About

Hello!

My name is Dylan Shumway and I’m a long time game designer and theater maker looking to break into independent game publishing.

I’m a graduate of Wesleyan University’s class of 2020. While at Wesleyan, I designed my own major to explore the Psychology of Interaction by combining Neuroscience, Music, and Design/Engineering. Pursuing an independent curriculum allowed me to build a diverse set of analytical lenses to look at the art, objects, and societal systems that make up our world.

My motivation for creating a unique major was because of games’ interdisciplinary and systemic nature. While I wasn’t sure if games would be my final destination during college, I knew that I cared deeply about their nature as a multidisciplinary space. I wanted to engage with learning in a similarly diverse way, hopefully setting me up to coordinate people across multiple professions and skillsets. Additionally, focusing on design and interaction helped me build a robust system-thinking mindset.

I constantly apply these lenses in the various creative projects I take on, whether they’re in game development or theater. Light, sound, and game design all excite me because of their interconnectedness with other aspects of the creative process and how they can be elevated by synchronizing with creative decisions made by other disciplines. In my current role within higher education, I use these communication skills to mentor and connect students with people and opportunities across a wide-range fields. The process of helping people define their vision (be it creative or professional) is one of my favorite things in the world, and it is a core reason I value interdisciplinary collaboration so highly.

Through my experiences, I care most about working with and supporting creative people in bringing their projects to life. To me, holding space for a healthy and supportive workflow is a key component of innovative work. I strive to bring this energy into every team I work with, whether I’m a team lead or a supporting designer.

If you’re interested in working together, please send me an email at dylan.shumway (at) gmail.com! I hope we’ll cross paths soon!

Outside of work, I enjoy going for long hikes, sitting with a cup of warm tea, singing with friends, rollerblading around places, and, of course, playing games.

Some recent titles that have enraptured me are Kentucky Route Zero, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Legends of Runeterra, Risk of Rain 2, and Pokêmon Scarlet.