#i wish my super computer was as cool as tango's

[cat-26]

As a certified Aerospace Engineer, I want to say that Tango's initial method of studying the moon using his spyglass to get the triple hypothenuse with the dot product of the inverse revolutional linear aptitude is completely factual. That is what is used to triangulate the moon and collect empirical data. Trust me.

[wiypt-writes]

Stark Spangled Banner

One Shot: Ask Questions, Throw Shield Later.

Intro: Steve and Katie have an unwelcome late night visitor…

Warnings: “Language!” Smut (NSFW, 18+)

Pairing:  Steve Rogers x OFC Katie Stark

W/C: 1.9k

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar Katie Stark and the other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

A/N: The first of two (yes, two) special 29th May Birthday One shots. Happy Birthday Tony! Man, I missed writing for these guys in this timeline! This fits into SSB within “I Told You I Said Yes”.

Stark Spangled Banner Masterlist // Main Masterlist

“Fuck, Steve...” Katie groaned, her head tilting backwards as Steve gave another deep thrust upwards, “right there... Jesus.”

“Good?” Steve panted as his hands grabbed her waist, finger tips digging into the flesh that covered her hipbones.

She nodded, grinding on him faster, his hands pulling her down making sure he hit as deep as he could.

Their soft, intimate sounds filled the room and, wanting to be as close to her as he could get, Steve sat up drawing a gasp from Katie as he did so. His hands moved to her back. One splayed half way up her spine, the other cupped the back of her head. His fingers tangled in her long, silky hair as he pulled her face to his. He kissed her, hard, his tongue dominating hers as he swallowed her moan, one that rumbled in her throat as if it came from the depths of her belly.

They’d already danced this tango once already that night. After a few beers with the team in anticipation of Tony’s birthday (minus Natasha as she was still on something Fury was running), they’d retired and gotten a little frisky some two hours prior. But then Steve had woken, his super sharp hearing alerting himself to some form of ransom noise deep in the floors below them and, well, he couldn’t get back to sleep. So he’d hugged Katie close.

Too close.

As ever he was unable to control his reactions to his girl and had ended up with a boner. Meaning she’d woken with him basically rutting up against her back, feigning innocence when she’d given him a grumble at the fact he’d dragged her from her slumber.

She hadn’t been grumbling for long.

“Stevie... I��m gonna...” Katie’s forehead pressed into his, her mouth open as her lips hovered over his, and he thrust upwards again, his nose brushing hers softly, like the touch of a butterfly.

“Let go. Doll,” he panted, actively fighting his own high, “cum for me.”

Her chest heaved, pert nipples brushing his bare skin and her movements stuttered. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, which cracked into a half grunt, half moan as she felt herself go, her body positively floating from her high.

By the time she came round, Steve had also finished, his broad shoulders rising and falling as he gathered his breath. Katie collapsed forward with a soft chuckle, her forehead pressing into his collar bone as he fell backwards, taking her with him.

They lay still for a moment, the only sounds being their heavy breathing and the soft rustle of sheets as Steve pulled the bedding up around them. The smooth cotton brushing over her sensitive skin made Katie shudder a little. Steve smiled and pressed a kiss to her temple, his large hands running up and down her spine.

“Am I forgiven for waking you up?” He asked and she shrugged, not even bothering to try and find the strength to sit up. “It’s three AM. I’ll think about it.”

Steve chuckled and she sat up slightly, leaning down to give him a slow kiss.

“Love you.” she pulled back a little, her eyes shining in the dim light, and Steve smiled.

“Love you too.”

Fifteen minutes later they were both settled down and on the verge of sleep once more when a loud crashing in the apartment made them both sit bolt upright.

“What the...” Steve was out of bed in a flash, wrenching the door to their room open.

Katie was seconds behind him, stopping only to grab Steve’s shirt from the chair at the vanity. As she shrugged it on, she ran into the hallway and heard a familiar metallic whoosh. There was the squealing of metal on metal and Katie flicked on the light just in time to see a flash of blue, red and white as Steve’s shield flew back to his hand. He looked over to Katie as she stepped towards him, her mouth falling.

