Tim Stellmach


Thief II - The Metal Age

Deus Ex 2 concept sketch

Current project:
An unannounced Game Boy Advance project. My most recent project before this was design consultation on ION Storm's Thief and Deus Ex brands. I'm responsible for all aspects of the game design, and for coordinating the project on a day-to-day basis.

Academic Info

College: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Degree: B.S. in Mathematics with Computer Science


Were there any particular projects or areas of study that you pursued?
My math work leaned towards discrete applied math, such as probability and combinatorics. I also did a humanities concentration in psychology.

Did you do any internships?
No.

Career Info

Tell us about your first job in the industry. How did you get the job? What was it like? What were your responsibilities?
I started out as a playtester for Blue Sky Productions on Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. I'd gone to school with Doug Church and Jon Maiara, a couple of the programmers on the project at the time, and I expressed an interest in what they were doing. The job involved a lot of playing the game, often repeatedly playing the same scenario trying to isolate the specific circumstances that caused a bug, which takes a lot of perseverance. As the developer's playtest group expanded I ended up coordinating the process, building and managing a database of trouble reports.

What jobs have you held in the games industry thus far? Briefly describe the career path you took to get where you are today.
After Ultima Underworld, I had my foot in the door when they started hiring designers for Ultima Underworld II. Back in those days the job description of full-time game designer was still fairly new, so I was able to jump straight to the position of lead designer (in a group of three). I was then a designer on the games System Shock and Terra Nova, and then started being a lead designer again, only this time on original projects like Thief: The Dark Project (as opposed to my post on Underworld II, a sequel). All of this constituted eight years or so at the same company, Looking Glass Studios, which only ended when they went out of business. I did some consulting while searching for a new job, looking to do something a bit different, and finally settled on my current position at Vicarious Visions.

Advice

What fields of study, specific courses, or life experiences would you recommend to students interested in your field?
A basic grounding in computer science is definitely useful. I'd also recommend courses in psychology, creative writing, and film & media studies. Possibly also a little graphic design. First, though, you have to play a lot of games. As others have noted (I believe I'm thinking of Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing), in order to be a writer you must first be a reader. To be a game designer, you must be a game player, and you must catalog and analyze those experiences.

Is there anything you wish someone had told you before you got into the games industry? Is there anything you would have done differently?
Sure: I wish they'd told me that I was going to end up in the games industry. I didn't have a career plan in mind when I chose my course of study, so anything I learned that was relevant was somewhat by chance. Obviously, that's not entirely true because both choices were driven by my underlying talents and interests, but if I'd planned on becoming a game designer I would have concentrated more specifically on the kinds of coursework I mentioned above.

As games increase in complexity, what are the various kinds of jobs that you foresee development companies needing in the next five years?
In general, I think we'll see a trend towards increased specialization. Just as game designers became distinct specialists from programmers, and later became divided among lead designers, game designers, level designers, and such. How this work gets divided up varies from company to company and project to project. But, there will probably be an increasing tendency to separate the roles of game design, scenario design, creative writing, storyboarding, and program design, for example.

Do you have any other advice or recommendations to share with students who are interested in doing what you do?
Since you'll be working on entertainment, you might find the line between your work and leisure blurring. There are good things about that - nobody ever said you weren't allowed to enjoy your work! But between that issue and the tremendously competitive nature of the business, you have to pay particular attention to the whole problem of work/life balance.