Senior Producer
I’ve been making videogames, first as a hobbyist modder and now as a professional developer, since 2004. Prior to embracing my calling as a producer, I worked as a concept artist and QA tester.
I was born in the former Soviet Union and lived in Germany, Texas, Maryland, and New Orleans before settling down in the San Francisco Bay area. I have a BFA in illustration with a concentration in game arts and an art history minor from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
I have two cats, a dog, and spend too much time on the internet.
I help the people who make LEGO minifigures dance to your favorite songs.
I started at Ascendant when we were 8 people in a literal garage and have had the pleasure of guiding the team as it expanded to over 100 people spread across three continents. I produced every team to some degree over that time, but by the end Narrative and Engineering were my main focus.
Darya is the most down to earth, logical, reasonable person I’ve ever met. As a producer, she respectfully listened to concerns and suggestions, and was always able to keep the team on track, even when she was over-tasked herself. She was the voice of reason in the sea of uncertainty and a guiding light, focusing people on the appropriate direction.
— Karen Petersen, Lead Tools Engineer
In addition to these production responsibilities, I also acted as the technical narrative designer on the project:
Beyond her professional acumen, Darya's interpersonal skills and team spirit truly set her apart. Her proactive communication and foresight kept us all one step ahead, fostering a collaborative and efficient work environment.
— Jason Howard, Combat Engineer
I also wore additional hats:
Sole producer on the animation team on a brand new title combining Telltale's proprietary toolset with the Unity engine. Telltale went bankrupt and the game was never released.
[Darya] went above and beyond what I am used to in a production person using her working knowledge of the software we used to verify files from the outsource teams and set up comprehensive reference pages of the animations we were creating.
— Huck Wirtz, Lead Animator
Part of a small team testing initial builds of the game and evolving Telltale's QA methodology.
Senior tester on the last two episodes of this series, day-to-day direction for an internal team of 9 testers and 6 external testers.
I didn't come across a single bug at all when playing through the last three episodes – now that’s progress.
— UseAPotion.com
Not only is [Darya] consistently able to bug the most amount of issues on any given day, she is able to take on and complete specialized tasks from management while maintaining those numbers.
— Richard Heath, QA Lead
I contributed writing and editing to this YouTube channel, focused on the lore of the Elder Scrolls series. The channel currently has 1.2M subscribers, and each episode has received between 310,000 and 700,000 views to date.
As concept art intern and junior concept artist, I contributed to Ice Age Village and Disney Pixar Cars: Fast as Lightning as well as multiple unannounced projects.
Content administrator and webmaster for the oldest website dedicated to documenting and explaining the lore of the Elder Scrolls series.
A mod for Elder Scrolls 3 and 4, Tamriel Rebuilt was named Best RPG Mod by GameFlood in 2007, and the #4 Best Single-Player Mod by PC Gamer UK in 2009. The TES3 section of the project aims to recreate the rest of the Morrowind mainland, while the TES4 section was focused on the province of Hammerfell and the island of Stirk. Each is several times the size of the base game.