Skyler Dawson Software Developer
FAVORITE BAND?
Radiohead
MOTTO?
“Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.”
SECRET?
I’m a programmer who actually enjoys working with people.
HOW DID YOU FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN PURSUING A CAREER IN VIDEO GAMES?
I grew up playing games on my PC, but had no idea how it all worked until I was introduced to programming in my computer club at age eleven and then played Morrowind. After that, I was obsessed with learning whatever I could on game development.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ON THE TEAM?
Five years.
GIVE THE READER AN IDEA ABOUT YOUR DAY-TO-DAY TASKS.
It varies depending on the phase of the project, but most recently I’ve been responsible for optimizing the game, developing some of our graphics features, and helping our other content creators get unstuck whenever they have issues with our toolset.
WHAT WAS THE TRICKIEST TASK ASSIGNED TO YOU AND HOW DID YOU SOLVE IT?
Certainly, some of my optimization tasks have been difficult: going into code I’m unfamiliar with, finding small tweaks and changes that can be done to save a couple milliseconds, and making sure none of the assumptions I used to speed up the code are violated in our various use cases.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF CONCERNING THE GAME?
I’m proud of some of the advanced graphical features we added to Mass Effect using the Frostbite engine, and some of the toolset work we did to support the creation of our massive worlds.
HOW WOULD YOU SUMMARIZE THE EXPERIENCE OF MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA?
It’s been a long journey; when presented with a blank canvas, we at first had a bit of difficulty picking a direction, but in the last couple of years we’ve truly focused and delivered a game that, to me, feels like it goes back to the roots of the Mass Effect series.
WHAT KEY DECISIONS WERE MADE TO REINFORCE AND ACCOMPLISH THOSE GOALS?
Early on, we really tried to push the boundaries of what could fit into a Mass Effect game—but we still had to make sure it was all fun, and we didn’t want to run into the empty world problem, so what we ended up with is the compromise of having compelling content while still giving the sense of exploration.
