“I want to leave my mark through creating a thoughtful and original game like the games that inspire me.”

Gautam Samudrala: “I was always into video games. I loved playing them. I want to be able to create games that people would love to play. Games have inspired me to learn about the world around me. I want to leave my mark through creating a thoughtful and original game like the games that inspire me. I learned to program though online tutorials and taking classes in school and outside institutions. The first game I ever created was Paperman. It’s a 2-D shoot-em-up with 9 levels. BioShock, a video game, has been a huge inspiration to me. This game made me realize how an entertainment product can make people respond and discuss topics concerning the world. Post-high school, I would want to be a software engineer in either game development or any other software-related field. Programming games allowed me to realize the satisfaction of creating a product through code…I’m also president of the Video Game Design Club [at Dougherty]. My least favorite part of programming games is the amount of time it takes to accomplish anything. It takes about a few weeks to program a simple prototype. A prototype, mind you, that should determine if your game is fun to play. I would tell my younger self not to be lazy and actually try to learn to program before life gets crammed with school work. ”