmin: He gives you his business card that says, "A game lawyer." Like what? Is that-- I'm trying to understand. Is it just like a normal lawyer but they're versed in game stuff like it's a subset? Is it just-

[00:20:37] Deana: Yes.

[00:20:39] Ashley: What? I didn't know you could do that.

[00:20:39] Deana: It's like how we have [unintelligible 00:20:40] -- oh, sorry.

[00:20:45] Ashley: No, no, no. I was just exclaiming that again, it's one of those things where I didn't know you could do it.

[00:20:53] Deana: Yes. I didn't really think about it until you start meeting all these people in conferences and stuff and it just really opens your eyes to all the different disciplines that are out there, but it's just going to law school then to decide to specialize in-- he does video game, IP stuff, and content creation. At some point, I think he was some type of Xbox content creator ambassador program thing. I can't remember the exact name. He was always into that and then decided to go to law school.

[00:21:38] Jasmin: When you met him, he helped you with the legal side of things of making your studio from unofficial to official basically?

[00:21:47] Deana: Yes, he helped me register it as an LLC, like our state [unintelligible 00:21:52]

[00:21:53] Ashley: Oh, yes.

[00:21:57] Deana: Then he helped with all the contracts that we need for whenever we need like freelancers or contributors and contractors, all that. Yes, whenever I have questions about trademarking or legal side of using specific names and stuff, he helps out with that too which is awesome.

[00:22:19] Ashley: Yes, I feel like that would be a very dicey situation to navigate by yourself.

[00:22:26] Deana: For sure. Are we going to do anything about law, can you help me, please?

[00:22:30] Ashley: Yes. That's me with law, that's me taxes, that's me with a lot of adult things, I'm just here. I'm just a machine for art, don't ask me for anything else. I also wanted to know what being a creative director means as it relates to the work that you do at Captilight. We have all these titles and stuff with game art companies and things like that and sometimes the verbiage-- verbiage? Word usage can just be weird, like different things mean different things at different places. Can you explain to us what a creative director is for you?

[00:23:23] Deana: Yes. In our sense, we use it like a person that holds the overall vision of the projects that we work on. Everything from the game playfield, user flow, marketing presentation, branding, all of that good stuff, and working with the team to get everybody on the same page, and understanding that vision of the game.

[00:23:55] Jasmin: When I think about it, it sounds very similar to what Lindsay in the last episode of All Inclusive was describing which he does as an art director. Do you guys at Captilight have also an art director that does another set of tasks, or do you merge that into the creative director role that you are having?

[00:24:18] Deana: Yes, we have a creative director. He is amazing, his name's Jose Beltran. Yes, he works more with the-- I might have a certain idea, for example, of an art style and then he'll take that, do a bunch of mood boards and help me visualize more specifically what the artist would need to be able to act on that and do that art style. He does a lot of the actual arts side of things and I'll be like, "Oh, this is what I'm thinking. I'm not sure, but maybe do this and that." Then he'll do the concepts and finalize with the art sellers.

[00:25:04] Jasmin: Okay, that's interesting. Then the creative director is the more broad picture and then it gets narrowed down by your art director. Then you have other people in the studio who will then put it into the game, like the 3D artists, UI programming and design. How does that work?

[00:25:25] Deana: Yes, exactly how you said that. I do more of the high level stuff, where I'll come up with the vision with the general direction and then I'll work with the team to make it happen. Then I also do a lot of the communications between working with our producer and the team leads. Then also working with the translators and figuring out publishing side of things and all of that fun stuff.

[00:25:54] Ashley: Hold on, translators. You've piqued my interest. What are you translating as in like? Unless there's another word for translating and that doesn't mean putting something from English into something else. What languages are you translating for?

[00:26:14] Deana: The game that we're working on, we're trying to have a translated localization to different languages. Right now, we're thinking about Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish are our main languages right now. We're working with the translators to get all the endgame content translated.

[00:26:34] Ashley: I'm very biased, I'm very excited about the Japanese outfit. I'm very excited.

[00:26:38] Deana: Oh, me too.

