Here’s a little interview with Yuriy about his work at Pingle.
How long have you been working at Pingle?
More than ten years. I came precisely during the company’s reorientation period.
How many projects were completed during this time?
It isn’t easy to count because there were many projects during this time: both those where I was full-time and those where I was partially involved or just advised the team. It is probably easier to count the number of company’s projects which I did NOT participate in – there will be less than 10 🙂
Tell us about your most vivid case in Pingle.
The most vivid case was my first project in the company. At the interview stage, the company offered me to make a side-scroller (an easier option) or racing (a more challenging option) as a test assignment. I chose racing, which determined my future path. After passing the interview, I joined the team as a game designer for the mobile racing Monster 500, which was in the pre-production stage.
So, I did the project from start to finish. I drew track and level plans, analyzed atmospheric sketches to set tasks for the art team, and developed the entire game design, mobile control, and UI.
Furthermore, I have communicated and approved the work with the client – all without previous gamedev experience. It was pretty tricky. I made many mistakes (at the end of the development, I had to redo several tracks almost from scratch because they were impossible to pass), but it was an exciting project. I have got a powerful boost and have been unafraid to take on any project afterward.
Another “funny” situation was that the project was initially positioned as promotional material for toys. Still, a month before the release, the client clarified, «We are doing monetization for the game, aren’t we?» Due to the short deadlines, it was impossible to make a typical monetization system, so we had to come up with at least something on the fly.
Tell us about your team. What expertise do they have? What level of complexity did your team solve the problems?
My department includes Game Design, Level Design, and UX/UI teams. Each has “veterans” with 5+ years in the company and industry and young but active and motivated employees.
Due to the specifics of our company, almost every employee has a broad expertise: from mobile platforms to consoles and specific VR devices, from simple indie games to complex AAA games with open world and multiplayer, from writing game ideas to post-release support.
We also have experience in various cooperation options, from full autonomy and full-cycle development to full integration of individual specialists into the team of our partners without management from our side.The complexity of the tasks we do can be challenging to estimate. For example, the UI/UX department worked on a project where we had to redesign the existing UI completely. The Level Design and Game Design teams were involved in a co-dev project while the core team continued to develop the game. We had to create an independent dungeon system for a large open-world survival game, and our solution had to be not just an exciting addition to the main game with a unique experience every time the player enters a dungeon but also to be completely autonomous, support co-op play and have a seamless transition with the land world.
