Christina Curlee designs worlds – and her worlds are just getting bigger.
The UCLA alumnus has spent the past seven years working as a video game designer for Insomniac Games. Since graduating from UCLA with a Master of Fine Arts in Design Media Arts in 2019, she has worked on large-scale titles reaching millions of players worldwide, including Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and the studio’s upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine game. Now a seasoned artist specializing in digital environments and level design, she said she did not decide to pursue the medium professionally until she realized it could combine her love of visual art and story narrative.
“I’m more interested in what video games, as they exist, do well – or even what they don’t do well – and how do we address that,” Curlee said.
Although she played games growing up, Curlee said she was never obsessed in the way one might expect. Curlee earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas in 2016, initially considering careers in animation, painting or concept art. She added that she did not encounter game design until the second half of her undergraduate journey, when she began experimenting with digital tools.
“I initially started in very traditional fine arts, like painting, drawing, that sort of thing, and then I moved into installation work,” she said. “I went from physical installation to digital installation, and then it kind of snowballed into video games.”
Curlee said her foundation in installation art – which is experienced by moving through a space rather than observing a single object – became integral to her transition into game design. She became particularly interested in how games affect people and why, especially through level design and environment. Once she began thinking about interaction rather than just visuals, Curlee said brought that curiosity into every class she could.
Despite her hesitation to enroll in programming classes – because, she said, she thought you had to be good at math to be good at programming – Curlee began taking upper-division courses as an undergraduate student to allow her to continue exploring this new path and grant her more flexibility with designing her own games.
“I was just getting so much momentum, but I knew if I just stopped there, there was no way I would have been in the industry,” she said.
Time, Curlee said, was what she needed: Time to deepen her familiarity with programming and design and time to sharpen the skills she had already begun exploring. At UCLA, she said she dove in headfirst.
Curlee added that she read extensively, watched tutorials and taught herself advanced programming outside of class. She also joined Los Angeles’ local game development community through the game-making collective Glitch City to show her work and connect with professionals.
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Carlos Garcia, Curlee’s partner and a technical artist who met her while they were both graduate students in UCLA’s Design Media Arts program, said Curlee’s portfolio exemplifies an incredible understanding of game narrative structure.
“I remember she was applying to work at Insomniac, and it was the best portfolio I had ever seen,” Garcia said. “And I’m pretty sure she got that feedback from the people who hired her too.”
Garcia said he would credit Curlee for him even being in the video game industry, explaining that he did not realize he wanted to be a technical artist until he attended a conference where she was exhibiting her work.
“That’s when I learned even what tech art was,” Garcia said. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is eye-opening. … Actually, video games are kind of cool. There’s a lot here. I think I’m actually already a tech artist – I just didn’t know that that’s what it’s referred to in this industry.’”
Jonathan Ballard, a senior designer at Insomniac and one of Curlee’s early mentors, said he also recognized Curlee’s potential quickly.
“From almost the get go, I was like, “you’re probably going to be my boss one day,’” Ballard said.
One of the projects Ballard has seen Curlee work on is the Coney Island sequence in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which Curlee described as a moment of normal life within a larger action-driven narrative.
Curlee said she did not fully grasp the level’s impact until she attended an Insomniac office party themed around Coney Island, where her digital environment had been recreated in physical space.
“It’s so interesting to go from fine arts, where it’s ‘Oh, 12 people showed up to my show, hell yeah,’ to ‘Oh yeah, millions and millions of people are waiting to see your work,’” Curlee said.
Ballard said he was not surprised by Curlee’s success, adding that she has taken on some really big mission projects. He said that, although he always knew she was capable of that sort of responsibility, to see it in practice is a completely different thing.
Garcia said it is not just Curlee’s skill that sets her apart – it is her work ethic and her ability to communicate clearly across art, audio and gameplay teams to bring large sections of a game together.
As Curlee continues building expansive digital environments and growing within the industry, she said is excited to have more ability to affect how games look and feel.
“Game design is super vast, and it is impossible to learn except in practice,” Curlee said. “You have to sit and share and make things and fail a lot. … In some aspects, I still feel like a beginner.”
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