Latinx Games Festival 2021

John is a 1st generation Dominican-American with a BS in Game Design & Development from Full Sail University. He is a prominent industry figure, who has contributed to the design of the most critically and commercially successful games of the last decade including Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, and on the UX design for the tools behind Madden NFL 22, NHL 22, and FIFA 22.

John is a game dev veteran with over 15 years of experience as a Game Designer for studios across North America including Midway Games Austin, Rockstar San Diego, Warner Brothers Games Montreal as an AI Systems Designer, at Amazon as a Tutorial Designer for their Lumberyard/Open3D game engine, and now at Electronic Arts on their Frostbite engine working out of Seattle.

As a Technical Designer, John designs tools that empower developers to build the most engaging games imaginable. He is a frequent speaker at GDC, the Game Devs of Color Expo, Ai4, and the LatinX Games Festival. He promotes inclusivity & diversity while mentoring and interviewing other video game industry thought leaders on his bi-weekly game development podcast Out of Play Area available on all platforms including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple

María José Félix is a Mexican composer and sound designer with a passion for story telling. She has 5+ years experience writing original music and sound for video games, flm, and other media. Past work includes being part of the audio team for Alien: Descent VR and Halo Infinite, as well as composer for app Novel Effect, video game Greak: Legends of Azur and many more.

Gracie Arenas Strittmatter is a Director of Technical Art for EA Create at Electronic Arts (EA) based in Austin, overseeing all technical aspects of art delivery for the Orlando-based EA Sports portfolio (Madden NFL, College Football, and PGA Tour Golf). A 13-year veteran of the gaming industry, she holds credits on AAA titles including Anthem, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Madden NFL, NBA Live, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. She is passionate about leadership and career development, problem solving, programming, art tools, team building, and effective communication. As the first female university graduate in her family, she advocates for education and the value of women and minorities in tech. Gracie is a global co-chair for EA’s Hispanic/Latino Employee Resource Group (Somos EA), has volunteered with ACM SIGGRAPH for nearly two decades, and is on the industry board for the Texas A&M Department of Visualization. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, she holds a BS in Computer Science and a MS in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University.

Kayla is a 1st generation Mexican-American Voice Over Casting Producer and Director. She has 7 years of experience within the Games and Entertainment industry with companies like Riot Games, Los Angeles Gladiators Overwatch Team, Hidden Leaf Games, and Keywords studios.

A generalized specialist, her involvement with sponsorships, PR, event, and community management for organizations and influencers, has carried over to her work in VO– most recently by launching The Global Voice Over Society; a Discord server for established talent, agents, directors, and engineers. The server offers resources such as free workshops, support for D&I efforts, casting calls, and director consultations.

Experienced at developing, executing, and adapting award winning marketing strategies for global and local campaigns through social media, websites, mobile, and cross-functional outlets to improved engagement and brand awareness.

Renelly has worked on several successful digital marketing campaigns for a number of different brands in video games, entertainment, pharma, and retail. Renelly has many years of digital marketing experience & is a former Frag Doll, where she competed in numerous professional gaming tournaments around the United States & became the spokesperson for Ubisoft games.

I have worked in and around the video games industry for ten years. A former video producer creating video content (Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo, Twin Galaxies, NHN Entertainment), as well as a Community Manager (NHN Entertainment, Funktronic Labs, Skybound Games), I have also worked with several campaign collaborations (Rooster Teeth, Arc System, SNK Corporation, Level-5, Fox Next, SONY Pictures, Nihon Falcom).

On occasions, I curate indie video games at Giant Robot Gallery. The curation has been featured on Kotaku, Destructoid, GoNintendo, LA Weekly, and the LA Times and has also been featured at galleries including JANM (Japanese American National Museum) and OMCA (Oakland Museum of California).

Carmen Marin (She/Her), also known as Diana Moon online, is a Latina games writer and community manager from San Francisco. She has been a contract writer, editor, and cultural consultant for a wide range of games such as Starship Promise, Lost Roads, Girl Underground, Starfinder, and Verdant Skies. Her most recent project was serving as a Cultural Editor for Far Cry 6. She is also a volunteer for the acclaimed non-profit I Need Diverse Games.

Nianticos ERG Panel – Building an Effective ERG

Join Nianticos – Niantic’s Latin American ERG – as they talk about how to build ERGs, impact products at your companies, and the learnings they’ve gathered to share with attendees.

Join Niantic’s Paulette Zorilla and Gabriela Sanchez in a Fireside chat –moderated by Coraly Rosario–as they talk about how they explored ways into the game industry. Guests will impart insights from their own experiences, tips, and advice on how to flourish as an expert in your dedicated field.

LXiA Presents – Mictlan™: An Ancient Mythical Tale

From Mexico to the world, from the codex to the console

Guillermo Vizcaíno is Head of PR and Marketing and Lead Writer at Mexico-based indie studio, Lienzo. In 2015 he co-founded the independent gaming outlet Gaming Frontier and in 2016 he joined Lienzo full-time in a variety of roles. In his time with the studio he has worked in the development of Hunter’s Legacy, the critically-acclaimed Mulaka and the upcoming Aztech Forgotten Gods.

Sarah Farga is a 23-year-old animator born in Jalisco, Mexico. She graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla with a degree in animation and interaction design. She has always been passionate about video games which led her to make a gameplay channel on YouTube called “Caged Bird” and join the video game company Ogre Pixel.

Business Development and PR agent in the video game industry, contacting game developers with strategic partners in the industry. Managed internationalization for multiple video game titles from LATAM.

Gustavo Alcalá Perea is Co-Founder and Game Designer at Navegante Entertainment. Gustavo obtained his degree in Video Game Design and Development at Evolis, Barcelona. Gustavo founded his own company which provided design and testing services as well as making music for different video game companies. Later, Gustavo worked as a Game Designer at TokyoPlay.

