Associate Producer – Double Fine – 2014-2015

Trying on a different hat.

I’d been a QA Lead at the company for six months when I was asked to apply for an opening in production. I had always been interested in trying a producer role and this gave me the chance to finally give it a go.

My initial trial was as a producer on a 2 week Amnesia Fortnight prototype called Dear Leader, and it was certainly a trial by fire. I focused on helping the leads organize the constant brainstorm of ideas and fill in holes where I could spot them. This included searching for art reference material and taking on repetitive scripting work in Lua that didn’t require a programmer. It was over in a flash and it became one of the most memorable experiences of my career.

Once officially promoted to associate producer, I worked on Grim Fandango Remastered and Broken Age. Grim was a unique project in that it required remastering a game from 1998 for modern platforms. My part was to help organize the certification and submissions to first-party platforms, as well as to design, edit, and transcribe the over 2 hours of developer commentary in the game. Broken Age was in development at the same time, and my role on that project was that of a development producer. I worked with every team member and helped track tasks, assets, and schedules, in addition to the same certification and submissions that needed to be coordinated.

All in all, I am proud of the work I did during my time in production. While I discovered that development producer was not a role that suited me, I did learn that release management suits me to a T, and I’m happy to still contribute in that regard.