Hey guys and gals!
We often mention our team in terms of "Amplidudes and Amplidudettes", but we decided we should give you folks an idea of who we mean. You've guessed it, it's time for another installment of our (semi-)regular feature, Meet the Team! If you want to know more about us, or your nephew wants to learn more about the career path of a game developer, or if you're just curious, read on.
He has been working like a madman to bring you the new Games2Gether platform, meet Jérémy aka DarkHerumor!
Who are you and what do you do at Amplitude?
Hey guys & gals ! I’m Jérémy, DarkHerumor on the forums. I’m 30 years old, and web warchief at Amplitude! Blood for the HTTP god!
My job is to conceive, implement and manage everything dealing with web, and in particular Games2Gether!
What were you doing before you joined Amplitude?
I meandered quite a bit before joining Amplitude, from a marketing agency where I managed the web platform and marketing tools as technical lead, to a job as an IT consultant, helping companies with their projects or onboarding new teams.
In my ten years (already...) career, I had the opportunity of getting involved with many domains in the web sphere, but never with the gaming industry, which was my dream... and is now a reality?!
When did you join the studio?
Almost a year and a half ago, at the time my first mission was to combat the endless waves of spam threatening to overrun the forums, and were giving our mods considerable grief... At the same time, I startedworking on the new version of Games2Gether, which we're finally showing you guys!
What feature have you worked on that you're super proud of?
I am somebody passionate about my work, so it's hard to pick just the one thing... An obvious answer would be the new G2G, but having worked on it mostly on my own, coding line after line, I just see improvements still to do and the bugs we have to fix! :D
Honestly though, I think what I'm the most proud of is the development automation tools that we built from the ground up, which now allow me to automate all the most time-consuming phases in the development process, such as testing and production delivery.
What are you currently working on?
Games2Gether! The "alpha" tag is there for a reason! There still is so much to do, and we have so many ideas and so much ambition for this platform! It's frustrating to be unable to tell you more, obviously, but expect new features allowing us to push collaborative development even further! The community is -- and will stay for a long time -- our priority!
What's your favorite game of all time?
This is an extremely difficult question, I can change my mind almost every day! I'm just going to name the games on which I've spent most of my time, to wit:
• World of Warcraft (vanilla of course! I miss 40 players raids…)
• Dawn of War 1 & 2 (REALLY looking forward to number 3!)
• TES: Skyrim, with a few survival mods (body heat, hunger and fatigue management, etc.) this already great becomes an absolute gem!
• The Total War series, as soon as I have some spare time at the moment, I'm spending it on TW Warhammer.
• I'm also a great fan of the Warhammer & WH40K franchise (I have four armies for the tabletop game...) and I think I have pretty much all the games of that IP (Vermintide, Mordheim, Space Hulk, Blood Bowl...)
Reading my list of favorite games, you guys can imagine my reaction when I heard we were joining Sega, and through them Creative Assembly and Relic!
By the way guys if you're reading this blog, I'm awaiting impatiently my beta key for Dawn of War3! ;)
Is there anywhere on the Internet where I can see more of your stuff?
I've been trying to start a blog for about five years... one day I'll manage...
What's your favorite faction or character in our games?
Without a doubt the Vaulters in Legend! Their looks are amazing! For Dungeon, Elise, also without a doubt, she's in all my runs! Finally for Space, the Hisshos and in particular, their hero Fusha Keenccrest. Have you ever seen more badass?!
Is there a funny story that happened to you at Amplitude?
No big scandal at Amplitude yet... Some whisper that during a winter seminar I tried to ski* in a panda costume... but there are no pictures to prove it!
*Skiing: trying as hard as one can not to eat a faceful of snow every hundred meters...
What's your favorite junk food?
Bubblizz (sour coke bottle candy)! I think I could survive on Bubblizz alone for several days!
What's the next place you want to travel to?
I am preparing a road trip on the US West Coast for 3 weeks, starting at the end of August. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon...
What's the most played song in your music library?
I listen to pretty much anything, from Edvard Grieg to Metallica, with some Eminem and Korpikklaani thrown in for good measure. I mostly like metal music, but I have softer moments. :)
At the moment I am listening to quite a bit of Kongos.
That's it for Jérémy! We hope you found this interesting. Comments or additional questions, feel free to comment!
If there's a question you would like us to ask the interviewees, let us know!
