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The GGJ Podcast brings the spirit of Global Game Jam to your headphones, with people from around the world sharing how they found their way into game development. Each week, Susan Gold talks with developers, studio founders, and festival organizers about the twists, risks, and side doors that shaped their paths and communities. You will hear honest stories about creativity, collaboration, failure, and the messy, beautiful reality of making games.
Architect of Possibility | FawziMesmar
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Intro
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[00:00:00] Susan Gold: This is the GGJ Podcast, a show about the games industry, the people who make them, and the communities that grow up around them. I'm Susan Gold, a game education trailblazer and one of the founders of the Global Game Jam. Each week, we will be sitting down with a new guest, highlighting their own path and journey.
[00:00:26] This is a space for honest conversation from makers about creativity, collaboration, failure, and the messy, the beautiful reality of making games. So whether you're a young dev or seasoned, an educator, a student, or someone who just loves games and the people behind them, welcome to the GGJ Podcast. Take a breath, settle in, and let's hear directly from the makers themselves.
[00:00:49] Shirley McPhaul: This episode is made possible in partnership with the Global Game Jam, the world's largest game creation event, bringing together creators from around the globe. A big thank you as well to the Global Game Jam's headline [00:01:00] sponsors, Epic Games, Games for Change, and Xsolla, for helping make this creative community a reality.
[00:01:06] To learn more and to get involved in the upcoming jams, visit globalgamejam.org.
[00:01:13] This episode is brought to you in part through the support of the University of Miami School of Communication and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Their commitment to storytelling, media innovation, and community engagement help make conversations like these possible.
[00:01:30] This podcast is proudly supported by the PlayStation Hero Project, championing and empowering emerging developer talent across the globe. Discover new heroes at playstation.com China, India, and MENA Hero Project pages. Find the links in the show notes in the description down below
Meet fawzi Mesmar
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[00:01:53] Susan Gold: On our last episode of season one, I am honored to welcome Fawzi Mesmar. Fawzi is an award-winning creative [00:02:00] director, game designer, and author whose career spans more than two decades and four continents. From the indie studios of Amman to the AAA studios of Auckland, Tokyo, and Stockholm, he began as a self-taught developer in Jordan at a time when almost no one around him understood what it meant to make video games for a living.
[00:02:19] He studied computer science, he taught himself Japanese, and set his sights on an industry that felt to everyone else impossibly far away. Since he set off on his adventure, he has held creative leadership roles at Gameloft, Atlus, DICE, King, and Ubisoft, working across franchises as diverse as Battlefield, Star Wars, and My Little Pony.
[00:02:42] But what sets Fawzi apart is not just his resume, it's his mission. He has authored the first Arabic language game design textbook, which is now a part of university curricula across five countries. He followed that with "Demystifying Creativity," published by [00:03:00] CRC Press, and made his courses available for free so that aspiring developers in the region would never be held back by cost.
[00:03:09] Across all of that, there is a through line. He is determined to be the mentor he never had, the person who makes the impossible feel at last like a plan. Fawzi, thank you so much for joining me
[00:03:23] Fawzi Mesmar: Thank you so much for having me. What a humbling introduction. Thank you so much
Japan
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[00:03:28] Susan Gold: You've done quite a bit, sir. Let's start back to your childhood. You had said that, reaching Japan felt like a dream fulfilled, but bring us to that place in your childhood where you thought, "These are the things that I want to happen around me." What actually started all this?
[00:03:51] Fawzi Mesmar: Well, you know,growing up, in the Middle East, my dad was always interested in getting us as his kids the most recent tech he could find. [00:04:00] So,I was one of the few kids in my neighborhood that had an Atari 2600, and I was really hooked. like it, it came with,Space Invaders and Yars' Revenge, if I remember correctly, and I was like really into those games.
[00:04:13] Like, I think it was love at first sight between me and video games. I really got into it. And, later on I got, an MSX, then a Nintendo, so I started to get more and more into video games very, at a very young age. And at the same time, like I grew up in the '80s, and in that time, especially in the Middle East, all of the cool stuff seems to come from Japan in that region,
[00:04:34] so the cartoons I grew up watching, they were all dubbed anime, so I grew up watching like Grendizer and Captain Tsubasa and that kind of stuff. But it wasn't just that. It was you know, our TVs, uh, a, was a Sony. My dad drove a Toyota. I had a Walkman, and then I had a Nintendo.
[00:04:51] So it seems like Japan was this magical place where all the cool stuff came from. So I made that connection between you know, I really [00:05:00] love video games and I would like to work on... I'd like to make that, a career if that's even a thing. But it also felt to me like Japan was this magical place where all the cool stuff was coming from, and video games was part of the magic that they exported.
[00:05:13] So I was like, "I wanna one day go there and see what are, what are the stuff that they don't send over," you know?
Imagination
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[00:05:21] Susan Gold: When you think back to that kid who was moving between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, what did everyday life feel like? I mean, you've said your father exposed you to, the latest in technology, but where did imagination come in?