[laughter]

[00:26:40] Ashley: If anyone knows me, they know that I love Japanese, so I'm very excited about that. That's a lot of work, though. Goodness, so glad that I don't run a company. I'm so glad that I am a art machine and that's it because it seems like there's just so much to juggle and keep up with. I feel there might be a lot of putting out fires or whatever, impromptu that you didn't really realize that would happen until they happen and stuff like that. It's a lot to keep up with. For you, what do you think are the skills that someone would need to be a successful creative director in a smaller indie space?

[00:27:36] Deana: Being familiar with all the different disciplines is very helpful so that way you can empathize with what they're doing and understand the production side of things. Being able to pitch to clients and the team, and really motivate and inspire them to get behind a game idea is really good, like hyping them up. Yes, it's actually really helpful. I wouldn't say it's required, but it's super helpful to know the business side of things. Knowing how to work with the publishers, for example, and how that process works.

[00:28:25] Jasmin: Do you have any good resources for that maybe? That's the big mystery to many people, [unintelligible 00:28:33] the whole business side, even for us as artists, is the most daunting side of things. Many people forget about it, and we need to be well versed in that too. How did you warp your head around all of that?

[00:28:53] Ashley: Did you just learn it on the fly as you just did it a little bit more each time? Did someone take you under their wing and show you what you should be doing? What was up with that?

[00:29:08] Deana: There's a few resources online that explains the process of it all, but I didn't really fully understand it until I worked at some studios and went through that process. Then I freelanced for a publisher, which has a lot of my information has come from. Just experience has been super helpful. All the information I know now is just mostly through experience. We really wish there was more resources out there to learn.

I know there's a really awesome book out there. I think it's called The GameDev Business Handbook. I could probably grab the name of it later, but that was super helpful. It talks a lot about the publisher side of things and business and the not so fun stuff. [chuckles]

[00:30:00] Ashley: Honestly, I feel like if there's not-- How do I even word this sentence? I think that the more knowledge there is about a certain thing, the better we have a lot of websites out here that will have a bunch of tutorials for game art and things like that. It would be really beneficial if-- not that I'm going to like say, "Hey, you should do this," but I'm going to say, "Hey, you should totally consider sharing your knowledge somehow with how to approach things like this."

If it's in the form of an article or like a Wiki page or something, I don't know. I think that just peeling back the curtain and making these things a lot more approachable and easy to digest and since you have like that knowledge from where the business side and also the artistic side, you have a great opportunity to be a liaison for those two sides and say things in ways that I can understand and then say things in a way that someone on the more business side can understand like. Basically help us, Deana. I'm begging you.

[00:31:22] Deana: I'm always I going to help. I try to do marketing tips and stuff on my Twitter as much as I can. There's just so much on the business, I never really know how to really categorize and what specific questions to answer. I'm always down to help. If anyone or if you guys have any questions, just let me know.

[00:31:49] Ashley: Yes.

[00:31:47] Jasmin: Definitely.

[00:31:49] Ashley: We have the excuse to bother you now.

[00:31:54] Jasmin: It's on record.

[00:31:58] Ashley: That's great. You can't take it back now. All these people listening are our witnesses. Cool. We're going to stop right there for a little break.

[music]

[00:32:43] Jasmin: Welcome back to All Inclusive. Before the break, we talked about how Deana entered the industry and what it was like working as a creative director, founding your own studio, so really exciting stuff. Moving on from that, you told us about that you're actually working with Girls Make Games where you talk with universities.

We were wondering, is there anything specific you think could help to make the industry look more inviting especially for young girls who want to get in there? Also maybe shortly explain what your role is in the Girls Make Games initiative?

[00:33:18] Ashley: Yes, we talked about it earlier, but just like bringing awareness around games as a career choice. I know when you're doing forms and stuff, normally you wouldn't see like computer games as like an option for example.

Just bringing more awareness there and just working with awesome organizations, initiatives like Girls Make Games, and to make the industry more inviting, really like in the hiring process like showing that you're promoting inclusivity and diversity and not just showing that in your job ads or your website and stuff but also with your management team, like making sure everything is good there and there's overall language as well.

[00:34:17] Jasmin: Within Girls Make Games because the thing is I don't think we have that in Germany. I've always seen how the US has this, and I think the UK too, and I think it's such a great initiative because as I understood it, you go to schools and make games with younger girls and get them to like engage more with game development. What exactly do you do there and what was your experience like working with younger girls on making games?

