About

Yadu Rajiv ~ 2024
Click here for a high resolution image

Yadu is an independent Game Designer and Developer. He is currently the Chief Creative Officer at Second Quest. Yadu has been building communities since 2008 and is building http://gamedev.in. Yadu is an Executive Committee for Global Game Jam and also a council member of the IndiaGDC. His work primarily revolves around the medium of games and interactive art; but he has donned multiple hats as a writer, educator and ux designer. In 2011, he co-founded Hashstash (now MyyHashstash) where he designed and developed multiple award winning games. He has held senior and lead roles in companies like RedBus, Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Byjus/Osmo and PlaySimple Games.

In 2011, he co-founded Hashstash  (now MyyHashstash), where he worked on the award winning game Circulets and many others. After Hashstash, Yadu worked as a Senior User Experience Designer at RedBus for a short period. Later he moved on to teach user experience design, web design, game design and game development at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology for 5 years after which he joined BYJU’S as a Lead Game Designer in 2020. After his tenure creating games for the Osmo platform for young children, he returned to focus on building free to play games with PlaySimple Games as a Lead Game Designer in 2021. Yadu is currently the Chief Creative Officer at Second Quest.

He has been building and supporting game-design and development communities since 2008 and is currently working on gamedev.in. Yadu has more than 15 years of experience in Game Development, Teaching and User Experience Design. He writes about game design, game UX and development on Twitter under his handle, @yadurajiv as well as on his blog.

Yadu is the author of Developing Turn-Based Multiplayer Games with GameMaker Studio 2 and NodeJS which was published by Apress. He has donned multiple hats, as an organiser, a speaker and a panellist on multiple occasions at the India Game Developers Conference since 2013. He has been a Keynote Speaker at the Jam Jam Festival organised by the Finnish Game Jam held in Helsinki.

Yadu was also selected to be one of the IGDA Foundation’s Next Gen Leaders of 2020. He was recently selected as one of @GIbiz’s Top100 Game Changers of 2020 as well. He was one of @GIbiz’s Top100 Game Changers of 2020 as well as featured in POC in Play #SAHMGames100 list as part of South Asian Heritage Month, 2021. He also serves as a member of the Executive Committee for Global Game Jam since 2021.

Gameography

Publications by

Publications/Collaborations/Interviews with

Conferences and Awards

Professional Associations

  • Gamedev.in, Founder, Volunteer, 2009 – Present
  • Build Your Own Game, Game jam with Gamedev.in/NGDC/IGDC – BYOG – Founder, Organiser, 2010 – Present
  • Global Game Jam, Executive Committee Member, 2021 – Present
  • IndiaGDC, Council Member, 2022 – Present
  • WTFxIGDC Game Jam, Host, July 2024
  • Coordinator for the Media Game Jam – Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, Dec 2023
  • Global Game Jam Bangalore, Organiser, 2013 – 2022
  • NASSCOM/IGDC, Volunteer, 2011 – 2022
  • NID R & D Campus Bangalore, Visiting faculty, Mentor and Jury Member, 2016 – 2023
  • IGDC – Student Game of the Year, Jury Member, 2022
  • Indie Game Shindig – https://indiegameshindig.com/ – India’s first Independent games festival with Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology, Organiser, 2015
  • IGDA Bangalore Chapter, Founder, Volunteer, 2011 – 2018
  • Game Jams with Swissnex India
  • OSSCamp with OSSCube

Education

  • Master of Design (M.Des) in Design for Digital Experience, National Institute of Design (NID)
  • BA in English Language and Literature, St Alberts College, Kochi, Kerala

Resume