📍 Breda
Mentor Bio
Co-founder and former CEO of Tingly Games, Designer/Producer/Head of Studio with 20+ years of experience in Games. Next to this he is an advisor to the Digital Culture Grant Scheme. (Digitale Cultuur Fonds)
As an educational manager and lecturer of the Games Design & Production course at Breda University of applied sciences he is helping students get into the AAA Games industry.
Before he started at BUas Ard had been active in the Games industry for over 20 years. With a background in Interaction Design he started as a Game designer working on PC, console and handheld games at Davilex and Playlogic. He made a switch to casual games as a producer at Zylom/Gamehouse eventually growing to the position of Director of Studio.
He co-founded Tingly Games in 2012, designing and running an HTML5 games business, which eventually merged with CoolGames in 2016. As a Head of Studio at CoolGames he continued working on HTML5 games based on IPs such as Angry Birds, Tetris, Snake and Battleship as well as developing original IP.
Current role and activities
Currently he is the manager of the Game Design & Production Course at Breda University of applied sciences. (BUas)
Responsible for the curriculum and HR responsibility for a group of lecturers. Represents the Design staff in the MT meetings and strategic projects.
What you can learn from him
- Management, producing, planning, Scrum, stake holder management, working with externals/IP, vision alignment
- Game Design, Pitching, UX and first playthrough optimizations
- Personal Development
Ard’s First Advice
Focus! Decide what you want to be good at and start doing it. AND decide what you will not be doing and just stop doing it.