Tuesday 15 May 2012

Girls Make Computer Games Too

Pssst! Stef! I iz got cameraphone!
Another day and I have another person to write about on F5 Quicksave. Today I would like to introduce you to Stephanie Yong, one of our resident 3D artists. Usually I approach these encounters the same way any good journalist would – with an agenda and a set of cunningly prepared questions.

In other words I conduct an interview with the person. However Stephanie was a difficult one to interview- she kept insisting on having a ‘casual chat’ instead because my questions were too ‘rigid’.

Rigid she says! How dare she discount MY corporate journalistic integrity?!

I who sat down with directors and CEOs of large corporations and prepared them for many media interactions. Held their hands and impressed upon them that that unfortunate issue with the cleaner’s underwear and the mixing vats should be avoided at all costs and denied vehemently!

I, who prepared press conferences with media seats rigged with remote detonate nail bombs - set to trigger if any journalist got out of line.

I know exactly how to conduct a professional interview! There’s nothing wrong with my list of questions!

By Gum! Chris put
on some pants!
These creative types put too much stock in “casualness”

Just the other day our writer Chris came in dressed like he just jumped out of bed, put on a pair of flip flops and walked to work in his pajamas. Any typical CEO witnessing this would howl in pain and gauge out his eyeballs, all the while cursing that Chris should be put to a swift death by the corporate attire police.

 But that’s corporate for you and I was no longer in that rat race.

So I gave in and followed her beneath the blazing hot Malaysian sun to the furthest café from our office.

Well, it wasn’t that far away but I’m generally too lazy to walk anywhere.

We had a pleasant chat- we discussed how things were at work, the progress of the game we were developing, the unique personalities in our studio and so on. These topics are great, however better suited for separate blog posts. My plan is to write about all my colleagues, one by one, and this includes Stephanie Yong.

So with sheer will and all the charm of a slug, somehow I managed to steer the conversation to her music interest. 

Stephanie joins the ranks of many sensible adults who agree that Malaysian radio stations suck eggs and might be the spawn of devil. So she prefers listening to her private selection of songs which include a lot of new euro bands. She mentioned some; I knew none of them and only remember one called Múm. I was not taking notes you see, because I thought it might rupture the whole ‘casual’ bubble. 

Fortunately she was a big fan of Smashing Pumpkins. Since I myself was once a whinny teenager I knew plenty about Smashing Pumpkins and we got into a discussion on the bands progress through the ages.

We also talked about games. 

Like the rest of us at e-One Studio, we were gamers from a very young age and Stephanie is no different. She started in the early dark ages of pc gaming, where VGA monitors instilled awe and wonder. Floppy disks were handled so carefully out of an irrational fear it would suddenly burst into flames. She fondly told me about her first purchase- Bullfrog’s “Theme Hospital”. She recalled fondly how the game accused players of being cheaters whenever cheat codes were punched in.

Stef:"Oh no, its that weird new guy"
By the way Stef likes fish. Not the way you and I like fish (with plenty of soy sauce and ginger). She likes them alive, well and happy and going about their usual fishy business. So if anyone wants to take her out for a treat, seafood aint the way to go. 

Her favorite movie is “Lock Stockand Two Smoking Barrels” by Guy Ritchie. It’s an awesome movie and is high up there in the ranks of my personal favorites. For those who have been living under a shell licking moss for nutrition, I recommend you watch this flick. I asked her what she liked most about the movie and as I expected; it was the dialogue. 

Who could disagree? The movie was jammed packed with fantastic quotes like this:

Eddie:They're armed.

Soap: What was that? Armed? What do you mean armed? Armed with what?

Eddie: Err, bad breath, colorful language, feather duster... what do you think they're gonna be armed with? Guns, you tit! 

We chatted some more and there’s plenty to write about Stephanie. In fact I get the feeling there's so much more to Stephanie that you could write a whole saga of her, but a young lady must have her secrets. 

So that's all for now and I'm signing off!

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