Enveloped in an aura of creative brilliance, today's guest on the Clear As Mud Podcast is the illustrious Vani Balgam. A luminary in directing, writing, and producing, she's the founder of Dancing Atoms—a visionary creator studio forging connections between Asian and North American storytelling, birthing authentic narratives for a global audience. …

In this episode of Clear as Mud, we are joined by David Tucciaronne, the Director of Development at VR Vision. David is an exceptionally fun guy with an impressive background in both leading startups to success and innovating on the most cutting-edge VR technology. We explore his personal philosophy of having a life-work balance and the importance …

Today’s guest is James Adkins, Senior VFX Artist for Sony Playstation at Santa Monica Studio. James is a brilliant and talented artist who has worked on some amazing games and most recently the critically acclaimed God of War Ragnarok. We take a deep dive into his creative process, exploring how he finds inspiration across different media, and deco…

Get ready for an incredible guest on the Clear as Mud podcast. We had Dan Fadness, Art Director at Terraform Studios, sharing his valuable insights on mentorship for aspiring artists. He stressed the need for strong foundational knowledge before diving into mentorship, and he gave us a glimpse into the crucial role of an Art Director in the game in…

“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller. Dave Branco, the Community Manager for the Game Development World Championship, shares his journey from working in finance to taking a bold leap, moving halfway around the world to Finland to pursue a career in the game industry. We discuss the importance of creating a positi…

Brad has worked as a 3D artist since 2008. He has been a character artist on multiple games in the Call of Duty franchise including Vanguard, Black Ops and Cold War. Brad delves deep into the process of creating characters from a technical and order of operations perspective that shines a light on what it takes to make character models for one of t…

Have you ever watched one of those CG cinematic trailers for a game online and wondered how it was made? Well, look no further. Pierre has had a hand in creating trailers for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Rainbow 6 Franchise and working on the cinematics for Call of Duty Vanguard. We get into all that and more in this episode of Clear As Mud.…

Ian has what every producer needs and not what every producer has- the personal touch! Throughout his work at Mythical Games, Zynga, Bioware, and 343 Industries, Ian puts his team first by getting to know them personally and professionally which in turn dictates his production style. We talk about he does this, his experience with crunch and the tr…

Seth has worked in VFX on the film and TV side on Spider-Man 2 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. On the game side, he’s worked on Star Wars- The Force Unleashed, the Battlefield franchise, the Dead Space franchise, Dante’s Inferno and was also on Amy Hennig’s canceled Star Wars game before the plug was pulled. He's had an incredible career. This episod…

William’s career has been built around working on mobile and casual games for companies like Ubisoft and Zynga, but now he’s at a bit of a career crossroads in the sense that he wants to work on independent titles in different genres. We dive into the reasoning behind his career change, the challenges of marketing himself to indie developers and in…

Giovani worked tirelessly, working two jobs and attending school to realize his dream of working in 3D art. After eight years of giving himself unconditionally to his craft, he broke into the industry at Skydance Interactive. This led to him working at Sony's Santa Monica Studio on God of War: Ragnarok and now for Respawn working on Jedi Survivor. …

Darren has worked in the game industry for over 30 years as an artist, an outsource teams manager, and now a studio director. We talk about the differences between working in the industry in its nascent stages compared to now, Darren’s experience working on 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand, and how Atomhawk has established itself as one of the premiere g…

Fabio had to teach himself programming in order to carve out a career in the industry. He had no idea how to make games or what a game designer actually did. But curiosity, ambition and determination led to him diving fully into the world of engineering to realize his dream.By mudstack

Aaron takes us through how he works collaboratively with a team and touches on the core events that shaped him as a producer. We then walk through a hypothetical game pitch that Aaron breaks down and delves deep into how as a producer, he would make that game become a reality.By mudstack

Seth Smith comes on the show to discuss his work on Riot’s tactical shooter VALORANT, and his goal of creating a multimedia franchise that spans games, novels, comic books, film and TV. We also talk about // Hello, World an inclusive social mixer that Seth spearheads, designed for anyone who champions representation in tech and entertainment.…

Matt has worked both in the film and game industry. On the film side he worked on a ton of different movies including the Harry Potter franchise and the 2003 seafaring period piece, Master and Commander. On the games side, before he was at Bad Robot, he’s worked at Amazon, Microsoft, and Valve. We dive into Matt's experience working in film, creati…

Martin has worked as a designer, a teacher, a leader designer, and a design director and now has started his own game studio. We discuss Martin’s approach to running a studio, game development, and systemic design in all its forms.By mudstack

Shaun Bell takes us through his time as art director for Treyarch. He worked on numerous Call of Duty: Black Ops games from 2011 until last year. We unpack a ton of information in this episode including what it’s like to make a multiplayer map in Call Of Duty, how Shaun guides younger artists, diversity in the game industry, and how his team overca…

Matthew has worked in the industry for over 30 years now as a QA tester, 3D Artist, Narrative designer, and Mission Designer. In addition to working at Arena Net, he's also worked at Ubisoft and EA. Matthew breaks down the greatest qualities and detriments of narrative in games, what a Narrative Designer actually does, and how integral they are in …

