Héctor Padilla

+ RadicalGolem: Game development for social platforms
+ Lead Game designer for Wii title to be released in summer 2010.
+ Helping to create and grow a game development industry in Mexico.

Academia:
+ I have been the chair of the Digital Arts Department in ITESM (México)
+ TA for two years in an academic project between the UofA and Bioware.
+ Consulting for Video Games program for the UAD
+ Multiple workshops in interactive media and game design

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My passion is designing engaging interactive experiences. I love prototyping ideas and trying new things. Game design and the psychology of why people play games and how they remain engaged in them is a personal interest.

I greatly enjoy programming/designing and getting my hands dirty to make things happen. Yet more and more life is pulling me towards project and team management and I'm loving it.

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Over the years I have done studies on traditional art, figure drawing, hand drawn animation, music (percussions), singing and theater. This, among my academic formation in Computer Science has given me a good edge in what comes to Digital Art, Interactive Media and Game Design. :-) I feel like I can talk to everyone in the team and empathize with them. :-)

Héctor Padilla’s Specialties:

Game Design and prototyping (I enjoy prototyping a lot!).
Project management and production (Recently took SCRUM training).

Strong programming skills and logic thinking due to CS education, complemented by good sense of aesthetics and design by artistic formation. Very good inter-personal skills that allow me to communicate with everyone in a game development team.

Héctor Padilla’s Experience

Project Manager (contract remote team)

Hive7

(Public Company; Internet industry)

December 2008 — Present (8 months)

Managing a Mexican development team in charge of putting together social games in partnership with Hive7.

I have been involved in this project as an ActionScript gameplay developer as well.
Lead Game Designer

CANIETI

(Non-Profit; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 2008 — Present (9 months)

Lead Game designer for an upcoming Wii title.
(Leading a team of 2 game designers and 6 level designers/editors)
Founder - Producer

Radical Golem

(Computer Games industry)

October 2007 — Present (1 year 10 months)

Working on game development for social platforms (Facebook, OpenSocial, Twitter).

Our main partner is currently Hive7. In the past we have worked on several multimedia related projects with different clients. Some current/past clients are:

ArcanaComics, Slide.com, PureSafety, Bouchard Consulting, Casacor, ITESM, UofA, ...etc
Board of Directors

IGDA-Mexico

(Non-Profit; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)

October 2007 — Present (1 year 10 months)
Consultant - Video Games Program

Universidad de Artes Digitales

(Education Management industry)

April 2008 — April 2009 (1 year 1 month)

Helping this University define a good curriculum (based on IGDA's guidelines) for their Video Games program.
Computer Science Graduate Student

University of Alberta

(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)

August 2005 — January 2009 (3 years 6 months)

Research in Interactive Media and Education.

Teacher Assistant in interdisciplinary video game development class for the past 2 years.

Thesis pending.
Game Content Production

Zynga

(Privately Held; Computer Games industry)

September 2008 — October 2008 (2 months)

Doing some work for Zynga's YoVille.
Contract Developer - Consultant

UShow

(Computer Games industry)

February 2008 — August 2008 (7 months)
Game designer / Developer

Arcana Studio

(Entertainment industry)

October 2007 — February 2008 (5 months)

Game designer and developer for the Clockwork Girl comic
Chair Digital Art Department

ITESM Campus Guadalajara

(Educational Institution; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)

July 2007 — January 2008 (7 months)

Chair of Digital Art Department, tied to the University curriculum of "Bachelor in Animation and Digital Art", and creating joint ventures and projects with both companies and university worldwide to develop the Digital Arts industry in Mexico.
Flash / ActionScript Developer

Slide.com

(Internet industry)

January 2007 — April 2007 (4 months)

Working on different aspects to embellish their photo slider product. (particle systems and such for "themes", illustrating and designing skis).
Game Development TA

University of Alberta - Support from Bioware

(Educational Institution; 501-1000 employees; Computer Games industry)

August 2005 — April 2007 (1 year 9 months)

Interdisciplinary class in which students from different departments would get together to make a game. The class was focussed on game design, the students would learn about story telling, conceptual art, audio editing, 3D modeling, etc. The basics of all this fields to give them a feeling of everything behind the making of a good game. To put the game together we used the Aurora Toolset from Bioware
Flash / ActionScript developer

PureSafety.com

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

June 2006 — January 2007 (8 months)

Creating Flash applications for their online training courses. Developing quizzes, brain teasers, learning activities and interactive presentations.
Multimedia Developer

ITESM

(Educational Institution; 10,001 or more employees; Higher Education industry)

August 1999 — July 2005 (6 years)

Doing both Lingo (director) and ActionScript (flash) projects since the early days.
Comic Book Arists - Co Founder

KaraOkulta

(Arts and Crafts industry)

November 2003 — May 2005 (1 year 7 months)

Writing, inking, base colors
GUI Developer

Innox

(Partnership; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

May 2003 — June 2004 (1 year 2 months)

Héctor Padilla’s Education

University of Alberta

Masters , Computer Science , 2005 — 2007

Due to extremely high work load I have had to postpone my thesis, so I have not completed this degree.
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

Bachelor , Computer Systems Engineering , 1998 — 2003
Western Illinois University

Exchange Program , Computer Science , 2000 — 2001