ART & DESIGN: GAMES & PLAYABLE MEDIA (SENIOR)
Internship: Funomena
When I heard about the CEI program and its goal of promoting under-represented artists, I became inspired that such an opportunity was being presented.
Tristan wasn’t sure which major to declare when he first starting attending UC Santa Cruz, but once he got settled in, he found out about the Game Design program and never looked back. Even during his time away from the classroom, Tristan is thinking about games. “To make good games, it’s important to play them,” he says. “I use my free time to play fun games with friends, but also to analyze them for what makes them enjoyable, and how I would want to see them being implemented.
As he begins his internship with Funomena, a San Francisco independent game studio founded by Robin Hunicke, who’s also a UCSC associate professor in Games and Playable Media, Tristan expects his internship experience to be extremely enlightening for his educational and career goals.
“I’m most looking forward to meeting the diverse minds that I’ll be working with,” says Tristan. “I’m excited to learn from such a large variety of people, and to be able to learn from those who are creating games that inspire me.”
Outside of class and playing games, Tristan loves photography, especially taking portraits, as well as listening to an eclectic array of music from country to Chinese rock. As he gets ready to start at Funomena, he reflects: “The networking I’ll be able to do, the opportunities that will come out this internship, and the industry skills that I’ll be learning will all help in my own creative process and understanding of what it means to be a game designer.”