As emerging technologies are poised to disrupt the state of the world, how do we envision a future that we want to live in? I think the answer is this—transform the way power relates to work and it will open up new possibilities.

Using the design and development of our nostalgic 2000’s era story-based game, Terranova, as an example you’ll learn about how we at Studio Terranova:

- Create a culture where we intentionally say “no”

- Ask hard questions to clarify design constraints

- Step joyfully outside our “prescribed roles” when working creatively

These small seeds are the first steps we took to create team dynamics and a design process that is intentional, collaborative, and based on shared power.

CJ (they/them) is a bilingual researcher and indie game dev living in Tokyo. They’ve worked at international firms frog, yamaneco and Goodpatch to design products used and loved by millions of people worldwide. Last year, they shifted to contract work and developing video games and co-founded Studio Terranova, a design and indie game cooperative.

They released Terranova, a nostalgic 2000’s era story game about fangirls on itch.io and Steam. Terranova was featured at Bitsummit, Denfamico Gamer and Queer Games Conference. Studio Terranova works with clients in Japan on a contract basis to provide high quality user research and interactive web development. Their current clients include ustwo, Peerdom and Tokyo Rainbow Pride.