April 2024
Tony Raimond
Senior Full Stack Unity Engineer
What is your role in Solar Forge Games?
I'm a Sr Full Stack Unity Engineer. I have been building the server side of the game and also participating on the application side.
What is your favorite card in our game?
The Badger. I like his role in the story and he's very strong in game as well.
What have you enjoyed the most about developing Tower Rush?
The team. Working with a great team is a complete quality of life level. Working every day with amazing people in the industry you love is a dream.
What is your favorite game, or the game that has inspired you the most?
Skyrim is the top one by a lot. It's visible in my hours racked up in Steam, and that doesn't even count the times I've played the game through Mod Organizer. I don't even know what to point out about the game because I loved everything. The leveling up, open world, story, exploitable "bugs?", emergent behavior, mods.
However I still feel the need to mention Tibia hahaha. First MMORPG I played, huge map on surface level but with huge worlds underground as well. With lots of cool lore as well. That feeling of an immense explorable world, faraway mountains and hidden treasure. And very cool invasion events. In my opinion the harsh death consequences enriches the experience.
Other honorable mentions are Total War Warhammer and the Warhammer universe and Civ V and Vi.
What is your background? Did you go to school for game dev, or even see yourself going into games?
The first time I played video games I think I was 3 years old, playing Nanosaur in a Mac. Then I tried programming in Byond when I was 12 maybe and finally release my first game with Unity in high school. I studied Software Engineering and game jammed with friends during holidays and weekends. I graduated in 2019 and developed XR and apps for companies until I was contacted to join Solar Forge! It was a journey to get here, and it's been amazing!
What was the hardest part of creating Tower Rush?
The cool thing is that it's been just technical stuff. I feel that, as a team, we have worked synergistically. So the challenge has remained developing fast and solving some bumps along the road, which have been solved with teamwork.
Any recommendations for people who want to get into game development?
This is my first full time position in game dev, I don't know if I got it figured out, but my hypothesis was building a portfolio that tells the studio whether you have the skills they need. If you can show the skills, both technical and soft, it doesn't matter where you come from. The Internet has opened the world for everyone who can access it; if you get yourself to work and practice you can learn what you need and land your dream job and/or build your dream project as well.
What are your favorite hobbies?
Self design and everything fantasy. Reading, tabletop games, video games, movies and series.
If you couldn't do game dev, what do you see yourself doing instead?
I'm got certified as a hypnotherapist, which I see as tools that people can learn to help themselves live happier lives. I believe there's a huge need of this in the world. And I would also keep using my software skills in app dev.
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