Mentors

COLIN TOWLE

Colin is a games programmer by trade, who has worked on all ranges of projects, from AAA titles like Watch_Dogs for Ubisoft to indie titles like Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2. He’s also released his own game titled Data Defense and is now working on a whole new indie title! On his free time, Colin enjoys gardening, board gaming, clear ice and banana ice cream!
SKILLS: Unity, Programming (C++, C#, general programming), Game design, Game jams

CURTIS WACHS

Skills grown from the ancient glyphs of Macromedia Flash, Curt has been hacking together things for more than 20 years. Jack of many trades and master of none, he leverages his fleeting hyperfocus to solve problems and learn whatever skills he thinks are necessary to get the job done.
SKILLS: Game design, Unity, C#, general programming, vision processing, skeletal tracking, AR app design/development, juggling

ELINE STEFFENS

“Hi there, my name is Eline and I’m working as a procedural tech artist for EA Motive. Before starting on my current project, Iron Man, I worked on Dead Space, which is about to be shipped. Before joining EA I was a technical content creator in the Apple verse, but making games is so much nicer 😊. This will be my first gamejam so I’m just as excited as all of you are. Just don’t hesitate to ask me anything, that’s what I’m there for!”
SKILLS: Procedural 3D modelling, Tech art, Houdini, Coding (VEX, C++, C#, Python), End to End Automation, Thin AI clients, Performance optimization, Project Management

ELISABETH ATWOOD

Elisabeth (they/she) is the founder and narrative director of Studio Lazulite – a Montreal transmedia studio nurturing an equitable world through story and offering narrative support to indie games. Along with over a decade of storytelling and creative production experience, they bring a unique cross-disciplinary creative portfolio, including arts management, DEI advocacy, fundraising, marketing, fine art and photography, and experimental filmmaking. Current affiliations: Baby Ghosts, SFWA, IGDA, Safe in our World, Pixels and Poutine, Women in Games MTL
SKILLS: Game, Narrative, Level Design (Tools: Ink and Twine, Unity and Godot), 2D Art (Tools: Adobe Creative Suite, Aesprite) Production and scoping (Tools: Miro, Notion, ClickUp) Sensitivity Consulting (Gender minorities – nonbinary, woman; and Disability – autism, anxiety, depression)

JESS MARCOTTE

Dr. Jess Rowan Marcotte (they/them) is a queer, transgender, mixed white-passing Mi’kmaw and Euro settler game designer, maker, writer, researcher, teacher and community organizer. They are one of the three co-founders of the Soft Chaos Cooperative, a worker-owned cooperative that turns feelings into experiences, designing meaningful, playful interactions that connect people at the interstices of physical and digital worlds. They also co-organize the Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon) and consult on educational health games with WHO (WHO Academy) and game initiatives for refugees with UNHCR Innovation Services. Their work focuses on interactive experiences of all sorts, including interactive installations, larps, tabletop games, alt control/hybrid games, video games, and more. What unifies their design work is a general focus on queer, intersectional feminist themes and design approaches, as well as explorations of awkwardness, vulnerability, and intimacy. They try to create games that encourage people to reflect on their relationship to themselves and others.
SKILLS: Game design, game scope, game writing, 2D pixel art, Sketchup 3D modeling, Construct 2 (and probably 3), Twine, Tracery, basic JavaScript, Makey-Makey and Arduinos, physical crafting, alt controllers, sewing, basic sound editing in Audacity, sound libraries, sound recording

MEGAN ATHAVALE

Meg (along with her friends, Keith and Curt) has spent 20+ years mastering interactive design and display technologies. Their interactive gaming platform, LUMOplay, is used by parents, teachers, businesses, agencies, and brands all over the world. When Meg’s not creating large format interactive games and experiences, she works on brand identity, marketing, IP, finances, community management, and business strategy.
SKILLS: Concept art, level design, graphic design, animation, audio production, and project management

MEGAN HUTCHINSON

Meg (she/her) is a death-loving Narrative Design gremlin creating the next Bioshock title one corpse at a time. Her former title was Season: a Letter to the Future, which explored whether the act of forgetting the past could justify the creation of a world free from generational trauma. Her work focuses on building worlds haunted by the past and using her background in trauma research to create complex characters. This leads to the question, what does this character grieve, what are they afraid to lose, and what will they do to protect themselves from loss?
SKILLS: Narrative Design Story mapping World building Environmental Storytelling Unreal Twine HTML / CSS / Java script Branching Dialogues Organization / documentation Research Marketing / Social Media

nARF

Game designer and militant for social justice! Let’s use games to make a better world and take down capitalism! But games aren’t everything: let’s talk about growing plants, yoga, podcasting or green tech!
SKILLS: Knowing which tool to use, Game design, Planning your time at a game jam, Construct (2 and 3), Bitsy, Twine, Git, Python, Mastodon