[00:05:36] Fawzi Mesmar: So yeah, that's right. I, uh, I was, born in Saudi Arabia, and I spent my childhood moving a lot between those two countries. And,it was really hot outside a lot of the time, so I spent a lot of time indoors. I find that funny now that I, spent a lot of time in Sweden.
[00:05:51] I feel like it's, very similar but very different to, how a lot of kids spend their youth here in Sweden because it's so cold, so a lot of people spend time indoors, and [00:06:00] they spend a lot of time with video games, with fiction, with movies, and all of that.
[00:06:05] So I played indoors a lot of the time, and I spent a lot of time, imagining all these amazing places that are beyond my reach, so to say. because I was one of those kids that stayed a lot of time indoors, video games, books, and movies were like my windows to the outside world. I imagined what life would've been outside.
[00:06:24] And, yeah, and, that's, that's why it was so inspiring for me. Every time I played video games, it was taking me somewhere else, places that I never knew, existed or, that are based on places that I never knew existed.
From Fun to a Career
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[00:06:36] Susan Gold: So you talked about the moment you, knew the games were gonna be something you wanted to explore. When did they stop just being toys, and when did that first MSX program shift from this is just fun to this is going to be my life?
[00:06:55] Fawzi Mesmar: Yeah. it's a, it's a combination of moments. I feel like it was the first time [00:07:00] I, could see something that is, that these video games are like how the sausage are, is made, so to say. first of all was when I did own an MSX. MSX for those who don't know is like this, console that basically looked like a keyboard with cartridge slots in it, and there was a local dealership that created versions of it for the Arab world. And, its video game library consisted almost entirely of, Konami games as far as I'm concerned. So I was playing a lot of these Konami games, and, the console allowed you to write your own software and record it using Basic, if I remember correctly, and then you can record it on one of the cartridges to use it later.
[00:07:38] And it came with a manual, and I was, like, toying around a lot with that. I was very young, maybe, seven, six, seven years old, around that time. And, I started to,to play around with it, And that's probably when I wrote my first program, which didn't do much other than it just drew a circle with my name in it.
[00:07:57] but it was the first time that I got to understand what programming [00:08:00] is and what that meant. So i- it was a really cool moment. So I guess,that was the first time that brought me in touch with what programming is and what does it mean actually to work with a computer to render something on screen.
[00:08:12] Yeah.
[00:08:13] That curiosity kicked in. I, I love the, "I need to know how the sausage is made," you know? E- especially from someone who's Arab, Well, I lived in Germany too, so that helps.
[00:08:25] Susan Gold: So here's this little boy. He's playing with his programming and he's learning, but a dream starts to form. And, I think for a lot of people that listen, because, a lot of our listenership is all over the world, they actually grew up in a place like you and, and were in a country that video games are not the top gross national product, and they are, feeling very much like you probably were.
The Realisation
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[00:08:59] Susan Gold: How [00:09:00] did that dream actually come to your head?
[00:09:02] Fawzi Mesmar: So initially, I think like for, for me and for a lot of people,I, I still do not like really tie, making games to be a career. For me,I just... These are things that we just imported from somewhere else. there were some magicians that are living in other places around the world that conjure these things, somehow and then send it over to us where we just plug it into our consoles and play.
[00:09:25] So it was, really difficult for me to associate this, with a career. But I feel like the first time I started to connect these things was,when I was very young, I used to,even, even, at the later age in junior high, I used to, when I finish a game in school, I used to write a walkthrough of the game in my, notebook, and I would write it by hand, So I could finish the game, and then I would start tracing what I've done, and I write it on a notebook, and then I, I give this notebook to the other kids in class to help them finish the game, And, must have been in the mid-'90s, I was,finished [00:10:00] playing, the first Resident Evil, and I was, also trying to write the walkthrough for that game, so
[00:10:05] I'm playing a bit, and I write down what I'm doing. I go "Oh, the key for this room, you find it in this place." So I was basically tracing, the map of, the locations into my notebook and writing in detail where those things were. And then it struck me that I am just tracing what, I'm seeing, but there must be somebody else somewhere, you know, like, um, in that case, this guy in Japan who, just conjured this from their mind and then made it into the video game.
[00:10:32] And I think that was probably the first time I realized what does it mean to be a game designer. And then I thought that was probably the coolest job in the world, and that's exactly what I wanted to do. So I think, I've always wanted to be involved with video games and involved in Japan, and somehow, that was like the, the dream.
[00:10:50] So I was like, all right, so when I grow up, and I get to university age, I'm gonna study computer science because I probably need to study computers because that's what you need to make these things.[00:11:00]
[00:11:00] And I will study Japanese because it seems to me like all the cool games were made in Japan, and that's what I wanna end up. So I ended up studying both in university to kind of becoming a career choice. And at the time, a lot of people thought that it's a very odd career choice because nobody knew that game making is a thing within my region.
[00:11:17] a lot of people thought that, it's, like I'm going through a phase that is likely to end. it's also funny for me 'cause even nowadays I would meet people, that now that I've made a career out of making games, I meet people from, that era of my life back when I was in university and they were like, "Yeah, you know what? You always were talking about these video games and look, you've ended up doing it." So it was,Yeah, it was a strange thing for a lot of people. I think even my parents didn't really understand what that meant, but you know, They were like, "Yeah, computer is the future, so as long as he's studying computer, he's doing the right thing, so you know, he's gonna end getting a decent job eventually."