[00:34:45] Ashley: Yes. I first started out with doing like a summer camp before COVID. It was really cool. They did these in-person summer camps where they would post them at different

AAA studios, like I got sent to California to do one at PlayStation and it was like a whole summer where I got to teach girls from-- I believe is 10 to 16, 17, something that. How to use unity and they have a really cool asset pack. They don't directly do the coding, it makes things a lot more accessible for them to be able to build things. It's like a pack of really cool tools that they can use to make their games.

We taught them game design and how to use some friendly art programs and stuff. We work with them to make games. I did that for one summer and then when COVID hit, they would do online virtual workshops and summer camps and stuff like that. I was kind of doing the same thing, but virtually.

[00:35:59] Jasmin: What's the response like? Do you have a lot of girls coming to these events, and do they have any prior knowledge about games or anything in particular? Is that their first time engaging with it?

[00:36:14] Deana: For the in-person summer camp that we did, there were some-- since Girls Make Games had been doing it for a few years, there were some people that came back and already knew how to do stuff. When we switched over to doing virtual classes, it was a lot of first-timers and getting the whole game idea and their game design side of things, so it was completely new. It was really crazy because these girls are so talented. A couple of days throughout the week of meeting, for example, the most recent one I did, we taught them how to use construct three, and to make a platformer type of game.

[00:36:57] Jasmin: Oh nice.

[00:36:58] Deana: Oh my gosh, I remember this one girl made her whole-- the goal at the end of the class was to have a level with small enemies and things you can collect and stuff. She had hidden areas in there and all these other fun stuff, but I guess outside of class, she did her own research and learned all this new stuff from tutorials and all that. That still leaves a big impression on me, but they're very excited to be learning and making games. Anytime they do a script and it works, it's super exciting for them to see it working.

[00:37:37] Jasmin: It must be really rewarding to see, I think, especially seeing that there is interest and against many people's beliefs that girls are just not interested in tech stuff or games, that's-

[00:37:50] Ashley: Yes, what is that?

[00:37:51] Jasmin: The contrary.

[crosstalk]

[00:37:55] Jasmin: Where did that come from? [chuckles] I think like, again, with initiatives like this, it kind of just goes to show that if you give people the opportunity, if you make things available to them and accessible, you'll get more of a response than you think you will. Obviously, everyone's study is going to be a little bit different when it comes to games or whatever. I know, for me, I didn't intend to go into games, it just happened or whatever for whatever reason.

I think that if we can continue to give girls or safe spaces to interact with tech stuff because that could kind of be a little bit of a minefield sometimes. I think you'll see a lot more people being excited about it and engaging with it and doing cool problem solving and things like that when it comes to game art in more technical-related industries and stuff like that.

It kind of makes sense to have stuff like that because it's probably again, a societal sort of thing where, I think, there's a couple things going on like game art isn't that old? It's in like the state that we're [unintelligible 00:39:26] in right now is a bit new. Where you're going to have people in the next couple of decades, trying to figure out about what retirement looks as a game does because they were there when they first started getting steam and stuff that.

I think because game art is kind of a newer sort of frontier or whatever, may be, that's also-- well, not even maybe. I think that's also why some of the inclusivity of the industry is a little bit behind than what maybe some people would like it to be. When you think about-- I know when I was in middle school, I went to a summer camp for marine biology for whatever reason, [chuckles] and like you have summer programs and things like that out there to get kids interested in things in a fun way that's accessible to them and that they can understand and interact with.

The same thing should be, and I'm glad to see that this happening with things in game art and technical things, technical industries and stuff like that, because that's sort of thing should be available to people. I think people will be a lot more surprised to find just how many girls are interested in video game things. [laughter] It's been so coded as like male for the longest time, but I think that, if you look around, it's actually-- like there's still a lot of work to be done, but I think it's becoming more and more diverse in a positive way, as time goes on.

[00:41:17] Jasmin: Yes, I guess you have to break that whole stereotype of it because the whole computers and programming since that all like started from, I don't know, the 60s and 50s, it was a very male dominant medium, and because it was made with the military together and all that it's something that's been made in a time where women just didn't have the opportunity to even access these technologies.

