Team Members
Zhiying (Selena) Guan
Zhiying is a producer and programmer. Her main interest lies in technician and production. Zhiying finished her undergraduate studies at University of California, San Diego with a double major in Applied Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts Major.
Samantha Lai
Samantha is a Canadian writer-director with a background in architecture. Born and raised in Canada to parents from Hong Kong, she later moved to Taiwan, where she earned an MFA in Film Production at Taipei National University of the Arts, specializing in screenwriting. With experience in both writing and directing, she has worked across various Taiwanese TV productions, crafting compelling narratives and visual storytelling. Her work demonstrates a keen eye for structure, atmosphere, and emotional depth, bringing a distinct perspective to every project she takes on.
Felix Choi
Felix is a Product UX Designer with a huge passion for the intersection of technology and interaction design. He enjoys experimenting with innovative interactions beyond web and app design (which he has worked on for quite some time). Recently, his focus has been on spatial interactions, primarily within XR environments.
Grace Rodriguez-Gomez
Grace is a latina born and raised in Puerto Rico. She has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and four years of experience as a software developer, including two years working in AWS. She has experience working in web development, Linux servers, backend, automating internal tools, VR development and game development. She always had a passion for visual arts and is working on becoming a Technical Artist in the Entertainment Industry to apply her technical skills with art. On her free time, she likes to travel and paint landscapes, going to the movies, watching sci-fi and fantasy series, playing video games and board games.
Jose Mireles Macario
Jose is a 3D artist, photographer, and educator with proven ability to develop engaging narratives across various media. A graduate of Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico, he holds dual minors in Animation and Film Directing & Production. He worked as a dance photographer documenting different events troughtout the city. He taught filmmaking at the high school level, mentoring students who have achieved recognition in both national and regional competitions. Jose is recognized for effective mentoring, team leadership, and success in competitive environments.
Zixuan (Lucy) He
Zixuan He is a 3D environment artist with a strong focus on creating natural environments, especially vegetation and biomes. She is always exploring new ways to improve her work, using techniques like photogrammetry and 3D scanning to bring more detail and realism into her projects.
Instructor
Trained as a theatrical lighting designer, Chris Klug began his career in the arts working on Broadway, in regional theater, and toured with various 70’s rock n’ roll bands. Then, at the invitation of a fellow photographer, Chris transitioned into a career as a Game Designer. Starting with Simulations Publications, Inc., in 1981, he was first Assistant Designer on Universe (a sci-fi role playing game), then was Lead Designer for the 2nd edition of DragonQuest (a fantasy RPG), Horror Hotel (something’s lurking in the shadows of an old Victorian mansion) and Damocles Mission (a sci-fi strategy game about exploring an alien artifact). While at SPI he edited the role playing section of Ares magazine.
When TSR bought SPI in 1982, Chris and the rest of the SPI staff moved on to start-up Victory Games. While at Victory, Chris managed the role playing games product line, and designed the James Bond 007 role playing game (a winner of a H.G. Wells RPG Game of the Year Award as well as the winner of TSR’s RPGA award). This game has been hailed as one of the first RPGs to emphasize story and narrative.
He also designed a number of adventures based on the movies (Live and Let Die won RPG Adventure of the Year), followed up by a solitaire board game — Open Fire — based on Victory’s Ambush system.
After a time as a Macintosh consultant to New York City’s magazine publishing industry, Chris moved on to freelance video game design and worked for SegaSoft, TSR, Hasbro Interactive, 3W, THQ, Simon and Schuster Interactive, Target Games, h2o Interactive, and Gizmo Games In that industry Chris has more than a dozen titles to his credit, including “RPG Story of the Year” award for Aidyn Chronicles: First Mage. Some of his computer game credits include Star Trek DS9: Dominion Wars, Europa Universalis, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, and Diamond Dreams Baseball.
Chris then joined EA’s Westwood Studios full-time as a content and story specialist, leading the narrative team for EA’s first MMO, Earth & Beyond, for which Chris later became Creative Director.
Chris then became Creative Director at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment in Mesa, Arizona, designing Stargate Worlds, an MMO based on the Stargate television franchise. Chris also worked closely with Brad Wright and the Stargate writing staff on efforts to sync up the evolving story in both the TV series as well as the MMO.
While teaching at the ETC, Chris secured an $8 million investment in an innovative social game / mobile game platform, Dream Wedding Planner, and launched the product in the spring of 2014.
In addition to teaching story, game design and creating writing at CMU, Chris consults with game publishers around the world.
Chris is a playwright and member of the Writer’s Guild of America West.