What is your job at EA Phenomic?
I’m Creative Director at EA Phenomic. So I’m primarily responsible for game concepts and design.

What does your daily work look like?
That varies a lot. The focus is often on the search for elegant design solutions, motivating game rules and decisions on game features. On the other hand, presenting BattleForge to the press or in the company, team meetings, brainstorming and many other continuously changing tasks are part of the job too.

What do you like best about working in the games industry?
I love to work on games creatively. It’s my dream job. It’s simply fascinating when a project starts to take shape, over many months and despite all difficulties along the way, and when enthusiastic players finally get to explore the world within the game.

How did you get into the games industry?
I was about ten years old when I saw my first gaming machine, running Space Invaders, and I was hooked. I could soon call an Atari 2600 my own and at the age of 14, using a VC-20, I could finally fulfill my dream: to program games myself. At the same age I already sold my first game to Kingsoft (who, ironically enough, were taken over by Electronic Arts some years later). Several smaller titles followed, like Emerald Mine, and finally “The Settlers”, which I developed at the age of 20.

What do you like most about BattleForge?
The possibility to surprise the opponent with a new deck and a novel strategy. And cooperative battles on difficult maps.

Which feature of BattleForge do you think is especially cool?
The direct way of playing out cards and the consequences that has: powerful spells, and gigantic creatures and buildings appearing out of nowhere.

What are your hopes for BattleForge?
I hope that, after all the MMORPGs, the online market will finally be enriched by an RTS with a long-term perspective.

Fire, Frost, Nature or Shadow?
I like to stave off the opponent and then surprise him with a serious problem. So... Frost. Maybe with a little Nature thrown in the mix...? My ultimate deck is not finished yet.

What was your first video game?
Atari 2600 Space Invaders, shortly followed by Pacman.

Since you're playing a lot – what games would you take to a desert island?
Online games. I hope the island has broadband internet. An MMORPG for the many hours to pass, a strategy game like Magic Online – or rather BattleForge, once it's done – and a fun game like Trackmania.

Are you an active Trading Card Game player?
Currently not, but I used to play Magic „offline“ for some months and online once in a while.

Complete this sentence: On the day BattleForge is released...
... I'll not only play the whole day, but also the whole night through. I'll probably have less skills than people who have played the beta extensively, so I guess I'll take some beatings too. 8-)