[00:11:52] So
[00:11:53] Susan Gold: and Japanese. So it was like you were cornering yourself, "I am ending up in Tokyo."
Japan
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[00:11:59] Susan Gold: [00:12:00] for someone who grew up traveling between Saudi Arabia and Jordan. the, the foreignness of a place like Japan has to be, mind-bending. You know, I, I can only imagine as a child you're like, "What is that?"
[00:12:16] Fawzi Mesmar: Even when I ended up there as a young adult, it was a really,It was a really awe-inspiring moment. f- I think the first time I ever ended up in Tokyo as a visitor, I was 23 or something like that. And, it was the first time for me to be visiting, any country outside of the Middle East, in fact.
[00:12:34] So I stepped out of the... It was like a train that took me from the airport, from Narita Airport all the way to downtown, Shimbashi in Tokyo. And I got out of the train station, and stepped onto the street, and I was like, looking up. it was like that scene from the movie, like complete fish out of water.
[00:12:52] It was the first time I see a train, the first time I see a skyscraper. I saw the monorail,zooming in the sky. I was like, "What is [00:13:00] this place?"
[00:13:01] Susan Gold: It's like you landed in the future
[00:13:02] Fawzi Mesmar: Yeah, it was k- it was a really cool moment, for sure.
Doors Opening
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[00:13:05] Susan Gold: Hmm. So you've said that everything good that's happened to you in your career came from someone taking a chance on you. If you think about your life as a series of doors opening, which two or three of those doors of someone took a chance on you moments changed the path of your career the most?
[00:13:27] Fawzi Mesmar: Oh, the thing is I, I... There's so many to, to think of. Every single time it was a chance encounter with someone that took a chance on me, and next thing I know, I'm in a different part of the world, you know?I'll give you a couple of examples.
[00:13:41] my f- the first time I made a video game ever was with a crew in Jordan. So people that I met in, Japanese class and in various, different places, we got together and they were working on a Game Boy Advance game. And at the time I, I used to do a lot of music, so I played [00:14:00] guitar in a band and we were playing in, in pubs and stuff like that, and, and played some gigs around town and they were like: "Maybe, you can write the music for the game?"
[00:14:10] So they invited me to join them to write the music for the game, and that's what I did. I ended up, working on like a mod tracker that I wrote in Basic, and then I wrote the music for the game.
[00:14:20] And, you know, I was working on this thing and then I think over time they liked my design ideas more than they liked my code. So they're like: "You know, we like what you're doing with the music. We like what you're doing with the game, but maybe you should focus more on design."
[00:14:34] And that kind of what focused me, what got me to work on my first game, work on my first game team,super indie. That was like back in 2003. So that's like an example of some people that took a chance on me and like I will, never, forget that. And, whenever I am in any moment in my life, I always take a chance to acknowledge and thank those people.
[00:14:54] And, another moment I could probably share with you, There's so many but I'll give you another, uh, momentuh, [00:15:00] so this was probably one of the first moments that got me, to get a career outside of the Middle East, like to become more international in my career.
[00:15:07] at the time, Atlus was part of a bigger company called Index Holdings, and they have just started, a studio in the Middle East, but they brought their entire staff from Japan. they got the programmers, the artists, the management, everybody, they brought them over from Japan.
[00:15:23] their purpose was to educate, in the university back then to help people learn about animation and gaming, but they were also wanted to make, games and bring their games maybe even to the, to the Middle East. So they were looking for somebody local to help them. So they were like, "We have everybody, but we just need a local game designer so that they can help us find our way around to the local taste," and something like this.
[00:15:48] and at the time it was, Katsushige Mikami-san who found my resume because I was one of the few people who was,had four or five years of experience, and I called myself a game designer, probably one of the few people in the region that actually pursued [00:16:00] that as a career. And he scheduled an interview with me and, he said, started the interview and I responded in Japanese and he was like, "Wow," "what are the odds?"
[00:16:08] like the, the only game designer we found in the region also happens to speak Japanese. So yeah, they made me an offer and I ended up joining them and then worked with Atlus on a bunch of games and from then on,worked to, other international companies. So that's another example of someone that took a chance on me and and my career took a big step forward because of it. And yeah, there's many, many of those. There was a similar person that ended up bringing me over to New Zealand or to, Japan or to Germany. So yeah, there's too many to thank
[00:16:41] Susan Gold: but you're open to all those things, which is something that I think, very often people limit themselves. They get in their own way. They don't realize that they can do the things that they really have the skills to. They just sometimes need somebody to say, "You can do [00:17:00] it."
[00:17:00] Fawzi Mesmar: I
[00:17:00] completely agree with you
[00:17:01] Susan Gold: you know,I'm hoping by showing examples of people who just do it, it'll help along the way.