NICOLAS BARRIÈRE-KUCHARSKI

Nicolas Barrière-Kucharski is a senior game designer born in Québec, Canada, and currently based out of Montréal. Since 2010, he’s shipped multiple client-based, studio-led and independent titles across web, mobile, PC, console and VR platforms. Talented generalist, he’s jack-of-all-trades full of curiosity, passion and positivity who thrives on collaboration. He has done nearly every design role possible in a production, such as game, level, economy, systems, narrative, and UX/UI design. And that’s in addition to user experience testing, project management, creative direction, PR, marketing and community management, across all business models currently seen on the market. He currently works in the Live Gaming space at Behaviour Interactive as Senior Game Designer on Dead by Daylight, where he creates new combat gameplay and character designs as part of the Killer creation team.
SKILLS: Game Design, Systems Design, Combat Design, Level Design, Narrative Design, Writing, Creative Direction, Production

NICOLE PARMENTIER

Nicole studied Computer Science at Concordia and worked at Ubisoft as an AI and Gameplay Programmer for a year. She recently started an indie studio with her husband, and they will be releasing their second Steam game this November! Her philosophy is that games should be fun and chill for everyone, and should generally be as accessible as possible in both design and price. When not making games she can be found studying Japanese, petting her cats, playing board games, or making tasty vegan treats.
SKILLS: Game design and scope, Unity, Programming (C#, C++, Java), Aseprite

OLIVIER BOUCHARD

Olivier Bouchard is a solo developer from Montreal working on Camille and Laura, a game about the daily life of a single mother, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. His previous project, A Game About, reached over eighty thousands players on Steam. Being a solo dev, Olivier has experience working in every facet of game development. He’s also a professional movie editor and has a fascination for borzoi dogs.
SKILLS: Unity engine with C#, Godot Engine with GDScript, Gamemaker Engine with GML, Ink, Twine, Audacity, Photoshop, Gimp

SARAH NOLAN

Sarah is a disabled queer Haitian-Canadian undergraduate student at Concordia in Computer Science with a Minor in Computational Arts. She is found in many different roles within game development, but is mainly a game designer, producer, and 3D animator. She worked as a contractor on KO_OP MODE’s Goodbye Volcano High, and this year she released A Reminder For the Future with Siovan, where the concept was brainstormed at last year’s GamerELLA! Additionally, Sarah is supporting Weird Ghosts as an Advisory Board Member for Baby Ghosts’ Peer Accelerator program. Attending GAMERella for the last two years has allowed her to take the leap into game development and learn in a wonderful environment, so she is coming back to give back to the community.
SKILLS: game design, narrative design, level design, team communication & team conflict resolution, workflow optimization, game scope, unity, programming (c#, java), blender (3d animation, modeling, texturing), aseprite

SHARON KU

Sharon Ku is a Montreal-based graphic designer and illustrator on a mission to spark joy. With over five years of experience, she specializes in branding, logo design, web design, and illustration. Currently a graphic designer at Behaviour Interactive, she crafts compelling pitch decks with distinctive brand identities to communicate game concepts and unlock business opportunities. Education and positive mental health promotion are common threads in her works. As a former programming teaching assistant for the Design & Computation Arts Department at Concordia University, she shared problem-solving tools with students, all while inspiring them to embrace the spirit of play in their learning journey. She graduated from Concordia University with a major in Design and minor in Game Design. In her free time, she likes to read, sing, dance, and greet the neighborhood squirrels on walks.
SKILLS: Graphic design, branding, 2D illustration, UI/UX design Art tools (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, Figma) Game engines (Unity, Bitsy, Twine) Programming (HTML, CSS, JS, p5.js) Itch.io (Uploading games, making the page look sexy)

SHIOVAN GECELOVSKY

“Hi! I’m in my final year at Concordia in the computer science/computation arts program. Attending the last two iterations of GAMERella has helped me SO much in my game development journey, from learning the basics of game dev to making great connections with those in the industry and other jammers. I’m super excited to be on the other side of it this time around, can’t wait to see what everyone makes!”
SKILLS: Audio (sound design and music), 3D modeling, coding, and writing, some Unity and Twine knowledge

VICKY BILBILY

“Hi! I’m a programmer/educator/artist. After studying software engineering and human-computer interaction at university, I entered the games industry here in Montréal, working for a few years as a generalist game programmer. Now, I teach coding, game development, and creative problem-solving to kids through SuperCode.”
SKILLS: Programming (Lua, C#, C++, general coding concepts), Unity, UE5, Photoshop, user-centred design

AUSTIN JUBREY

Austin works on designing, prototyping, and developing game features. Always happy to make conversation, he loves to get to know people and hear what they’re passionate about. Most of his free time is spent either playing games, or tinkering with side projects.
SKILLS: Game Design, Unity, Unreal 4, C# , C++ , Java

