ABOUT ERNESTO PORTILLO AMAYA

Ernesto Portillo Amaya is currently a senior Game Design student at Woodbury University in Burbank, California.  His studies taught him the ins and outs of the Unity engine. Due to his understanding of coding fundamentals, he easily transitioned from Python into C#. 

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However, Ernesto’s greatest strengths are more innate, like his wild imagination, his strong sense of empathy, and his knowledge of psychology: Imagination to create fabulous worlds and intricate lore, as well as complex and rewarding game mechanics; Empathy to effectively communicate with his peers and be able to best help their ideas shine; Psychology to understand how to appeal to the target audience to ensure a fun gaming experience. Mix these skills, add a dash of charisma with expertise in interpersonal communication, and you get Ernesto Portillo, a team player who makes entertaining games and a positive impact one person at a time.

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Ernesto always loved playing games of any kind for hours. If he hasn’t played it, Ernesto has likely watched it on a YouTube Let’s Play. He is always eager to see all kinds of games played by different kinds of people. Ernesto loves seeing their reactions to the game’s mechanics, its story beats, the progression, etc., especially if he knows that game. This leads into his other big interest, psychology. Ernesto learned to study and understand people as well as how they interact with games, so he plans to make full use of that in his own work.

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Ernesto’s drive to maximize enjoyment for his players comes from a deep-seated desire to help those around him. Even as a little Latino boy growing up in Los Angeles, California, his one true desire was to help people. After much consideration, he decided he wanted to make people happy through games, to spread the light they shined on his life on others who need it just as much as he did.