Jumping into the Abyss
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[00:17:10] Susan Gold: You went from being like an indie kind of developer in a tiny Jordan scene to then going to New Zealand and working for Gameloft, and then on to Japan, and then later to Europe. When you look back, out of all of them, I can imagine all of them felt like you were jumping into the abyss kind of thing.
[00:17:33] But
[00:17:34] Fawzi Mesmar: Yeah
[00:17:34] Susan Gold: what felt to you like, "This is my biggest stepping off. This is me making my mark." Was it that move from Jordan to New Zealand, or was it coming back home or coming back to Europe? Or where were you, feeling like you took the biggest risk?
[00:17:57] Fawzi Mesmar: Hmm. You know, like it's, [00:18:00] it's fascinating because, I never viewed it really as risk. Maybe it's like the naivety of youth. I remember when I first moved to New Zealand, I didn't, I don't think I had enough money for me to get a flight back if things don't go well, you know? But in my mind, I thought, "I'll make it work, and in the worst case, I can always phone back home and they'll buy me a ticket and I'll just go back home," So I guess I always thought, "What's the worst that can happen?" And I just took the leap. New Zealand probably was the furthest away I've ever been from home. I even when I first accepted the offer to move to New Zealand, I don't think I knew exactly where New Zealand was, to be honest.
[00:18:38] It was probably amongst the longest flights I have ever taken. I had to change two or three times, ended up missing an entire Wednesday by the time I landed in New Zealand. but it was also so magical to be that, that, that far away from home, but still still landing in a game studio and [00:19:00] meeting a lot of people that are very, very similar, even though they are on literally on the other side of the planet, you know? But yeah, that, that's probably the, the, the longest jump I've made.
Leadership
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[00:19:11] Susan Gold: But at that time, New Zealand wasn't necessarily known as a, a game bastion, So it was going to yet another small community, and that has its pros and cons too, but it did help you. And at some point, you just stopped being the person making things, and you became the person responsible for guiding other people's creativity.
[00:19:38] When did you first realize you were a leader? What changed in how you thought about your work when you did?
[00:19:47] Fawzi Mesmar: It's always, this is also very humbling for me because s- seeking out leadership is not something that I actively considered. the first time I became a lead designer, it was my team going to my [00:20:00] boss and telling them like,"You know, we really like what this guy is up to, so can we just make him the lead?"
[00:20:05] And a lot of the promotions I ended up getting very early on in my job was like, "Fawzi's doing the work anyway, so we might as well give him the job," And, in New Zealand that the same pattern repeated itself again, that first happened when I was in, Jordan and I was working with a relatively large team of around 40-ish people.
[00:20:22] They went over to my producer and they were like, "We want Fawzi to be the lead." And then when I went back to New Zealand, that same pattern ended up happening again. I was just, I was one of the designers on, the project, "My Little Pony," that you mentioned earlier, and I was doing a lot of work, and then the team were like, "We need Fawzi to be the lead."
[00:20:40] And then I became like the principal designer of the studio to kind of like show all the other designers, the best practices and how to go around in, in making, games. I guess like the way I view leadership, I view it as servitude. I, I want to service my team. So [00:21:00] I, I view this as a responsibility is not to just point the direction, it's like to figure out the many different ways in which I can help them.
[00:21:08] that's why I never like sought it, but it just arrived at me because it's one of the things I tend to do naturally anyway.
[00:21:17] Susan Gold: I understand the natural leadership and the kind of person that people have a tendency to go to because you offer so much, and that servitude that you speak to is, in my mind, part of being a leader is understanding that you can't do everything, but also that you're there to provide help for that team.
Design as a Science
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[00:21:43] Susan Gold: I'm curious, you said you started with game design as, you were tracing the games and you were thinking about, "Oh, someone has to make this." But when did you stop seeing game design [00:22:00] as a team sport and a more hypothesis-driven craft? when did you start, thinking about it as this is a science?
[00:22:11] Fawzi Mesmar: So I think from the beginning, when I started making my first game on the Game Boy Advance game, the one that I mentioned earlier, I was like: All right, so I'm about to venture into this, I did not think of myself as a game designer or as a professional game designer, you know?
[00:22:24] We were an indie team, and I was like: All right, so I am studying computer science, I'm studying programming, but there must be some kind of, there's professional game designers out there. There are people that have that as their career, so how can I learn this? So I ended up looking up,education material for game design, and I stumbled upon, some great, great works that I, people that, I've have since met, and they're fantastic people, but they've written amazing books that have really taught me what it means to be a game designer to some extent.
[00:22:56] I will name, Raph Koster's wonderful book, "A Theory of Fun", one of, one of the [00:23:00] best books I've read, and, Jesse Schell's, book, "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses", and Eric Zimmerman's book, "Rules of Play". All of these guys I ended up meeting and I have the honor to, call them friends and mentors in a lot of different ways.