COLIN TOWLE

Colin is a games programmer by trade, who has worked on all ranges of projects, from AAA titles like Watch_Dogs for Ubisoft to indie titles like Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2. He’s also released his own game titled Data Defense and is now working on a whole new indie title! On his free time, Colin enjoys gardening, board gaming, clear ice and banana ice cream!
SKILLS: Unity, Programming (C++, C#, general programming), Game design, Game jams

ELINE STEFFENS

“Hi there, my name is Eline and I’m working as a procedural tech artist for EA Motive. Before starting on my current project, Iron Man, I worked on Dead Space, which is about to be shipped. Before joining EA I was a technical content creator in the Apple verse, but making games is so much nicer 😊.

This will be my first gamejam so I’m just as excited as all of you are. Just don’t hesitate to ask me anything, that’s what I’m there for! “
SKILLS: Procedural 3D modelling, Tech art, Houdini, Coding (VEX, C++, C#, Python), End to End Automation, Thin AI clients, Performance optimization, Project Management

ELISABETH ATWOOD

Elisabeth (they/she) is the founder and narrative director of Studio Lazulite – a Montreal transmedia studio nurturing an equitable world through story and offering narrative support to five indie games. Along with over a decade of storytelling and production experience, they bring a unique cross-disciplinary creative portfolio to the table including: arts management, DEI advocacy, fundraising, marketing, fine art and photography, and experimental filmmaking. They currently represent Women in Games as an Ambassador; ADP List as a Narrative Design Mentor; Safe In Our World as an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Accessibility and Stakeholder Engagement Committee (DASEC) Lay Member; SFWA Accessibility Committee Member; IGDA Global Mentorship Program as a Creative Leadership Mentor (including the GDC Mentor Cafe and the devcom/gamescom Cologne Growth Program).
SKILLS: English fluency Game, Narrative, Level Design (Tools: Ink and Twine, Unity and Godot), 2D Art, spritesheets, animation (Tools: Adobe Creative Suite, Aesprite) Audio and Music Design (Tools: Audacity) Sourcing assets, creative commons resources Production management and scope (Tools: Miro, Notion, Trello, ClickUp) Sensitivity Consulting (Gender minorities – nonbinary, woman; and Disability – autism, anxiety, depression) Mentoring (IGDA Global mentorship program – GDC and devcom/gamescom, ADPList Narrative Design mentor) GameJammer (participated in several jams including GAMERella 2022)”

JESS MARCOTTE

Dr. Jess Rowan Marcotte (they/them) is a queer mixed white-passing Mi’kmaw game designer, writer, maker and researcher. Their work focuses on interactive experiences of all sorts, including interactive installations, larps, tabletop games, alt control/hybrid games, video games, and more. They are the lead co-organizer of the Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon) and one-third of Soft Chaos, a worker’s co-op that designs intimate, vulnerable interactive experiences. As a consultant game designer, they have worked with a wide variety of clients, including UNHCR Innovation Services and WHO Academy. Their most recent solo work includes TRACES, a hybrid game about trans experiences and time travel, and UNLOCK. UNPACK., exploring carry-on suitcases, puzzles, and written messages as tools for creating intimacy between strangers who may never meet face to face.
SKILLS: Game design, game scope, game writing, 2D pixel art, Sketchup 3D modeling, Construct 2 (and probably 3), Twine, Tracery, basic JavaScript, Makey-Makey and Arduinos, physical crafting, alt controllers, sewing, basic sound editing in Audacity, sound libraries, sound recording

narF

Game designer at Ludia by day. Internet-curious game maker by night. But games aren’t everything: let’s talk about growing plants, yoga, podcasting, green tech and resisting against Google, Facebook and Amazon!
SKILLS: Construct (2 and 3), Bitsy, Twine, Node / npm, Git, Making chat-bots for Discord, Mastodon, etc.

NICOLE PARMENTIER

Nicole studied Computer Science at Concordia and worked at Ubisoft as an AI and Gameplay Programmer for a year. She recently started an indie studio with her husband, and they will be releasing their first Steam game this December! Her philosophy is that games should be fun and chill for everyone, and should generally be as accessible as possible in both design and price. When not making games she can be found studying Japanese, petting her 3 cats, playing board games, or making tasty vegan treats.
SKILLS: Game design and scope, Unity, Programming (C#, C++, Java), Aseprite

RICHARD ATLAS

Richard is the CEO and Creative Director of Clever Endeavour Games. Apart from steering the ship, he does game design and helps out with marketing, art, and audio. His experience as an advisor to the Kowloon Nights fund and as a judge on IGF panels has helped him analyze games and game pitches and improve his own skills.

SKILLS: Game design, Unity (limited scripting), Audio (basic composition and sound design), Other: business, pitching, legal, HR, management