d3t welcomes back Sophie Carroll, Associate Programmer

4th Jul 2022

Please detail a bit of information about your experience/career background?

I was fortunate enough to secure an internship at d3t during my year in industry in 2020/21 and was kindly offered to return back to the studio full-time now that I have completed my degree in Computer Games Development at Liverpool John Moores University.

Why d3t?

During my time at d3t as an intern, I gained a mountain of invaluable experience working on both Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Alan Wake Remastered. Both of which were instrumental in forming the confidence I needed to complete my final year of study. I really enjoyed the work I did and combining that with being able to get to know and work alongside some of the kindest and smartest people in the industry, I snapped at the chance to return when it was offered to me.

What do you love about games?

I like to view games from two different perspectives, as a developer and as a player. As a developer, I have a lot of admiration for the creativity and complexity of the software. At its core, game development is just problem solving, which ultimately turns software engineering into a very human process. Each person approaching a problem will invariably come up with a slightly different solution, and I think there is a lot of beauty in that. People often judge games on the traditional forms of creativity, that being the art style and graphics. Whilst that is clearly incredibly important (I’m also a sucker for a pretty game!) and we work with some incredibly talent artists, I personally find a lot more joy in the underlying software that has allowed those images to form.

However, as a player I take a very different approach. As an avid reader I adore a good story and interesting characters, and that has transferred over to my love of games. I’m probably one of the few people that will always pick story over gameplay, which is strange in a medium that is defined by its interactivity. But I guess that’s why my top 5 list is full of games known for their heavy stories and strong characters, like The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc.

What games are you currently playing, and what is your favourite game?

My favourite game of all time is The Witcher 3, and likely will be for the foreseeable future as no game has come close to knocking it off its top spot since it was released.

I took a little break between finishing my degree and starting at d3t which means I’ve had a lot of spare time over the past few weeks to catch up on all the gaming I missed during my final year. Even though I tend to play games known for their long playtime, I paradoxically also have quite a short attention span, which means I often find myself hopping between a list of several games at once in order to keep myself entertained. Right now, that list consists of Mass Effect Legendary Edition (currently trying to broker a peace between the Geth and the Quarians), Fallout 4, and Assassins Creed Valhalla (which I will actually finish one day… hopefully).

Do you have any fun facts or hobbies?

I think like most people in the game industry I like to spend a lot of my time gaming. When I’m not doing that, I’m continuing to work on with my dissertation as a personal project which is the creation of a rendering engine, something I actually started whilst interning at d3t. However, when I’ve had an enough of games, I also enjoy reading and playing the guitar. I’ve also recently discovered that I really enjoy chess, so I’m slowly trying to not suck so much at it.