[00:23:13] But, being able to get my hands on these books, which was also a bit of a challenge back then, like I had to have relatives coming in from America or something to, to bring it over with me or through some really, expensive shipping routes, get some of these books over, is, the first time I started to, read in a book what does it mean to be a game designer and the work that it entails to be a game designer, B- because b- before that, there was the common misconception that I feel a lot of people still have, is that game designers is the ideas guy, you know? And then like,I'm just supposed to sit there and come up with ideas based on my experience as playing games. But it was, as I started to read these books and apply the analysis that, and the lenses that these books provide, and how I [00:24:00] analyze other video games and then analyze my own way of thinking, that I started to understand, oh, okay, there's a bit more from that.
Sponsor: PlayStation Hero Project
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[00:24:06] Fawzi Mesmar: The
[00:24:06] Shirley McPhaul: And now let's take a moment to thank the sponsor for this episode, the PlayStation Hero Project, an incubator program founded by Sony Interactive Entertainment focused on identifying and supporting emerging developer talent from India, China, and the MENA regions. You can be a hero too if your game was made in one of these regions.
[00:24:29] Check out the teams getting their support, like Big Boot Games, creators of the game Meteora, a survival combat racer where you're not just in the cockpit, you are the meteor. Dodge cosmic hazards, chase and smash rival meteors, and turn the whole screen into a meteor shower as you fight to be the last one standing.
[00:24:51] Every run is a high-speed race for survival, where you chain power-ups, improvise your path through space, and try to [00:25:00] outrun the chaos just one more time. Meteora: The Race Against Spacetime is available for wish listing on Steam. For more information on the PlayStation Hero Project and the teams they support, go to playstation.com China, India, or MENA Hero Project pages.
[00:25:18] Find the links in the show notes and in the description down below. And now back to the show.
[00:25:25] Fawzi Mesmar: other thing is that the first two to three projects I made or worked on,I had no other guidance other than these books and my own trial and error. And I discovered that so many timesI would be certain of a design and then we start to implement it, and then it did not work exactly the way I expected.
[00:25:44] And then I will need to make modifications or I will discuss it with my team and we'll make a modification, and then it will get better or worse. And then we make more and more modifications to which I became certain just because I've learned so much about what it means to be a game designer through trial [00:26:00] and error, that it is a, indeed a hypothesis-driven experience.
[00:26:05] You know? like Sure, you could be armed by intuition of what you want to experience with the player, but, at the end of the day, if you've never seen a design work before, either by playing it or prototyping it, then it will be mostly intuition until you try to, test it.
[00:26:21] And that kind of became the method that I wanted to work with, closer and closer, and it's basically what I applied from, from then on. So yeah, it took a lot of trial and error, so to say. So you know, you learn the scientific process, the other way around, and, through, reading material by some of our industry's greats, that really helped me and shaped my thoughts on what game design means.
Mentors
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[00:26:45] Susan Gold: Does any-- Like you talked about Hero, Raph, Jesse, Eric. Does any one voice scream louder than the other, or do you just all blend and become a chorus?
[00:26:57] Fawzi Mesmar: Um, all of these guys, [00:27:00] they have been, important in my journey in different ways, So yeah. A hero, one of the closest voices to me is probably because I've met him the earliest and then we've, been closely in touch for a long time. It's probably my mentor, Hiromasa Iwasaki.
[00:27:15] he is one of the OGs in the Japanese game development scene. like he started making games back in 1988, And, and we're, we're in touch regularly. And when we started working together, I really loved his playful approach to game design generally and how he analyzed games, but also how he tested me in how I wanted to analyze games as well.
[00:27:36] And like that type of friendly banter and design discussion is something that we've always had and we've maintained till this day. So he's probably one of the closer, voices to me in how much he has supported me throughout his career, and he's one of the few people I would indeed call a mentor. But I, like I said, I, I'm not the type of guy that would think that I've done things through myself.
[00:27:58] So as you [00:28:00] mentioned, as I mentioned before, and you may have noticed, I feel like I-- a lot of good things have happened to me because I've ran into good people that have guided me along the way. So yeah, I feel grateful for everybody in a lot of different ways.
Effort and Luck
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[00:28:12] Susan Gold: Do you think, that these things come to you because you're open to working and, and listening and, and being a part of a collective of ideas?
[00:28:26] Fawzi Mesmar: You know what? I th- I think there is a part of that, yes, for sure. You know, I, I don't want to also remove any agency, from my side. But I, I think, I think generally speaking, you gotta do the work. you gotta put in the work, put in the time, hone your craft, learn.
[00:28:42] But also at the same time, place yourself in the right place at the right time as much as you can, like by doing the work. if I had not have learned Japanese, if I did not work in game design, I would not have been able to land that interview that gave me that job, for example. but you know, there, there's also the luck [00:29:00] factor that made this happen.
[00:29:01] So I believe that, you do the work and you do the best so that you can place yourself in destiny's way, you know? Then there is destiny that can take you on the journey. the train might stop and ask you if you wanna hop on. But then the third one, which is the one that you alluded to, is that you making the decision, go "I'm gonna jump on this train and see where it's gonna take me," So the openness, hopefully the humbleness also to go maybe I don't know. one of the things, you and I discussed before, we started recording, I was like, you'd want to learn forever, And I feel like that openness and humbleness is so important that, no matter how good you think you are, that you believe that there's still something left for you to learn.