“Is that...” she glanced down at what looked like a version of one of Tony’s suits. It lay motionless on the floor in two pieces, Steve’s shield having severed it at the waist. The failing electrics sparked as the various boards and cogs died, before it fell silent.

Steve nudged it with his foot. It didn’t move. He turned to Katie, a frown on his handsome face.

“Did he tell you he was making them autonomous?”

“That’s nothing new, JARVIS has always been able to control them remotely.” Katie shook her head as she crouched down, her hand gently touching the helmet. She tried to move the face plate but it didn’t open. Rapping her knuckles on the skull, she was met with a solid sound, not the usual hollow echo.  “JARVIS?”

There was no reply.

“Why isn’t he answering?” Steve looked at her.

“Tony might have him down.” Katie answered. “He runs the updates at night some times. I do know one thing though.”

“What?” Steve asked as she stood up.

“That couldn’t have gotten in here without Tony letting it in one way or another.” She glanced at Steve, her pretty face full of annoyance. “Imma kill him, fucking idiot.”

She turned to leave and Steve gently caught her arm. “Honey...”

“Seriously? You want me to let this go?”

“Hell, no.” He shook his head, “I want you to wait for me to put some clothes on.”  

Despite herself, Katie grinned as her eyes scanned Steve’s naked body, his shield still on his arm. He rolled his eyes and nodded to the suit on the floor, “I’m going to give him his property back, along with a piece of my mind.” **** Tony spun round, his brow arching as Steve and Katie walked into the lab. But whatever smart quip he had been about to come out with died as he spotted what was slung over the super soldier’s broad shoulders. With a loud slam, Steve threw the two parts of the robot down on the desk.

“What did you do to it?” Tony moaned.

“Threw my shield at it.” Steve folded his arms over his chest, the sleeves of the white ribbed Tee he had shrugged on straining over his thick biceps.

Tony was that distracted by his destroyed robot that he failed to notice Katie stomping towards him. She drew her right fist back and punched him hard on the shoulder.

“Ow, Kiddo!”

“You dick!” She yelled. “What the hell were you doing sending that into our apartment?”

“Wanted to test your reaction to it.” Tony shrugged. “See how it came across.”

“How it ca- Tony, it’s half past 3 in the morning!” She shrieked.

“Exactly.” Tony scratched his beard. “Total element of surprise. I thought you guys would give me a base of how people would react to them. Can’t have been that well if Spangles felt the need to cut it in half with his frisbee.”

“We had no idea what or who it was.” Steve felt his anger beginning to rise, “what was I supposed to do?”

“I’ve told you before, big guy. Ask questions, throw shield later.” Tony shrugged, “I can’t believe you killed Iron Kid.”

“Iron Kid?” Katie blinked.

“Yeah, the name’s a working progress.”

“Tony, what is it?” Steve pressed.

“It’s a prototype.” Tony informed them. “I had the idea last week. The Avengers exploded after New York. You should see the piles of fan mail that the guys downstairs sort each day.”

“Less bragging, more explaining.” Katie narrowed her eyes.

“The point is, we attract attention. So I had a thought about something that could help keep the public at bay,” Tony gestured to the pile of metal, “we can use them to issue instructions, help aid the emergency services. Keep civilians out of the way.”

Katie and Steve looked at one another, and Steve hated to admit it but the idea made sense.

Sorta.

“Clearly I need to rethink a little.” Tony mused. “I mean if they freaked you out then...” “It freaked us out because it was in. our. apartment!” Katie groaned. “In the middle of the night.”

“That’s the point, it was supposed to have the element of surprise, wake you up.”

“Well there’s your first fuck up!” She hissed. “We were already awake-“

“Why?” Tony frowned

“Because we just finished a great, sweaty sex session.” She shot back and Steve groaned, feeling the heat in his neck as he looked down, his bare toes flexing against the cool floor of the lab. “And you wanna be grateful we had finished because if we hadn’t I’d be really, really mad. You get me?”

“That’s.. disgusting.” Tony wrinkled his nose.

“And you’re an asshole.” Katie shot back.

With a shudder, Tony moved and picked up a screwdriver. He turned the helmet up aside down and opened a small hatch at the back. Stooping slightly, he prodded and poked at something inside.

