My name is Eva Schmeltz and I am Game and UX Designer at Cyanide Studio on the project Chef LIFE: A Restaurant Simulator.
As a game developer, I'm especially interested in user experience, player journey and how to convey stories, emotions or feels.
One of my goals is also to make the video games industry more inclusive and diverse, and I particularly want to study accessibility both in game design and UX design.
Check out my resume here!
I started in the game industry as a QA Tester at Cyanide Studio, first on Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, then on Chef LIFE: A Restaurant Simulator. In both cases, it was an internship as part of a work-study program for my Game Design degree at ISART Digital. Those first experiences really helped me understand everything that goes into creating a AA video game.
Since my graduation, I have been working on Chef LIFE as a designer. As such, my missions are divided into two main categories: on the one hand, addding content and datas into the game (such as items or quests) and, on the other hand, ensuring that the user experience is qualitative and matches the design team’s vision. This has been especially interesting and challenging because of the game’s release date, which is fast approaching!
I also had the opportunity to give a conference at the studio about accessibility in games, to raise awareness among the developpers and especially the designers. More than half of the company’s employees attended the presentation!
Thanks to that, we reviewed the way we handle subtitles, button remapping and difficulty options in our games. The company even bought an Xbox Adaptive Controller to test our games with it and see what we could learn from this. There is still much work to be done, but we’re on the right track!
Documentation
PowerPoint / Word / Excel
Notion
DokuWiki
Wireframes and mockups
Figma
Adobe XD
Illustrator / PhotoShop
Flowcharts and datas
Visio
LucidChart
Engines
Unity
Unreal Engine 4
Versioning
SVN
Plastic SCM
Perforce
Organization, tasking and bug tracking
Trello
Redmine / Mantis
Other
Blender / Maya
Aseprite / MagicaVoxel
Twine
As a player, I particularly appreciate wholesome video games, such as Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley, but also immersive adventure games and J-RPGs. As such, my favourite games ever are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Persona 5 and NieR Automata. All those games helped me better understand, in one way or another, what I wanted to achieve as a game designer and what messages I’d like to convey in my games.
I am also a big video games music fan!! I’m usually always listening to a video games music playlist when I’m working, and when I’m not, you can also find me browsing the Internet to find new songs to jam to.
When I am not making or playing games, I also like doing manual and artistic activities: cooking, gardening, crafting, drawing... the list goes on, depending on my current obsession. Recently, I’ve really been into soap and candle making, for example.
What I love about DIY is being able to give handmade gifts to those around me, which genuinely makes me feel more happy than anything!
Finally, I try my best to be socially and politically commited, both inside and outside of the game industry. I advocate for diversity and inclusion in games (and society in general), and that is something very close to my heart.
As a member of Women In Games (France), I took part in multiple events such as the Paris Games Week as a volunteer. I also attend to as much of their masterclasses and workshops as I can.
Before going into the game industry, I got a double bachelor in History and Political sciences in college, because I originally wanted to be a reporter. Even though I changed my career path, I’m still deeply passionate about social sciences such as history and sociology, and follow very closely the political news on a daily basis.
Want to learn more about me, ask me questions about what I do or just want to chat for a bit? You can contact me anytime via Twitter, LinkedIn or by mail.