[00:29:40] That whenever you meet someone, you feel that this person, probably has something to teach me or like I'm open to whatever this person is willing to teach me. So having that openness is important, you know? And you kind ofneed those three things, you need to do the work, you need to, find where destiny meets you, and then accept [00:30:00] to go on the ride if it's offered to you, you know?
Sense of Responsibility
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[00:30:03] Susan Gold: But you also take on responsibility, and not just responsibility for the games you make, but you have, as you've matured, taken on some responsibility for your community and for other Arab developers.
[00:30:19] Tell me, this sense of responsibility, when did you start to feel like you really needed to, to do something? more than just talk and show up at a couple of conferences and lend support. When did you decide things like, "Wow, no one had a book for me growing up. I need to write a book"? When did this responsibility for taking on helping an entire region grow become part of your heart?
[00:30:54] Fawzi Mesmar: I think I first started to think about this when I arrived in Japan, and I felt like, the, [00:31:00] the childhood dream is coming true. And I was like: Wow, what a journey, like that took. And then I was like: It would be great if I can help other people do the same, get their dreams come true, so to say, especially when it comes to making video games and all of that.
[00:31:14] And I was reflecting a lot of, on my journey and how hard it was for me to become a game designer, like the imposter syndrome that I've had for such a long time, How I was fortunate that I'll be able to read the words of Raph and Jesse, because they were in English, but maybe so many other people in my region that do not have access to this type of information because it is in English.
[00:31:33] And also how difficult it was to get my hands on these books in English even back then, So I've, I've just wanted to be the person I wish I've met starting out, Like when I started out, I would wish, I wish I've met somebody who is a game designer who kind of like told me what it's like, guided me through the way, give me some, references and some materials for me to, to learn.
[00:31:53] and I learned through, like I said, a lot of trial and error. My first few projects never finished, I've, I thought that I wasn't good enough [00:32:00] several times, because I just did not know. And, and I was like, I want to help other people hopefully avoid feeling that way. And, and it was what I was doing in my day job anyway,
[00:32:10] as I mentioned, as I'm working with people, I became like the principal designer or the lead or the person that, showed others how to do things. And I was like, "If I, if I'm able to do this on a professional, level, then I could probably also help people to do that from a beginner level."
[00:32:28] And there wasn't any book written on this topic in Arabic, especially game design. so that's what motivated me is as soon as I can find some, some time, I'm gonna start to, put those thoughts on paper. But, I, I wanted to start with the Arab community because it was my community, but I never wanted to stop there.
[00:32:46] And, since then I've been writing in both English and Arabic, so I wanted to help people generally, make better games whenever I could. But that was the moment when I first started writing my first book, "Al Khallab: The Art of Game [00:33:00] Design", about this topic in Arabic.
Impact
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[00:33:03] Susan Gold: So when you write this book and, it's now been adopted by several universities, you also created, a free crash course. who were you thinking you were creating all this for? Was it for the younger version of you?
[00:33:23] Fawzi Mesmar: Yeah, definitely the person I imagine. I imagine that I would have really appreciated to see something like this, not only for its content, but also I felt like if you see another, another dude, from the region that's,quote-unquote made it, it will make you feel that, yeah, I could do that too, It'll encourage you to do that. And actually, I think it's the type of encouragement I would have also needed, starting out.
[00:33:48] Susan Gold: Well, what I love is the MENA region is now you, you aren't the only person, right? there are more and more studios growing in [00:34:00] cities that never had studios. I have a little bias. I think the Global Game Jam helped a little bit with that.
[00:34:07] Fawzi Mesmar: Of course. Of course, yes
[00:34:09] Susan Gold: but the ability to watch a region grow from we're the only ones to now there are thousands developing throughout the region, and there are formal curricula.
[00:34:22] From your vantage point, what does that journey look like emotionally, where you see your own fingerprints on that story, that you were the person that kind of helped push it and make it real?
[00:34:38] Fawzi Mesmar: It's very humbling, to be honest. I I like to think that I'm a small part of it, so not, not a major part in any way. Like I said, the major part always comes from the people doing the work, and so many talented individuals that really wanted to pursue their dreams and work on their stuff, and create amazing games.
[00:34:58] So,[00:35:00] I'm, I'm very happy and proud to see, studios springing up from the region and doing some kind of cool things. So yes, I, I see myself as a s-small part of it, not in any way a catalyst or anything like that. But it's always deeply moving for me whenever I meet someone from the region who has heard of me or heard of my work or read my, book or saw something I've done to be one of their motivations to why they wanted to, make games or how they became part of the industry because they've heard of me or some of my work.
[00:35:32] It's, These are probably the most rewarding moments of my career. sure, making a, a cool game is, something, and entertaining players is a great feeling, and it's my primary responsibility. But when, when someone from different parts of the world now, but especially from my region, comes over and they say that, my journey has inspired them to do what they're currently doing, that's when I feel like all the work has [00:36:00] been worth it.
