About Andrew Yoder

Hi, I’m Andrew Yoder, student of Biology, History, Philosophy, Mathematics, and Art. I’m only majoring in Biology (edit: History?) though. So, why Level Design when I’m trying to do everything else at once? Because video games are fascinating and fun. My childhood interests in Super Mario, UT99, and Banjo Kazooie probably help too.

Here’s a picture of me in the mountains!

Sergei Eisenstein said of film that “to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema.” And this was in 1949! In video games, we we’re still searching for our medium specificity, and it may take a while. But that makes level and game design an exploration into the unknown. In short, who knows the future for video games?

It’s also worth mentioning the debate about video games as art, since somet of my levels take themselves more seriously than the games they were built for. One of many goals in art is to instill empathy and insight. There is no better way to understand someone than to actually be them, just look at Anna Anthropy’s Dys4ia, or Robert Yang’s Radiator series. Maybe one day we will be able to modify our brains to create new memories and experience separate lives partitioned from our own. Until then, video games are the best way to be and understand someone else.

Of course, not all games need to be art by these metrics, and I spend most of my gaming time in whimsical platformers or cooperative shooters. But that doesn’t mean the medium should be written off wholly for explosive escapism.

For more of my thoughts, check out my design blog over Here! If you want to contact me for employment purposes, or just to chat, send me an email at:

AndrewYoder@Live.com.