It really should now be the time to open it up and just break all those walls that people build over the years. Just break them away, so we don't end up with a situation that's like prevailing in other industries and jobs, where men have been there for centuries and whatever and you can't even go in there as a woman comfortably. Having these type of things and showing young girls from so early on that it is an option to do this and it's fine and to have the safe space. It's amazing.

It shows how you said that there are these girls who are so keen to learn things and do their own research even it's-- Yes, I think it's really inspiring to see. Do you actually know if any of them pursued to make games later again too, of if they plan to go to university or anything like that?

[00:42:35] Deana: Unfortunately, you can't have contact with them outside of the class just for security reasons, but I remember asking like, "Hey, anybody ever thought about games as a career?" I would ask it like the beginning of the classes and the end, and a lot of times there is like a lot of interest which is really awesome to hear. Back to like where we were talking about earlier, I think it's really cool to be growing up as a kid right now because it's like so many more kid-friendly games, I feel like, like Minecraft or Roblox. Oh my gosh, you hear about Roblox and Among Us now all the time whenever I'm [chuckles] teaching classes.

[00:43:17] Jasmin: Yes, Roblox is really accessible. Like I know from my partner, he would make games with that when he was 10 or something and because they are very accessible. [chuckles]

[00:43:26] Ashley: Wait. Hold on. It's been around that long? Sorry. This just goes to show just how little I know about [laughter] game things. I didn't know it was that old. I was not a gamer growing up. I didn't play Minecraft. I didn't really play anything like that. I thought Roblox is like in the past 5 years, but it's 10 years old or something? Wait.

[00:43:56] Jasmin: It's really old like we are 24 now so he was playing it 14 years ago. [chuckles]

[00:44:03] Ashley: What? That's crazy.

[00:44:06] Deana: I didn't know it was 10 years either. I thought it was like [unintelligible 00:44:09]

[crosstalk]

[00:44:10] Ashley: Hold on.

[00:44:11] Jasmin: It's really old. My partner would say would make games on it. He had his own game modes and people would ask him to make more levels of the thing he was doing. I think it's great actually that as a kid, you can make these things and especially now that it's more known because I also never heard of Roblox until a couple of years ago. [chuckles] I think there really needs to be maybe more initiatives, even using these things that these games are already out there and show kids that they can make all these super creative things for them.

[00:44:46] Ashley: Just for the record, Google says that Roblox first released in 2006.

[00:44:53] Jasmin: Yes.

[00:44:53] Deana: Oh. Wow.

[00:44:55] Ashley: What? What was I doing in 2006? Binging Anime?

[crosstalk]

[00:45:00] Jasmin: I was playing Animal Crossing probably.

[00:45:04] Ashley: Oh my word. Today I learned that Roblox is older than some children. Wow.

[00:45:12] Jasmin: It's crazy. It's nice to see that it's still alive and makes people like kids especially inspires them to even make games in that playful way. Same with Minecraft, when you see how kids make all these adventure [unintelligible 00:45:26] inside Minecraft or these themes Harry Potter levels or whatever. It's inspiring. It makes me excited that as you said, it's an amazing time to be a kid right now. [chuckles]

[00:45:39] Ashley: Absolutely, for sure. Moving on to our final topic for this episode, kind of wanted to know your thoughts about how you can make an inclusive space within studios and like indie or whatever and any sort of tips you would give to other people when making a studio, and how they can make their spaces more inclusive.

[00:46:17] Deana: Yes, I think overall, like having a welcoming and positive culture. I think accessibility is really important. Like, especially with COVID, it's really taught us like remote work is possible. People still work from home and that lowers a lot of barriers, I feel like. I know when I made Capitalites, I was really wanting to have it like, not fully remote, but like majority be like, work from home but, I feel like that lowers a lot of barriers. When you're hiring like just like, overall being really flexible.