Gustavo worked together with Rodrigo on Greak: Memories of Azur during his spare time. In 2019, Gustavo and Rodrigo founded Navegante Entertainment and dedicated themselves to developing Greak Memories of Azur full time.

Anahit Fernández is the Producer at Navegante. Anahit has a degree in Hospitality Management from Vatel University in Nimes, France and she holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Universidad ISEC in Mexico City. Anahit has been part of Navegante since 2019 where she has been responsible for the production, business development as well as the studio administration.

Jorge Garcia is a producer at LEAP Game Studios and currently co-director of their most recently launched game, Tunche. He’s been working in the peruvian game industry for more than a decade now, in a few different studios and on many projects. He grew up playing games such as Mega Man X, Chrono Trigger and PSOne Final Fantasies, and enjoys action games and rpgs in general, especially if you combine them into action rpgs.

Francisco is the Lead Programmer at LEAP Game Studios and currently co-director of their most recently launched game, Tunche. He’s been working in the peruvian game industry since before finishing his college studies as a Software Engineer and has been working in the Peruvian games industry for 7 years now. He loves games that are not afraid of being a total explosion of creativity , wackiness and individuality with a great sense of action , style and tight controls, games such as Sunset Overdrive , No More Heroes , Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry.

Adolfo Jungbluth is the CEO, co-founder and one of the programmers/game designers at Somber Pixel. He is a Computer Scientist who has been involved in game development since 2014. He also has experience in the software development area, including mobile and web development. He is really passionate about Software Architecture and game design.

In 2015, he co-founded Somber Pixel with pixel artist Arturo Anci. They developed many concepts such as Lost Hope and Dungeons of Asfore. They now work together as full time game developers with their partner Sol Sánchez and an amazing team.

Somber Pixel recently released the story-driven puzzle/adventure game “Night Reverie” in October 2021. Night Reverie is the first commercial title of the company, and it had a great reception. Most importantly, it reached the players’ hearts and the team is extremely happy to have accomplished something that meaningful.

Antonio Gutierrez is a game developer from Orizaba, Mexico. Originally a mechatronic engineer, Antonio shifted its career early on into game development and has been working on the field since 2011. Currently a member of Bromio as creative director and game programmer. Working at Bromio he has developed several games including Pato Box for PC and consoles and Shiba Force for mobile devices. Bromio has been developing games since 2013 and is currently working on its next game RFM coming in 2022 where Antonio is working as game director and programmer.

Antonio was born in Mexico City and lives in Guadalajara, Mexico. He majored in Communication Sciences and has made a career working in the creative tech industry. He is currently the Commercial Director at Placeit.net. On the side, he makes games under the name “Merlino Games”.

Remi has been working professionally in the game industry for the last 15 years, in roles ranging from Artist, Game Designer, Producer to Educator, Mentor, and Company Owner. He’s a lover of all things with unique game design and gameplay. Both versatile in his skills and extremely dedicated and passionate about his craft, you can always find him leading, working and designing on some new game he is working on.

Alhvi Balcarcel is a Guatemalan game developer. She co-founded the studio Selva Interactive and the Guatemalan game development community GameDevGt. She teaches college-level courses in programming and game design. She has volunteered in organizations as Global Game Jam and Latinx in Gaming.

Tiani Pixel is a developer at Studio Pixel Punk. Tiani is a coding specialist and draws most of the visual art in the studio’s games but is also involved in every aspect of developing from writing to level design.

Fernanda Dias is a developer at Studio Pixel Punk. Fernanda specializes in audio, music and writing, but, as in any small studio, also wears a lot of other hats like game and level design.

Developer with more than twelve years of experience. In 2016 he decided to follow his passion and exclusively create and develop independent video games, founding Mecha Studios, where he assumed the role of director, programmer, game designer, writer and audio designer .

He is also interested in promoting good quality and practices in the development of video games in Mexico, and in addition to participating as an speaker in several technology and development events, courses and workshops; in 2017 he created GameDevs.mx, a forum platform that offers an alternative and persistent communication channel for the documentation of this new discipline in Mexico.

I am an indie developer based in Seattle, Washington and the sole owner of Pancake Games LLC. I have been in the industry for over a decade at companies like Arenanet, Motiga, Activision, King and Polyarc. I have always had a passion for art and games since I was young. From the start of my gaming career I have always had a goal of creating my own company and developing my own games. Through those years, I worked on growing a skillset to aid me in achieving these goals. I have recently formed Pancake Games LLC and am developing the game Slime Heroes.

Brazilian electronic engineer that turned out to become a part time game developer, been doing games for 6 years now. One Strike being the most relevant, released on PC, Nintendo Switch and PS4. Currently working on the sequence called Two Strikes. Programmer and Game Designer, Danilo owns a small company called Retro Reactor Games.

Founder & CEO of Halberd Studios, based in Guadalajara, Mexico. Currently the Creative Director & Composer for 9 Years of Shadows.

Homero Rojas is the Founder and Director of MediaCity Games, one of the first and most successful Video Game development studios in Honduras, in 2011 he developed his first video game” The Mystery of the Crimson Mansion “which was launched to the international market in February 2012, achieving unprecedented commercial and critical success, obtaining the top positions in the popularity and sales charts on the different mobile platforms on which it was distributed.

Currently MediaCity Games has 5 mobile video games on the market available on the most important mobile content distribution platforms and is developing a 3D game for desktop computers and consoles.

In addition to his work developing games, Homero is a researcher in the area of augmented and mixed virtual reality at the Honduran Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation, and teaches game design and development classes at MediaCity Labs, the first academy specialized in game development in Honduras.