GAMECHANGERS: THE FEMALE VOICE IN GAMES
Join a panel with Sasha Lewis (Twirlbound), Kasia Slupecka (Atomhawk Design) and Iris van der Meule (creator of Lesbian Simulator)
How inclusive is the gaming industry? How easy is it to find a job or work as a woman in games? How involved are women in the development pipeline of games? These are just some of the questions this panel aims to address.
We will pick the brains of Sasha Lewis – senior game designer at Twirlbound, Kasia Slupecka – senior concept artist at Atomhawk Design, and Iris van der Meule – former Next Talent and creator of Lesbian Simulator game and XR installation.
The panel will be moderated by Maria Dicieanu.
Sasha is a senior game designer at Twirlbound, an indie studio in Breda. She specializes in level design and worldbuilding for the open-world, action/adventure games they make at our studio.
Sasha joined the team 5 years ago to work on their latest title and her first commercial release, The Knightling. It’s a game where you play as a knight in training with nothing but a multi-purpose shield that you use for all aspects of the game: movement, combat, puzzling. As a level designer and worldbuilder, her contribution to the game is designing the spaces you play in, building the paths between, and creating content. Since the release of The Knightling, she has done a few presentations at Indigo and Dutch Game Week explaining our worldbuilding process in more detail.
She has also become a Women in Games Ambassador and a mentor as part of the Women for Women program in Breda.
Iris van der Meule (she/her) is a queer digital artist and director based in Amsterdam. Iris researches immersive storytelling and creates VR experiences, animation films, illustrations and other interactive curiosities. In her work she discusses socially relevant theme’s, like discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community, climate change, mental health and gender inequality. With her work she explores innovative ways to hold a mirror up to society. Her projects are equally cutting as they are light hearted, usually wrapped in a layer of humor and sarcasm. Her debut work ‘Lesbian Simulator’, has been showcased at festivals around the world like ‘TIFF’ ‘SXSW Austin’, ‘SXSW London’, ‘Annecy International Animation Film Festival’ ‘GIFF’ & ‘IDFA Doclab’.
Iris was also part of the first generation of Playgrounds Next Talents, and worked as VR Curator at Kaboom Animation Film Festival.
Kasia Slupecka. Senior concept artist working in the video game industry for over a decade. She studied industrial design but left if for the video game industry, which was always her passion.
She started her career as an artist working on mobile and casual games for developer King. After honing her art skills, she moved to AA and AAA projects. Currently, she works at Atomhawk Design since 2021. Kasia’s special interest is character design and has expertise in stylised and semi-realistic art.
Her client list includes: Epic Games, Rocksteady Studios,The Pokémon Company, Lego, Small Giant Games, Activision Sledgehammer Games, Playground Games.