[00:46:55] Ashley: How people talk about stuff in the space kind of matters. I don't think that everyone necessarily has to agree on everything, because I think there's going to be some sort of level of conflict but I think that little things that I've noticed that have been, in my experience that have been kind of indicators that a place is a positive space to be in is like, people on my team encouraging me to take mental health days, if I need it. Stuff like that makes it feel more welcoming and more inclusive because your mental health is as important if not more important than your job and it has a lot of effect on how well you do your job, and how you interact with the team.

I think that kind of making sure the people know how you feel about things like that, it's really important because sometimes I think it's also easy to assume that people just know that you're chill with something, or that you're accepting of something. I think for people who are kind of nervous about stuff or kind of on the fence about how a space may receive them kind of taking a little bit of time to kind of talk and get to know that person and put their, what's the word? Their concerns to rest and just being like, "Hey, like, if you need X, Y, and Z, like, we could talk about it, or if you're not feeling up to something or whatever, we could talk about that too."

I think just making yourself available as a resource to people for when things get kind of rough really helps. Again, I'm not really looking to make a studio or anything like that but I think that as a team member, something that is important to do when trying to make a space more inclusive is also like listening to people and hearing them out with certain issues that may come up. I don't know, like, if someone is coming to me, asking me about a how to solve some modeling problem. I'm just in the call kind of hashing things out and trying to keep things light.

If they bring up to me that they're really frustrated with something or something's been really bothering them, like giving them the opportunity to talk a little bit with about it within their comfort level or whatever. I think just anything you can do to make sure that someone feels welcome is just going to make it more positive. I know that that's kind of weird, with like it's a workspace, not our personal space, and blurring those lines could be dangerous sometimes. People can overstep boundaries or whatever on the giving and receiving end. I think that there still is a way to professionally keep things open and chill and nice.

I don't know. I think it goes along way when you are more open about things, puts a lot of fears at ease, especially if you're a junior or you're just starting out or anything like that. You're unsure about anything. It's been a roller coaster getting to this point and having someone to just be there for you and listen to what's going on, I think, is really positive.

[00:50:53] Jasmin: I think you also brought up a good point earlier, Deanna, that being flexible is a good aspect of making a space feel more inclusive because a lot of times people claim that applicant's group for studios is very small and they have to just work with what they have. Especially with COVID right now, you don't have to be so narrowed down on, I think the applicants could we have just in that city or in that country, even.

Being more open to having people from outside of your country, applying to your studio and working remotely really opens up a big candidate pool of maybe even people who never even considered working at your studio because they just physically can't. They can't move because they have families, because of visa issues, because they just don't want to maybe move to a certain country and I've been there, especially. It just closes a lot of doors for you.

Seeing that studios are actually open and want to have somebody from a different cultural background or place and don't care that you're not going to be willing to move all across the sea just to work for them. I think that's already a big positive sign as well because it shows that the studios they are not expecting you to give up your entire life or whatever, just to work for them. There's this also very unhealthy mentality that the industry sometimes perpetuates that your job is the number one priority. Nothing else in your life matters. You should just be willing and grateful to just like leave everything behind and leave and go for a job.

I think it's great that you're also saying that your studio is trying to be accommodating to that and having people who are, I guess, not physically there in the space with you, especially now with COVID it doesn't even matter anymore, that much, I think.

[00:52:47] Deana: Exactly. Like you said, there's a really large financial barrier in the whole mental health side of things, why should you have to leave your family behind to like go try to pursue your dream and games. We actually have, because of, you mentioned being able to have all these applicants. I know when we are looking for like contractors and stuff it really opened up the pool for us. Like we, right now we have people in the US, the UK, someone from Macedonia [unintelligible 00:53:17] and this wouldn't have been possible unless we were remote studios.

[00:53:24] Jasmin: Is it like, I don't know, a challenge for you to work that way for people from different time zones and countries. That's like another aspect, I guess, people bring up with why they maybe decide against hiring people outside of the country or city or whatever. It's a valid reason. Of course, you want everyone to be available at the same time. But has this been an issue for you or do you think it doesn't really matter, isn't like a big issue in that sense?

[00:53:56] Deana: So far we've been able to work around it. What we do is we have like a weekly team meeting where we pick a time and we found out that 3:00 PM Eastern standard time is a good time for everybody. We'll do our big all hands meeting then, and then we'll do like individual meetings depending on if there's anything else we need to meet about. A lot of times we use Discord to chat and communicate. A lot of times we try to be as transparent as possible. We will try to all of us like talking in Discord that way everyone can be aware of what's going on.

