Interview Ynterview #3 - Dan

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

Every week we'll bring you an Ynterview with a member of our Ylands team. In this week's Ynterview we have approached our UI programmer Daniel Janák.

First off, what do you do here at the Ylands team and what’d you do before you joined? 

Well, I'm taking care of the whole Ylands UI. I started my career as a UI programmer and that's what I did before I joined the Ylands team as well. 
How long have you worked on Ylands? What was the 1st thing you worked on when you joined? 
I've been here for a year and a half now. Wow. There were many things in parallel that I did when I started here. But apart for creating a new UI management system that supports animations and plug'n'play features for our UI, the first visible thing I did was a revamp of the Editor UI. 

What do you find most exciting on Ylands in general? 

I love creative game elements where I can control many aspects of the gameplay. Especially the building gameplay. I loved playing with LEGOs as a kid. To create, destroy, dramatize things. I might also have a severe God complex, to be honest ?

And what is for you the most exciting feature coming in the new 0.14 update? 

That'll be our new UI Editor. I think it's the most complex thing I've created in terms of UI management. We brought a lot of engine features right to the player through our game. And I loved programming it as well as being a part of its design. 

What are you working on right now? 

Well, right now, we're polishing things before the update so there's a lot of small things and attention to detail. Fixing some visual inconsistencies, etc. 

What do you do in your free time? 

I'm trying to sort my social life. Nah, just kidding. Devs don't have social lives. No, but seriously, I'm happy to be in a state where I can just go for a beer with my friends, go watch a movie, or just read a book. I do enjoy swimming and parkour. Although not as much as before. I also experiment with some game prototypes of my own, trying to learn new things, designs, etc. And of course, going for a walk with my beautiful pit bull who you might have seen on Yland's Instagram account. 

If you had to choose just one mode of transport, would it be the pogo stick, ostrich or rocket rollerblades? 

Well, I’d like to live to see another day so I'd say none of those. Especially here in Prague. Although an ostrich would be cool. But I couldn't bear staring into those cold soulless eyes and not thinking of 36 different ways the ostrich surely wants to murder me in my sleep.

Well, there you have it. And if you missed our 'bonus question', visit our Facebook page ?

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

I love UI design -- how humans interact with tech is right up my ally! I look forward to learning from your work and hearing more from you!