March 26, 2018
5 Questions With…Petter Andersson
5 Questions with Petter Andersson
1. Where were you/what did you do before working at Seriously?
I have been working in the games industry for over 13 years. Throughout my career, I have worked for various game companies and engaged in many creative endeavors. I like to think of myself as a creative person. I try view every aspect of creating something like a blank canvas, especially because I used to paint a lot. I also used to create a lot of music. Today I am more intrigued and passionate about the technical bits, such as coding. I’m not very good at it, but I have passion for it so in due time hopefully I will pick up on it.
2. What is your current role at Seriously?
I’m a ‘Principle Technical Artist’ at Seriously. My role involves creating the ground breaking world map, the background art for levels and Fiend Quests, and the animations for Fiends and Slugs. I also produce the kind of work that makes the water move or the trees cast shadows. These details are very important to us at Seriously. This bit of my work is called shader programming. These are my primary artistic duties, but my responsibilities also extend to optimizing the game, which happens between updates. This is an ongoing task that is a very important part of what I do here at Seriously, as well.
My job allows me to touch a lot of what players see in the game; the following are a few sections that I particularly enjoy. For the world map, my favorite part is the area around Mushroom Valley. It has a mysterious vibe to it, what are those black holes and what can be found there? It triggers my imagination. My favorite quest is Gordon’s quest. The theme is fire and that brings a nice pause to all the green and blue in Best Fiends.
3. What’s your favorite part about your job?
I enjoy finding solutions to problems. For me, problem-solving is an opportunity to learn and grow. Simply put, the most rewarding aspect of my job is to learn new things, and I am always learning new things about how to work with Best Fiends. As I am doing more and more technical work, my coding skills are becoming more solid and I love it! We have a pretty clever system in place for cresting the world map and I recently had a eureka moment that made it possible for us to take the camera closer to the ground level on the world map. It was not easy to achieve but it would be one of the main things I learned recently. Sometimes trial and error is key when you have a lot of tools to work with.
4. Who is your favorite Fiend or Slug and why?
Moose is my favorite Fiend. Moose was the first character that I animated for Best Fiends, so he is very dear to me. I also like that he looks grumpy. Why is he grumpy? I have a feeling it might be the never-ending stream of slugs.
5. When you are not working at Seriously or playing Best Fiends, what do you enjoy doing?
I love spending time with my wife and daughter! I also enjoy scripting and coding in my spare time too. There are not enough hours in a day!