Zipper Profile: David Johnson

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Our Developer Profile series introduces you to the many faces of Zipper Interactive. From designers to artists to programmers to audio engineers to producers, you’ll meet the creative minds that make Zipper what it is (and maybe learn a few surprises along the way).

This week's profiled Zipper is David Johnson, Tools Engineer extraordinaire. David's work affects many facets of our titles, particularly with designing the tools that allow the games to be created. Here's what he had to tell us:

Job Title: Tools Engineer

Years at Zipper:Almost 4!

Years in the Industry: 4 in the games industry, 10 in the software industry.

Favorite Zipper Game: MAG

Favorite Non-Zipper Game: It’s too hard to pick just one! It’s got to be one of Chrono Trigger, Zelda: A Link to the Past, or Tales of Symphonia.

Motto: "Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive it isn't." – Richard Bach

What is it that you do specifically, and can you walk us through your typical day?

If a game studio is like an RPG adventuring party, then I would be one of the white mages: I don’t have a lot of direct damaging spells, but I definitely help everyone else out with the healing magic. My role at Zipper is largely in the support department, doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that helps keep the "more renowned" departments—art, design, and engineering—working at top speed! My main responsibility is to give our level editor all of the TLC that it needs in order to pump out new levels fast. I’ve also been helping the Cinema guys iron out the process for making cutscenes and scripted sequences.

The typical day for me right now is 9 in the morning until 7 or so on a smooth day, though not every day is a smooth day! I catch up on emails in the morning and check to see if there are any critical (or just plain annoying) issues that’s keeping others in the company from working. I do a lot of troubleshooting whenever things go wrong and then do my best to fix all of the problems plaguing everyone else. After that, I’m pretty much off to the races by making new features for our level editor, data compile process, and Maya. It’s hard to say what I’ll be working on two weeks from now because my team covers a lot of ground and pretty much affects everyone else!

How did you get into the industry?

It’s kind of a crazy story when you get down to it. My previous job was in Ohio where I worked as a Department of Defense contractor for the US Air Force. I was looking for a career change and had uploaded my résumé onto the Internet in hopes of finding another job that was software related. In all honesty, even though I’ve wanted to make video games since I was 9 years old, I didn’t even stop to think that I could get into the industry!

But whether it was luck, talent, or both, a recruiter for the games industry contacted me by phone and asked me if I was interested in getting them to bat for me, and I figured that it was worth a try, especially if it had some possibility. Within a month or so, they got me in contact with Zipper, and the day after my phone interview I was told that Zipper wanted to fly me out for a real interview. Pretty much a week later they called me back with an official offer, and so I picked up all of my belongings and moved all the way across the country.

What are some other games or projects that you’ve worked on in the past?

MAG and SOCOM 4 have been the only real games I’ve worked on (well, outside of all the TI-83 games I created during the days of high school; but alas, they probably don’t count). Before joining up with Zipper, however, I was doing DoD work for the Air Force. Our team’s main focus was to test systems the Air Force was developing. We created a simulated world and ran their programs through the gauntlet. In many ways, it was like making something like SimCity... except instead of making fake buildings, fire departments, and roads, we were creating fake airplanes, tanks, cameras, and missiles.

What’s your proudest moment?

I’d have to say getting hired by Zipper and not getting fired within the first month is certainly one of the high points of my life! I honestly never thought that I’d be here, creating video games as my day-to-day job. I can’t tell you the number of times I told myself, “I may be decent at this, but I probably don’t hold a candle to the guys who do this day in and day out.” Well, as it turns out, I am very glad to say that I was horribly wrong about that... or at least I’ve managed to convince everyone else I was wrong about that. MWAHAHA... oh wait, they’re probably reading this too. Foiled again!

Is there anything you’d like to say to the fans?

One of my biggest secrets is that, before I found myself in this fairy tale world of working on video games, I was once a guy that would post video game forums, would work on fansites, and dream about how cool it would be to actually do this sort of stuff for a living. So if you’re like me and dream about doing this someday, don’t give up on the dream, and don’t let anyone stop you from pursuing it! Sure, it’s very different from what I thought it was going to be like, but it’s crazy fun.

Also, huge thanks to everyone who’s out there supporting MAG and SOCOM. Really, it’s awesome to hear all of the comments and to see how passionate you are over our games!

Don't forget to click this link and leave your questions to David for next week's Zipline podcast!

 

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