“Huh, least the main board wasn’t damaged.” He straightened up and turned to face them both. “So, other than scaring the shit out of you what was it like? Voice interface okay? Too much me or not enough me or-“

“There was no voice interface.” Steve replied.

“What?” Tony frowned, “JARVIS was supposed to be controlling it. It should have told you why it was there and-“

“Well he didn’t.” Steve rolled his eyes, his already stretched patience wearing dangerously thin.

“He didn’t...huh?” Tony frowned and Katie moved past him to a computer.

“Oh for the... he’s on mute you dumbass!” She tapped a few buttons and JARVIS’ voice rang out.

“Thank you Miss Stark.”

“Shit.” Tony gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry, buddy. Forgot I turned you off.”

“Mr Stark, may I suggest you call it a night, Sir? It is rather late and you’ve been awake for almost twenty-one hours. Miss Potts instructed me to ensure you-“ “And that is precisely why I did.” Tony rolled his eyes and Katie let out a growl of annoyance

“I’m done. Come on, Steve.”

She stalked towards the door and Tony looked up. “You not gonna wish me happy birthday?”

In response she raised the middle fingers on both her hands, flipping him off over her shoulders as she stomped out of the door.

Steve watched her go before she turned to Tony. “You know, I think you’re onto something. Keeping civilians away would make things a lot easier.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Tony nodded, eagerly. “We’d need a fleet of them, an Iron Fleet, no that’s... like i said, the names a work in progress.”

“We can discuss this tomorrow. Give it some proper though.” Steve took a deep breath. “Just don’t send any more into the apartment, please?”

Tony saluted him and Steve rolled his eyes. He turned to go before he stopped, and looked back at his friend.

“Happy birthday, pal.”

Tony snorted. “Cheers, Spangles.”

Tony watched Steve walk out of the lab, before he glanced back at the destroyed robot.

“Mr Stark... Miss Potts is awake...”

“Ahh shit.” Tony groaned. “How much trouble am I in?”

“I don’t think a Roman Legion would protect you.” JARVIS replied and Tony stilled, a huge grin spreading across his face.

“Iron Legion.” He tossed the screwdriver up in the air and caught it, chuckling. “JARVIS, you are a genius.”

“Why thank you, sir. And now I really must insist you go to bed.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m going. Lock everything down will you? Oh, and order us all breakfast from the diner on the corner of fifth.”

“Of course. The usual?”

“Yeah. Have it delivered about 10:30. Should be enough to calm Kiddo down.”

“Very wise Sir. I’ll ensure there’s extra bacon, just in case.”

“Yeah, who doesn’t love extra bacon?”

[yoolee]

SLBP + Dancing (Western Style)

Now with bonus side characters - gifs to come when my computer isn’t being horrible

Hideyoshi

West Coast Swing

Making something incredibly complex look breezy, effortless, and fun? Check. Hideyoshi, in contrast to poor Inuchiyo is a great dancer and a better lead – he’ll talk you through what to do and when, but still surprise you with a sudden throw or flip just because he secretly likes when he can fluster you. Aside from those moments, it’s all about making sure his partner has fun, feels light as air, and leaves the dancefloor with a smile. The one downside is that this makes him an incredibly popular partner, and he’s not the best at saying no.

Inuchiyo

Virginia Reel/Square-Dancing

Toshiie can’t dance, okay. No way. He would try and learn for you, and it would be such a hilarious disaster that you’d both get kicked out of leave lessons laughing hysterically (well you would be laughing hysterically, he’d be an embarrassed grumpy sourpuss about it until your laughter catches on). Boy can’t even manage a passable waltz for you, which, that’s okay, because you love him and he tries. BUT he can probably manage to square dance, because he is given extremely clear instructions on what to do and when to do it. He refuses to have anyone else be his partner, though. Probably ends up picking you up more than is actually called for, because you can’t reach otherwise.

Mitsunari

General Ballroom

Will act super incensed every time he is asked to dance but of course he has studied all of them and from a technical standpoint, is perfect. Struggles with the ability to emotionally invest in either the music or moment or his partner, and so his dancing can be a bit clinical. Dances follow and is a TERRIBLE FOLLOW in the sense that he basically backleads, is prone to offering criticisms and critiques and then usually switches to lead halfway through because he can’t take your lousy leading anymore. Will drag you away from another partner on the premise that you are embarrassing Hideyoshi by dancing like that, if you’re going to do it, do it right, he will show you.

