I got the pleasure of talking to Terri Mardel last week about her work with Road Hog Games. She tells me about how her love of gaming grew from being a young child and the work she does with Road Hog.

You can listen to the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1222192-train2game-student-terri-mardel-speaks-to-mark-on-t2g-radio

Or read the transcript below

Hello my name’s Terri Mardel, I’m on the Designer course and I’m from St Albans.

Hiya Terri, how you doing?
I’m OK thank you

Good! So what’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life to who you are now?
Well I have been a gamer since my Dad introduced me to games, say from about the age of 6. 5, 6, 7 maybe. I have very early memories of a sports game on a Spectrum which involved wiggling a joystick really fast. I think from there I’ve always played games. I had a Master System in my bedroom and I used to love playing Sonic and stuff like that, so I’d say it’s something I’ve grown up with and at the moment I work in Blockbuster so I’m constantly trying all the news games out and I’ve just loved games my whole life! Then a couple of years ago, I saw an advert in the paper about Train2Game and I was like “Yeah, why don’t I make games?”

Excellent! So you are quite a fan of the old classic games then?
Yeah, yeah as I say, I have very good memories of childhood, spent in my bedroom playing on Sonic and Alex Kidd and various other games like that!

So you’re now part of Road Hog Games, how did you get involved with that?
Well me, Gareth and Izzi all met at the Game Jam. I’d actually been talking to Gareth before hand, we met over the forums and stuff but the three of us met face to face at the Game Jam and we decided we work together so well that we were going to carry on afterwards and so its just grown from there really!

So What is it you do for Road Hog Games?
I’m the design director, that’s my official title, and basically myself and with Gareth’s input as well we basically design the games and come up with the story lines and all the attributes and features that we want to have. Then communicate that to Izzi the developer and Amy the artist and then it all comes together to make a game!

With Road Hog Games, you are working on Little Green Dude, what was the idea behind that?
It actually came out of wanting to make a game quick sharp and Gareth came up with the idea of doing like a Pong style game and then from there I suggested elements of other games that we could then bring in to make it more interesting, instead of just a single Pong game and its grown from there!

So it was quite a lot of influence from all those classic games you used to play then?
Yeah, yeah! There’s quite a few games I’ve designed through the course and for other things which are based on mechanics in games which I used to love as a kid.

So I know that Road Hog Games has input from an industry veteran, what’s it like working with him?
It’s really good! Just the wealth  of experience and knowledge that he has and that he is willing to impart that on us, it’s just amazing!  

You’re learning a lot from him then?
Yeah!

What is your greatest ambition in your personal career?
Wow, uh, one of several! I guess I’d like to create the next million dollar franchise, character and story behind it. I’d like Road Hog to take off and make something of ourselves that way. There’s tons of dreams!

Always good to dream big! Well I think that’s all we have time for today Terri, so thank you very much!
Ok then!