Alan McDairmant

I love working with lots of different people and making games. I am passionate about driving things forward and collaborating with people. I see game making as an adventure and bring my passion and energy to everything I do. I live with my amazing wife Clare, 3 kids, cat and new addition a French Bulldog called Leon, in Edinburgh. We love the city and experience it to the fullest! I am passionate about cinema, board games and tabletop games of all types and have a huge collection. I’ve also been a Dungeon Master since I was a kid and still love creating worlds for my players to have mayhem when we gather and roll dice. I love to walk my dog with my wife and go for a run in Meadows park in Edinburgh. Movies in my local independent cinema is also a great way to escape into a great story.

_favourite Game

Gauntlet

_favourite BOOK

Only Forward

_Currently learning

Editing and MIx controllers

Questions & Answers

Earliest gaming memory?

Answer

Either playing Pong on an old Atari or spending ages trying to get a game to work on my ZX81

What was the game that triggered you looking at games as a career?

Answer

Hard to say. When I was a kid I used to modify games I typing in from Input magazine and I remember making a Breakout style game that really triggered and interest in me.

What did you study at School or Uni that you feel was valuable for a career in games?

Answer

I always had a love of art, particularly animation and illustration, and made it my goal to spend as much time as possible in the art department. I think in my final year of high school I barely left the art class rooms, spending my time there on my portfolio, learning photography and attending drawing classes. From there I studied a one year collage foundation course, which gave me a good taster of all subjects in art and led me to study Animation And Film at Edinburgh College of Art. There I had access to a Mac (this was 1990!) so I took my interest in home computing and programming and combined it with traditional drawn animation. This blend of computer aided and traditional animation developed my skills. I was also always the more project management type in my year group and a project with the BBC confirmed this, as I took control of the project planning and organising, as I naturally filled those shoes. These passions, along with a lot of luck, got me my first job as an animator working on CD Rom based kids games. Training new hires in a growing studio took me to leadership and eventually the producer or project managment, side of things, again playing to my strengths and passions.

What game that has inspired you the most?

Answer

Gauntlet had a huge influence on me in terms of the sheer fun of social gaming around a cabinet together pouring in 10p coins

What is the first game you worked on?

Answer

A kids game called The Fish That Could Wish voiced by Robbie Coltrane!

Games you’re the proudest to have worked on?

Answer

Hard to pick one but the journey we went on with the game changing content of Burnout Paradise with a years worth of amazing new content and play experiences was a lot of fun to make and delight players with.

If you weren’t making games?

Answer

I would start a board gaming café in Edinburgh and play and design games all day while drinking amazing coffee

Top 3 games of all time?

Answer

Gauntlet – spent so much time playing this with friends Elite – blew my mind as a kid for it openness Final Fantasy VII – first time I got teared up playing a game

Hardest Game Boss?

Answer

Anything in Elden Ring. Its an incredible game that’s brutal. I played it so much and kept coming back for more as I was punished over and over again :-)