Ieyasu

Paso Doble

In this dance, the follow is basically a metaphorical prop (cape) for the lead (matador), which speaks to Ieyasu’s tendency to use people/being in control in dangerous situations of his own design. Will not warn you that you are going to be dancing with him, because the panic of ‘what you mean NOW in front of PEOPLE doing WHAT’ in your expression pleases him to no end. Let’s go of you the second the music stops. Still gets really ticked off when other people then ask you to dance especially poor Toramatsu.

Yukimura

YMCA, electric slide Line Dancing

Another guy who can’t dance. He just, once his hands are on you he starts thinking things and gets flustered and stumbles in his steps. He can probably manage a decent, basic waltz for you, as long as you get his brain focused on dreamy thoughts over steamy thoughts, but really, your best bet is the good old Electric Slide. Bonus points if he gets in an argument with Sasuke about the Cupid Shuffle. Will absolutely put you up on his shoulders for the YMCA.

Saizo

Bachata (Sensual)

I’m biased here, okay, as bachata is my favorite and I feel obligated to say that the sensual style is sort of swallowing the other (equally valid and equally beautiful) styles up but that’s still the version I think fits here. Anyway! Probably isn’t going to ever, ever dance with you in public when you ask him to (though he may steal you away from someone else if they try and dance with you) but moonlit lessons on the roof, his hands teaching your hips? Yeah, that’s a thing.

Shingen

Salsa

Fast, fiery, fun, easy to get caught up in. At first it may seem a little generic, but he can actually tell you about the nuances of different styles—where they come from and why they developed, the influences that surrounded them and changed the local legacy. An electric, charismatic partner. He’ll sweep you right along, and to that end he can be a bit of a brutish lead in the sense of manhandling and not communicating great but if you get the gumption to speak up he will listen.

Kenshin

Ballet

Beautiful, airy, and secretly tough as bloody nails. Also please imagine Kanetsugu as a grumpy ballet mistress tapping his stick. Doesn’t care at all that you have no idea what you’re doing, anyone enjoying themselves is dancing beautifully. That said when he does try and teach you he is sort of useless because he peppers like a million flowery metaphors in, Kenshin: “Arch your foot as though it rests upon a gentle globe of song,” MC: “Erm…” Kanetsugu: *sigh*  

Mitsuhide

Foxtrot

Completely unaware that this is an old-fashioned dance that literally no one thinks is cool anymore. Probably also does the Twist, the Mashed Potato the Polka. Everyone thinks this is hilarious but no one is going to call him out on it because would you? No. It’s so rare to see Mitsuhide not realize something they can’t help it. Not really a fan of dancing, and a little stiff, but a good teacher of what he knows.

Nobunaga

Lindy Hop

Lots of (seemingly) careless throwing you around? Yeah. Will not ask you to dance, will basically just tell you that you are going to be dancing with him which leads to lots of last minute, panicked lessons (with Hideyoshi & Mitsunari probably, because the former wants to help and the latter is an excellent tutor even if he will insult you the whole time). When it actually comes time, though, you are in excellent hands, because even though the improvisational nature means it doesn’t look like he has a plan, he does. Probably dances barefoot.

Masamune

Viennese Waltz

Gentle, traditional, and makes you feel like you are absolutely Cinderella. Probably shocks Kojuro and Shigezane by knowing how to dance because, when did he learn and where would he practice? (He didn’t, really, is the answer, but okay hello doing a basic waltz isn’t that hard—cue slightly arrogant glance in Yukimura’s direction—and if MC wanted to dance, he’d try for her). He’s probably  the least likely to mind you dancing with others, because he knows it makes you happy, and you always come back to him glowing.

Kojuro

Argentine Tango

A dance like a heartbeat—vital, rhythmic, and pulsing blood through your veins. It’s very purposeful, but fun, and Kojuro not-so-secretly likes showing his precious girl off and you don’t exactly mind. He’s a perfect lead, the sort who connects and communicates with both his partner, the music, and the steps, but he’s not above feigning fatigue to get out of dancing with anyone but you.