Agata takes listeners behind the curtain of developing games for VR and Mixed Reality, the challenges of dealing with people’s negative preconceptions of VR, and how Mixed Reality could take us into a brave new future that goes beyond entertainment.By mudstack

Jamal Coleman takes us through the ins and outs of working on VFX in the game industry, the new company he's working at, Lightforge games, and what it was like working on World of Warcraft. Graham also pitches Jamal a hypothetical game and asks him to break down how he'd approach each phase of development from a VFX standpoint.…

Mallie Rust knew she wanted to be creative, and her self professed pragmatic nature brought her into the world of marketing, where she's able to flex her creative muscles while continuing to build the DC Universe Online brand that has been going strong for well over a decade. Mallie brings a new perspective to Clear As Mud from the marketing side o…

Sydney Adams was Creative Lead on The Black Is Magic- Magic The Gathering release and is now a Senior Designer at Intercept Games. She tells us her thoughts on storytelling, nostalgia, working in the industry and what she hopes to accomplish to compliment and continue an already amazing career.By mudstack

Cameron Rich is certifiable proof that dreams can come true. Armed with nothing but hope he journeyed from Jacksonville to Seattle with the aspiration of working for his dream studio- ArenaNet. Cameron's story epitomizes serendipity, heart and a whole lot of tenacity.By mudstack

Ryan Gallini is creating a game that could change the fortune (literally) of the world's youth. The Four Money Bears- Berryville attempts to teach financial literacy to elementary school age children via a farming simulator that truly shows what the value of a dollar is. It's a unique and innovative project that's still in development, and appears …

HaZ Dulull has done it all in the film industry. From working on visual effects for films like The Dark Knight and Hellboy II, to directing his own science fiction pictures (The Beyond, 2036 Origin Unknown), to simultaneously making an animated feature film (Rift) and game utilizing the Unreal Engine, there's nothing that HaZ won't do to continue m…

Katie Jackson has worked as a playground designer, artist and is now an art director at Fusebox games. She's also an author with a top tier fantasy vision for her novel Omni In The Valley Of The Stars that she hopes to release in the near future. She's had a career as stunning as her artwork. Witness her journey here, on Clear As Mud.…

Kevin Powell knew he loved technology but didn't know what he wanted to do for a career until one day his mother made him a proposition that would forever change the course of his life. This led to Kevin working at Hi-Rez Studios, creating the first levels ever for Smite, and working at Gearbox on Borderlands 3.…

Vu Ha has been working on the bleeding edge of AR and VR technology since its newest incarnation that has led him to currently working at Meta. He's also worked at EA on Sim City and has created his own company, Cosmic Adventure Squad, where he creates innovative independent titles. Vu also has groundbreaking thoughts on the future of game developm…

Tramell Isaac has been working as an artist in the game industry for nearly 30 years. From helping to create many of the beloved characters from the first two Fallout games that are still being utilized by the franchise today, to working on the massive Planetside franchise, to working on the infamous Duke Nukem Forever, Tramell has busting tail and…

NOTE: There are a couple of times in this interview where sirens from a distant (or rather, close) passing fire truck/police car/ambulance blare and we couldn't edit it out! Apologies! At a young age, Nikhil Kashyap used games as a tool to connect with friends that would later turn into a career working for Disney Interactive, Playstation Studios a…

Bobby Wertheim knew he loved video games, but didn't know a career in the industry was something he should pursue until his wife pointed out that he wasn't happy with his current job. After that life changing conversation, Bobby pulled a 180 that led him to working on games like Heavy Rain and Sonic Generations before becoming VP of Partnerships at…

Graham welcomes the prolific Daniel Peterson to the show. Daniel works as a teacher, an artist at Synodic Arc, and owns his own company, Baka Bros Entertainment. This is where Daniel and his team are creating Chaos Kart- a unique and more skill based take on the traditional kart racer. Daniel breaks down balancing his busy schedule, and his thought…

Graham welcomes Andrew Diatroptoff, writer of the newly released indie title, The Lost and The Wicked, to the show. The Lost and The Wicked is a brutal Twin-Stick Psycho-Thriller in the vein of The Binding of Isaac and Hotline Miami. Andrew discusses writing for a video game for the first time, the challenges of development and how to marry gamepla…

Graham and Josef welcome in Jeff Curley, producer at WB Games Boston. Jeff, Graham, and Josef went to school for game design at SCAD so there's plenty of reminiscing on the good old days here along with tracking Jeff's unlikely journey into the production field. Jeff takes us through the first time he became a producer on a title via baptism by fir…

Graham and Josef welcome in Hadi Soufi, CEO of Kimchi Corp. LLC and creator of the in development independent title: SOAR: Pillars of Tasneem. Hadi takes us through his experience as a programmer with no direction home until COVID hit and from strife, SOAR was born. Now, in the game's second year of development, Hadi has assembled a team of develop…

Graham and Lila welcome you to the inaugural episode of Clear As Mud! We have a fun conversation with husband and wife development team Tomáš Jech and Clarissa Bernardo covering their respective journeys to the formation of their company, Tandemi. Discover the moving and inspirational stories behind their careers, marriage and development of their …