[00:54:33] Jasmin: Like having good communication is the key aspect, I think. As long as people talk and say what's up if they need help or anything like that then I think it doesn't even matter what time zone you are or which country. As we know, we are all sitting somewhere else in the world and we managed to find a good time where we all can talk and have a nice conversation. That shouldn't be ever the barrier. I think there is ways for anything to solve it, I think.

[00:55:05] Ashley: Yes. I think we'll see more. Well, I can hope we'll see more of remote working opportunities happening because I think that is going to be a key for inclusivity also is to open up opportunities for people. As long as they have an internet connection and they have the skill to just let them work. It's unfortunate that a lot of studios are like there's hubs or whatever and a lot of them are in the West or whatever and not everyone can move.

We don't know people's family situations or whatever. People could be taking care of, like their aging parents and that really matters to them. They want to stay with them and help them out and stuff like that, but they still want to work in game development and having remote possibilities can help accommodate people like that who are otherwise great artists and just need the opportunity to go get their foot in the door and get started. It's really cool and neat that you're working with people from all over the world for Capitalites. That's good to hear and I hope that other people will continue to do similar things.

Wrapping up here, if I could even attempt, [chuckles] I know for people listening, we have an outline that we go through and there's a bullet that says final thoughts/takeaways. When it's my turn to do it, I panic because I'm like, "Oh, I have to remember everything that happened in this hour conversation and try to say something about it."

Just to wrap up, I think that this episode has been a little bit more about the inclusivity aspect and things that we can do to make sure that people feel welcome and that places are inclusive safe spaces for people to interact in. I can hope that as we move forward and as we get more diverse people coming in, bringing their ideas, bringing their history, bringing their backgrounds with them, that we can have more interesting games and more interesting projects.

I think that's what it ultimately means. When we get more people involved from different places, we can get some more exciting and cool things happening. To finalize this all, you can find Deanna and her studio Capitalites on Twitter and her website and we'll be including those links in the description box below on whatever you're listening to, YouTube or SoundCloud or whatever.

Thank you so much, Deana, for coming onto the podcast and having a good chill time. Hopefully that wasn't too nerve wracking, hopefully you'll live.

[crosstalk]

[laughs] Thank you so much for honestly reaching out because that's something that, well, I don't want to say no one because our podcasts is still very young, it's not even a year old, but we love to see it. If people want to bring themselves and be like, "I want to be on it," then I would love to see that email in our inbox. If you're like [unintelligible 00:58:54]

[00:58:57] Jasmin: Thank you so much for coming on, Deana, and also for having the courage to write us an email, I think that's amazing. As Ash said, it's exciting to see and people should put themselves out there more like this. I think it's important especially when they are doing such great things in the industry and thriving and striving for good things. It's always important to put a spotlight on people like that. Thanks so much for coming on.

[00:59:27] Deana: [chuckles] Thank you.

[00:59:29] Jasmin: If anyone who's listening, as we said, if you want to suggest somebody or if you would like to come on to podcast like Deanna has done, anything, the great positive thoughts within their community, along with being great at what they are doing, you can send us an email at allinclusivepdcst@gmail.com. That's all inclusive, no spaces, P-D-C-S-T@gmail.com. They can be a 2D artist, 3D artist, community manager, studio founder, anything you want. We're really open to having a diverse range of people on this podcast to put a spotlight on a lot of aspects of game development.

[01:00:10] Ashley: For sure. Thank you guys for joining us for the-- what number episode is this?

[01:00:18] Jasmin: Seven.

[01:00:19] Ashley: Seven? Episode Seven of All Inclusive. We hope that you had as much fun listening as we did talking. You can find us on a couple of different social media channels. You will find these in the description box below. So far, right now, that is going to be on Twitter for our official account, YouTube and Spotify. Also, I think we're going to try to include, since Deana has had some work with Girls Make Games, we're going to include that link also so people can learn about that and see what's going on.

Thanks again. We hope you'll join us again for another episode of All Inclusive.

[music]

[01:01:22] [END OF AUDIO]