BONUS!

Shigezane

Disco

Everyone may mock it for being ridiculous, but it is fun. And Shigezane can rock some groovy neon paisley. Bonus points for being in roller skates. Can he pull off the more serious dances? Yeah, but he’s a afraid those kind of dances are a little too honest, and you’ll realize something he’d rather you didn’t. You know he can do a mean, mile-high can-can too, just FYI.

Noboyuki

Rumba

You think it’s going to be classic, maybe a little old-fashioned, and then your leg is suddenly a mile up in the air. By all appearances, a very easy-going, helpful lead, but actually start dancing and you are absolutely at his mercy.  And how on earth did you end up on the balcony...where no one else is? 

Toramatsu

Jive

Sweet, fun, and probably harmless, right? Not a lot of talking, but that’s probably out of respect for the fact that this fast-paced, fun style will leave you out of breath pretty quickly. There’s something really pure and sweet about this dance. Goes out of his way to make sure not only that you have fun but that you look like a good dancer, which backfires when everyone else wants to dance with you too. He’ll surrender your hand when someone else asks, but will wish he had it in him to be selfish for once…

Yuki

Bachata (Sensual)

(coming soon)

Well it makes sense that siblings would grow up with the same cultural dance style right? *cough* RIGHT so. Anyway. Yuki is the sort of lead who gets you to do exactly what she wants without you realizing exactly how you ended up there. Gentle rakes of fingers tips, slight pressure on your hips…you just flow where she intends you to, and by the end of it you are definitely out of breath—and not necessarily from the exertion.

More of Lee’s Rambles (or see /tagged/masterlist or just /masterlist)

[sglabs]

Visit with a Veep- Matt Mahon

Matt Mahon is the vice president of engineering for Schell Games. His responsibilities include managing the project programming teams, establishing workflow process, and overseeing the technical design of the projects.

What was your weirdest job before you started on the path that got you where you are today?

Sure. So, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, I got a job - clearing power lines. I’d have to get up at ungodly times, like 4:30 a.m., go into the office, and drive to some power lines somewhere. And then we’d strap these enormous devices onto our backs that had tanks filled with herbicides. I don’t even know what we were spraying. They had a gas blowers on them, too.

Seriously?

Yes. If you’re driving down the highway and see those power lines that look like they are shooting off into the sunset, I was clearing those kind of lines. So yes, it was by far the weirdest job I ever had.

Wow. From that experience, do you have any takeaways from it? Any lessons learned that you may have adopted?

I think the argument could be made about building a kind of camaraderie with the people you are working with. Especially since that job wasn’t exactly fun. We showed up, we knew we had a job to do, and we powered through it.

Interesting. So what brought you into the video game industry?

Well, I have always liked video games. I originally had an Atari, and later I talked my parents into getting me a Commodore 64. One of the caveats from my parents was- since it was relatively expensive- that I needed to learn and do more stuff with it than just play games. And that meant learning programming.

Oh cool.

They were excited at how I was able to manipulate data and code, and get objects to appear on the screen. Then in college, I knew that I wanted to do programming of some sort. I graduated college with a double major in computer science and math from Assumption College. But then it was ’how do I get into games?’ Keep in mind, this was the early 90’s, and there weren’t the type of game programs that there are now. I mean, I took zero classes specific to game programming. I did a lot of the learning on my own, taking information from different books and magazines. The career of a ‘game programmer’ was really abstract. I knew that people could do it, but I didn’t know how. I ended up answering an ad in a newspaper for an entertainment company called Humongous Entertainment.

No way?

Yes. They called me back and I got the job. I had other job applications out there, but this was the offer that came back. I was doing tax software at the time, so I was able to make the jump from programming tax software to making video games.

It was a nice change.

Yes, I bet! Game design and engineering sounds a little more interesting. From there, what brought you to Schell Games?

We were thinking about moving back to the east coast from Seattle to be closer to family. During that time, I found out that my brother-in-law in Pittsburgh was working at Carnegie Mellon. He got me into contact with Jesse [Schell]. We exchanged a couple of emails, had a call, and later, when I was in Pittsburgh on a family visit [my wife is from Pittsburgh], I stopped by to see the studio, had an interview and it went well. Everything lined up, so we packed up from Seattle, and moved out.

