Who are you?- My name is Richard Garcia and I am a student at Houston Community College. I major in Programming and Game Design. I was born in San Francisco, California and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. When I’m not living a digital life (which is rare), I can be found rooting for my favorite sports teams (Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks, Orlando Magic, and Dallas Mavericks).
What's in your bag?-Various pens, pencils, and sharpies; Laptop First Aid Kit (Windows 7 install DVD, Darik’s Boot and Nuke, Ubuntu CDs, Windows 7 recovery discs); Human First Aid Kit (Hand Sanitizer, Band Aids, Advil, and Quick Heal ointment); Chewing gum; Wireless USB Microsoft Mouse; Apple Airport Express; Phone/iPad/iPod/iPod Touch USB Cable; LAN & USB Cable; A/C Adapter for Laptop; MSI GX-630 Windows 7 Laptop (AMD Athlon X2 64 bit, Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT , 4GB RAM); 650GB HDD; USB hub; Business Cards; Introduction to C++ textbook; Notebook; Scientific Calculator
Favorite game of all time?- NBA Live
What made you want to study game design?- Once upon a time I was playing NBA Live ’98 on my PC. As someone that wasn’t legally allowed to work yet, my source of income came from my parents (as did my video game purchases). Long story short, rather than having them buy me each yearly installment of my favorite basketball franchise, I found a community on the Internet called NLSC (NBA Live Series Center). It is there that I found mod tools to extract and modify the game’s assets to be on par with the new season’s updated rosters and looks. Little did I know, the studio that made the game (EA Canada) was from my backyard (Burnaby, British Columbia)!
Who, or what, is your biggest inspiration?- I have several people I look up to for inspiration. Inside the games industry, Cliffy B. Outside the industry, I look up to Kevin Rose (Diggnation), Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park), Brian Brushwood (Scam School), and Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV). All these people are ingredients to what I consider to be qualities of an ideal person working in today’s game industry – business, hard working, dedicated, analytical, and a party-goer .
Guilty pleasure of the moment?- I don’t have a guilty pleasure at the moment but from memory – the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider films are a guilty pleasure of mine. Whenever the discussion of movies based on video games arises, I always bring up the fact that the Tomb Raider movies are the best there ever will be in terms of movies in this specific genre. I get the most disgusted look from a lot of people but I stand my ground. Until somebody can say something better, Tomb Raider is the best in the crop.
What is your favorite video game-related item? (ie. tshirts, props, etc)
- My favorite video-game related item is the Plasma Rifle in Halo: Reach.
