B
The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, November 3, 2016

Three independent game developers talk 
stress, inspiration and passion for their craft

Cooper Riehl wants to make video games.
He has wanted to since middle school, when he 

played GameCube and RuneScape and discovered 
how to program text adventures onto his TI-85 cal-
culator.

Now, he’s a senior at the School of Engineering, 

and he’s putting that dream into motion as a pro-
grammer and webmaster for Wolverine Soft, a stu-
dent-run organization dedicated to fostering game 
development talent.

“I would love to do it professionally,” Riehl said 

in a Skype interview with The Michigan Daily. “I 
haven’t decided what I want to do finally when I 
get out of college, but I would love to work at a big-
name studio or a small indie studio with a couple of 
friends, as long as we were making enough to sup-
port ourselves. It’s definitely a big passion of mine.”

For Riehl, making games is an opportunity to 

have a career as a software programmer in a field 
that brings people joy.

“I do think games are an art form, but for me 

it’s more about programming something exciting 
rather than some boring old system in a bank some-
where,” he said. “I like the idea of writing code to 
create something that people actually enjoy using 
rather than just another random application.”

He’s not the only one around campus who dreams 

of making video game development a career. Accord-
ing to Riehl, more than 80 new members signed up 
for Wolverine Soft this semester alone — the biggest 
uptick in membership since Riehl joined the club 
three years ago.

It’s not hard to understand why independent 

game development is currently such an appealing 

career venue for young programmers, artists and 
musicians, as both mainstream and game-indus-
try-specific journalists have brought monumental 
attention to indie success stories.

In 2012, Lissanne Pajot and James Swirsky’s 

acclaimed documentary “Indie Game: The Movie” 
told the story of four independent developers whose 
projects turned into landmark commercial and crit-
ical successes, simultaneously making each of them 
millions and skyrocketing them into avant-gardist 
wunderkind status among their industry peers. The 
New Yorker and The Atlantic have also published 
extensive profiles of developers Rami Ismail and 
Jonathan Blow, respectively, highlighting their 
near-overnight successes, their road-hitting indie 
hero lifestyle and their thorough dedication to their 
art.

Writer: Jacob Rich, Senior Arts Editor

Design: Katie Beukema 

Continue on Page 2B