Good deal. With your experience being in the video game industry for a while, you see that it is changing pretty rapidly. From where the video game industry is now, at this moment, where do you see it going in the next five or so years?

Now that is a super hard question, and I wish I had a smart answer for it. In reality, I don’t know. It is all changing so fast. If you would have asked me five years ago if I thought Schell Games would be so focused on VR (virtual reality), I would have thought you were crazy. To me, it is less about where I think the industry is going, and more about staying open to opportunities as the industry moves along. 

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

That’s the great thing about Schell Games. We don’t get married to one single technology, one single style of game or platform, and we’re willing to try a lot of different things. We’ve built a reputation that people would say, “Well, that’s a weird idea” or “That’s a weird piece of technology. Let’s see what Schell Games can do with it.” It has served us well, because we are able to jump on whatever new exciting technologies crop up.

Since I started at Schell Games, we’ve transition ourselves three or four times. One of my first projects was Pixie Hollow, a flash-based, MMO for kids. At the time, flash-based and MMOs were super hot. We probably did three or four of those projects. Then as flash development cooled down, we started using the Unity platform, went hard into tablet games like Lexica, and we did a few more mobile games. Now, though we still dabble in mobile games, we’re very focused on VR. I’m not even talking about the work we do with theme parks and other location-based games.

As for our VR development, we worked on I Expect You To Die for about two years. And even before that, we had some experiments on the DK1 VR headset, when it was on Kickstarter. So our ability to experiment with things like VR and other technologies is pretty cool.

Cool. Have any experiments helped Schell Games recently?

Absolutely. We’ve been playing with the HoloLens, and have been discussing what type of experiences could be done well for that technology. Tango is also a good example. We sent a couple of devs to Google’s campus for a tech/game jam-type of workshop. On Tango, we experimented with creating a Jenga game, and Google loved it. They had us go back, clean it up a little bit for CES, and that experiment led directly to our Domino World game.

What do you like about working for an indie studio in general, and Schell Games specifically?

We have a great group of people here and it means a lot. I like the fact that we do a lot of different things. We’re not on an assembly line, making the same game over and over again. Although, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a hit franchise.

Of course.

There is something very compelling about the variety of tasks and challenges here. As far as an indie studio, it is kind of the same thing. We’re a ‘big’ small company. It’s a tough industry though. You see other studios laying off staff, and studios going out of business and closing down. For Schell Games, we’ve been able to keep this thing going for nearly 15 years.

That’s a real feat.

The fact that we’ve been able to make it this long, without any major layoffs or big ‘scale-downs,’ is atypical for our industry. And it goes back to Jesse, because he really cares about the people. He’ll make choices that will defend the people of Schell Games, not just defending the business of Schell Games. And sometimes it’s a hard balance, because there are cases where those goals don’t align. Sometimes it would be easier to lay people off, but we try to get the best group of people, grow them, and keep them.

You mentioned that with the diversity of projects and things that you are working on, there are challenges. How do you stay on top of your craft and your discipline while managing your team?

Yes, it is really hard to maintain excellence in your craft when you are a full-time manager. I would like to say that I program all the time on my own. In reality, I do a little bit, but it’s not enough to keep up with the people who are doing it full-time. For me, it’s about reading, going to conferences, and learning and absorbing as much as I can. I need to be aware of what’s out there; to understand concepts rather than implementations; to know what things are trending; and to learn what people have tried, succeeded and failed at. The most important thing for me now is to be able to recognize talent. It’s much more important that I can identify a good programmer than be a good programmer. I have to put people in the right spots. That’s my job. If I can assemble teams that work well together and build great content, I’ve succeeded.

Right. Makes sense.

You want to be able to hire people smarter than you. Hire smart people and put them in the right place to succeed. If you do that, everything gets easier.

Excellent. When you got onto the management track, what concepts or lessons did you have to learn on the job? Or were there things about leadership you didn’t know before you got into a leadership position?