[00:36:01] it makes me... It's humbling. It's humbling, very much It makes me very happy. I've done a few,collaborations with the Global Game Jam that happened in the Middle East several times with just keynotes and, advice for people how to handle the game jam and stuff like that. So th-those types of initiatives that, you guys did are also
[00:36:20] Susan Gold: Jam,
[00:36:21] I think Game Jam just opens up doors and allows people to meet each other and create community where there is often very little. So that is one of the primary goals is so many people just don't know each other, and they have that passion, and they just don't know who to connect to.
Worlds of Influence
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[00:36:40] Susan Gold: now, we have Discord, we have a million different socials, but when you and I were starting, we didn't know each other, and it was really hard to find those people. But you've lived in so many different parts of the world. I mean, you are a serial expat. You're, you're Japanese, Swedish, [00:37:00] and Arab all at once. How do all of those influences inside you sit down and make creative decisions?
[00:37:09] Fawzi Mesmar: So I, I generally believe that,we can't create what we don't know. And, I've-- I'm slightly obsessed with creativity, as a lot of people knows, and I talk a lot about this topic. so we can't create what we don't know. Everything we make will, without a doubt, will come from somewhere in our life journey.
[00:37:26] It's, things that we've experienced, our thoughts about things, how the world has touched us in many different ways will without a doubt show itself in whatever we make, I'm a genuine believer that you know, how we approach originality and creativity as for us is that the more we enrich our lives, the more we have a rich life experience, the more our life journey is eventful, full of, personalities, events, and people, and different points of view, it allows us to create [00:38:00] newer things that people might not have been able to think about because of, it, it further and further increases the uniqueness of our life journey.
[00:38:08] So I rely heavily in my own life journey and the things I make gen- like usually speaking. you know, a good example would be the book that we just spoke about. like I wanted to write the book based on my own life journey and how far it took me and the different, things that I have learned that I wanted to put on paper and share with everybody.
[00:38:26] And it will, without a doubt show in a lot of different ways, And what I like about, being able to live in different parts of the world and how it sculpted me as a person, I believe it's made me a better person simply because I've been exposed to things that will get you killed in one culture that are totally normal in another, And that kind of allowed me to see what does perspective mean, you know? And understanding of nuance and understanding of different points of view, and the importance to be able to understand the other person, the other culture, get [00:39:00] understanding of the nuance, embrace, parts of the culture, learn what works with, with who we are.
[00:39:06] Like,It helped me have a more holistic approach to us as people and how we relate and interact with each other and how we work and, how we make things. And ultimately, yeah, made me move from absolute truths from, very black,very clear blacks and whites, and to, to really appreciate the different shades of gray that, creates life really.
Arab Stories in Video Games
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[00:39:30] Susan Gold: I don't like to make things political, but I do want to ask you this question about Arab representation in video games and what you hope the future and, and stories that we'll be able to tell, the next generation from the region. I think there's so much that has changed even in the past 10 years.
[00:39:57] tell me a little bit about that.
[00:39:58] Fawzi Mesmar: Yeah. So [00:40:00] I don't think that's political at all, actually. I think it's, it's an inherent part of the creative process in which, we add a little bit of ourselves into the things that we make. And I would always encourage people to add a lot more of themselves into the things that we make. I'll answer your question by giving you a little anecdote.
[00:40:17] In that, first time I went to Japan, the story I told you earlier when I was look- looking into those skyscrapers. We had our game that we made in Jordan, and we were pitching it to a bunch of publishers. And one of those publishers I met with reps from Nintendo.
[00:40:30] This was back in 2005, 2006, I believe. And,I will never forget how warm they were and how they received me, but I will also never forget how curious they were because it was the first time they met a developer from Jordan and from the Middle East, And I-- what I loved was their curiosity because, and, other than they asked me a million questions about,my gaming history and why I play games and stuff like that.
[00:40:55] they told me that I have, almost a responsibility but to some extent an [00:41:00] advantage. They said that we as Japanese, we've been representing our culture in games for now over 20 years, 30 years, when we met. And, and the West has been also very successful in doing that,
[00:41:10] we've played games about ninjas and samurais and cowboys and medieval knights and, and even like modern-day Japan and, high school dramas and stuff like that. so there's always have been a good representation of, Japanese and Western, cultures in games just because, those were the biggest industries and the portions of the world where, games were coming out of.
[00:41:30] And he was like, "But I've never played a game coming out of Jordan, and I have no idea what that would look like," you know? So he was like, "You have an advantage because you and your region are now gonna be bringing out games in a flavor the world has never seen before." And the more you see people from the Middle East making games, the more and more you see that to be true.
[00:41:52] Not only the Middle East, now that we've started to see games coming from, the democratization of game publishing and people being able to [00:42:00] self-publish, you really started to see games coming from all corners of the world, and they're all different and beautiful in their own ways, because of how they represent their own culture in the thing that they make.
[00:42:10] Sometimes even like in how they represent popular genres in gaming, but, with a, a little local twist. I found that fascinating, you know. Like, who knew what a Witcher was, before, the guys at CD Projekt Red started exporting a big part of their, local culture into the games that they made, and now it's like a huge part of pop culture with like Netflix series and huge series of games, and probably one of the most recognized gaming IP ever.
