What is your role at Solar Flare London?

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Like everyone here, I wear a few different hats. Primarily I'm a programmer, so I'm basically responsible for actually making the game work and tuning how it feels, but I'm also involved in design and occasionally accompany Max for general studio-related meetings. What I like about Solar Flare is that all of our projects are real collaborative efforts. While final decisions over various aspects are deferred to the expertise of appropriate team members, everyone is allowed to have their say of any aspect of the game, so we all get to kick ideas around and discuss things in order to make the best experience possible. As such, I think everyone gets a sense of ownership over each project, which keeps us motivated and invested in the success of each project.

 

Favourite Game?

 

Doom (1993)/Doom II (1994). As far as I'm concerned, Doom is still king of the FPS genre. It's perfectly tuned, timelessly designed, and endlessly replayable thanks to its incredible fanbase creating new content and keeping the game alive for almost 30 years. I like to play these with the GZDoom source port and mouselook and a few graphic mods like BeautifulDoom to smooth out the sprite animations, but I otherwise keep the vanilla gameplay intact, so don't judge me too hard purists!

 

Favourite Film?

 

I really, really like Forrest Gump. I guess I weirdly found him a bit relatable, so I felt the emotional beats a bit more than I perhaps otherwise would have.

 

Favourite Artist/Band?

 

Less Than Jake (and not just because we share a name). I'd say pop punk is my guilty pleasure, but I don't feel guilty for enjoying what I like. Sorry not sorry.

 

Favourite Food?

 

Homebaked flapjack. I have a recipe passed down from my great grandmother and I'm convinced it's the best flapjack in the world.

 

What are your Hobbies/Interests?

 

I enjoy playing and making music, bouldering, and the occasional bit of Doom level design.

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Fun Fact:

 

I got my first game dev job in 2010 where I worked on an absolutely terrible Nintendo Wii game based on a pretty well-known British TV show. A reviewer for Official Nintendo Magazine scored it 19% and said it was "clearly made by people who hate games" which, to be fair, is entirely true.