Yes, there are a lot of lessons. I have been in leadership positions for quite a while, from project direction to studio leadership. Going back to one of the studios I was at before Schell Games, I had a very good engineering manager. I thought she was interesting because she was not a programmer. I had her as a manager and she was incredibly transparent, saying, “look, programming is not my thing, but I’m here to help manage the department.” She would focus on team interactions, professional development and career paths, and she would solicit feedback from others to understand if a person was a good engineer, or not.  

Very interesting.

It is something that I have always taken with me. The person managing you on a project should not be the one managing your career. Project goals and career goals often don’t align. If someone said “hey, I want to learn this new thing” or “I’m a little tired of database stuff, I want to do something different,” career-wise, it makes sense. If your project manager had to make that choice, it is a much harder sell because that manager is looking at the health of the project, not the health of your career.

That’s a good point.

Normally that tension is going to be there. Being able to manage it is something that I picked up.

Early on, when I was starting as a Technical Lead, I was often the best programmer on the team. The first thing I had to learn was, it doesn’t matter how good a programmer you are, you’re not going to be doing more programming work than the five people underneath you. It’s not important that I’m busy programming, it is important that *they* are busy programming, and then I fill in where I can.

You have to set them up for success, and let them leverage your knowledge to make them more efficient. It is more important than me pounding out code.

(Matt describing the engineering department during the 2017 Spring Open House)

Yes, I see that.

As responsibilities increase, being open and honest with people becomes very important. You learn that hiding from a difficult conversation isn’t going to help. Have those conversations. Be very forthright. You get your credibility from how you follow through on things. If I say “okay, I’ll take that up with the VP group,” close the loop. Even if the answer is no, I could close the loop by saying, “Hey, we tried to get the extra staff, but we can’t do it for ‘x,y,z reason.’ I realize the project is difficult, here’s why we’re doing it this way and why this supports the studio. I will work with you to get through this issue.” 

If you don’t follow through, close those loops, and do what you said you were going to do, you lose that credibility.

All very good points. Where do you think Schell Games is going to be in five years?

It’s hard to say. As a manager, I go through all the scenarios, right? The worst case, the best case, nothing is out of the range of possibilities. So, for the sake of argument, the worst case scenario is that we stay ‘as is,’ which wouldn’t be a very bad case for us. We keep some level of work, a level of internal projects, and level out. But I can easily see us doubling in size in five years. We put ourselves in the position where we have one of the top titles in VR in I Expect You To Die. If somebody mentions VR games, our game comes up. It’s a good place to be.

It’s definitely in the upper-echelon, for sure.

Right. Thinking back to when CD-Rom games were new, sales for these games started very slowly, and then took off. Myst was a huge beneficiary of that trend. The place where we want to be is the “Myst of VR.” 7th Guest was a step down from Myst, but still a hugely successful game. We can be at that same level with I Expect You To Die. It would really do a lot for us.

When you are thinking about the future, what do you think is unique being a part of a leadership team like the one at Schell Games?

I’m not sure if it’s unique, but I feel we spend a lot of time thinking proactively about company processes, and how they relate to the games we’re trying to build. We’ve grown from 12 employees to over 100 since I’ve been here. While not perfect, I feel we’ve avoided a lot of pitfalls along the way. As a result, the teams have been able to focus on making great games.

(Happy Atoms, a digital and physical chemistry modeling set, is one of the many projects the studio developed in 2016)

What’s your favorite video game? (that you’ve played, or admire for its design, art, etc.)

I’m going to go with The World Ends With You. It was a DS title, and was a weird, little game about collecting and battling with pins. It had a cool mechanic and an interesting story. I played it for a looooong time trying to get 100% complete. I think I still have one pin to get.

What advice do you have for people trying to get into the video game industry?

First, make stuff. Either with friends or solo. Your early stuff will be bad, and that’s okay. Focus on the learning. Try and build something you can show. Secondly, learn some code. Even if you don’t intend to be an engineer, knowing a little code will give you a lot of freedom.

Last question: What, in your opinion, makes the leadership team at Schell Games, click?

We’ve been together for a long time. With the battles we’ve faced as a team, we’ve built a sense of trust amongst each other. Keeping this company going is a lot of work. We have open communication with each other and are not afraid to talk to each other. Longevity and stability have served us well.