A master’s student in computer science Atiya Nova loves games. She started working with Pejman during her first year, which opened the door to joining UXR Lab as she progressed through her studies. In addition to her work with the lab, she is also interning with Stitch Media.
We spent some time with Atiya and asked her about her passion for games and where she sees her career going in the future.
You can find Atiya on Twitter.
What inspired you to study games and UX?
As a kid I liked playing GRPG (General Role Playing Games) and I would fantasize being a part of the game and working on them. This led me to UX because I liked diving into the mind of the player. I like how various aspect of the game can affect the experience of a user and I wanted to be able to create or help create things that could provide good experience for users.
What is your favorite part of working with UXR Lab?
My favorite thing about the lab would be the community that we have built, the environment of the lab is a lot of fun, everyone is supportive and we help each other out.
Do you have any advice that you’d give to anyone who might work with UXR Lab in the future?
Work hard and be focused on your work but also remember to have fun, that’s what I think would be the best advice for the future members.
What is it about programming that appeals to you?
It just feels so good to me. I remember being a kid and I was trying to learn how to make games. I coded some very basic text adventure games, using a very simple approach that would no longer be used in games today, but when I actually ran the game and saw it working, the feeling of happiness I got was immense. It’s like trying to solve a problem for me. I find coding challenges to be a lot of fun and get so much satisfaction from coding games.
What kinds of tools do you use now when you’re working on games?
These days I use Unity a lot, so C#. But also C++. In the past I’ve used Java to try making mobile game apps as well, but these days I focus on C++ and C#.
What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on in the past?
What is your favorite project that you have worked on?
I got the opportunity to work on a project called “Boyfriend Dungeon, though my time spent working on that project was short, I really enjoyed the experience working with my team and on the project. Right now I’m working on a virtual reality game that I think is cool and I’m having fun working on it, but I can’t say much about it right now.