[00:42:33] I don't think back then if I was chatting with that guy in Tokyo, we could have imagined what a Polish game would be like. You know what I mean? And, I think he viewed us in that way, and, that is a challenge I still pose for, Arab game developers, but game developers worldwide still, How can we, how can we be more and more authentic into the games that we make, How can we add a bit more of ourselves, our stories, our heritage [00:43:00] into the things that we make in a way that, people from other regions can also still appreciate and enjoy,
Curiosity before judgement
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[00:43:05] Susan Gold: I think when we talked before, you talked about it as, exploring cultures as curiosity as opposed to judgment
[00:43:13] Fawzi Mesmar: Mm-hmm. And it's a big part of that, right? So it was how I approach Japanese culture generally. I had a deep curiosity about this magical place where all the cool stuff was coming from, right? And, and in my search and how I was seeking it out, I wanted to learn more about it, So I ended up learning more about the language, learning more about the culture, et cetera. And little did I know that that will end up to be a common theme in my life, every place I've ever lived in right now, I've ended up learning about German culture, Swedish culture, French culture, and incorporate that more and more New Zealand culture and incorporate that in myself and things that I do, and sometimes the way I speak of certain things,
[00:43:53] Susan Gold: and it comes from the, the openness, that we spoke about earlier, You could end up in [00:44:00] Sweden, but you don't want to get exposed to the culture and just focus on your own thing. But it, it-- that would feel to me like such a waste. So it was opposite of having that openness and be curious about, what people like here, what do they don't like, what do they think about certain things, how did that come to be, And I think that all matters so much to you, and it's really apparent in your work and the fact that you have given so much back to the community as well as not just the Arab community, the demystifying creativity is a contribution to the entire world. And I think that it, provides opportunities for people to see a little bit into your own thinking, and I highly recommend people explore the book.
[00:44:47] I do have, to wrap up pretty soon, so I wanted to see how you wanted to end this. What do you want people to think about in the future? What do you want them to know more about you, [00:45:00] and where can they find stuff about you?
Where to find Fawzi
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[00:45:02] Fawzi Mesmar: So, you can find me, pretty much everywhere on the internet, Fawzi Mesmar. I have my own website, fawzi.zone, where you can keep, up to date with my shenanigans. my handles on Instagram and, Blue Sky are the same, fawzi.zone, so you can find me over there. Fawzi Mesmar on LinkedIn. my books you can also find pretty much everywhere you get a book,Amazon, Google Books, wherever you get your books.
[00:45:27] they're available in also all kinds of format, audio, digital, and print. and, for my books in Arabic specifically, like you mentioned earlier, I have those available for free as a, as an online course. So if, if getting a book is a bit of a difficulty to get it physically, you can always do the free online course that I did with a collaboration with the Queen Rania Foundation on edraak.org.
[00:45:51] So you can just go edraak.org, search for game design or for my name, and you will find it, and you'll be able to, get all the knowledge that I've had in my book available to [00:46:00] you in, in
[00:46:01] Arabic.
[00:46:01] but for English speakers, if you just, search for me on YouTube, you'll find all kinds of talks and, lectures about the topic, especially demystifying creativity, as I've done a bunch of talks on this topic, so you can find those also online on, on YouTube.
[00:46:16] And I think the last message that I would wanna leave everybody is that now our creativity is challenged more than ever before, And, we are in an age in which we're gonna be coming face to face with a lot of volume created through easier tools and the rise of, artificial intelligence.
[00:46:38] And in this day and age, I think it's more and more important for us to be authentic to who we are, authentic to our life journeys, and more and more lean into who we are as people, and have that be present very clearly in the work that we're doing, because, our life journey and who we are as people is something an AI can't simulate.
[00:46:59] the [00:47:00] uniqueness of who we are is something that is completely unique to us, that is outside of the dataset of many of those tools. And the more vulnerable and authentic, we are in how we make, and what we make will allow us to be a lot more original in the stuff that we end up doing anyway.
[00:47:20] Susan Gold: That's beautiful. I truly appreciate that. That is a wonderful sentiment to end this season with, and I hope that you have enjoyed your time here. I thank you so much, and we really enjoyed having you as part of the GGJ Podcast. Thank you, Fawzi
[00:47:37] Fawzi Mesmar: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure
Outro
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[00:47:40] Shirley McPhaul: This podcast is proudly supported by the PlayStation Hero Project, championing and empowering emerging developer talent across the globe. Discover new heroes at PlayStation.com China, India, and MENA Hero Project pages. Find the links in the show notes in the description down below. Want to get involved with the GGJ Podcast?
[00:47:59] We'd love to [00:48:00] hear from you. Please send your ideas, suggestions, and questions to ggjpod@globalgamejam.org, and tell us who you think we should be talking to next, what stories or issues matter most to you about the future of games, and help us highlight the people and practices that make a sustainable creative life in games possible.
[00:48:21] Thank you for spending time with us on the GGJ Podcast. If this conversation sparked something for you, please share it with someone who might find it useful. And don't forget to follow along so you never miss new stories from makers around the world. You can find more episodes, resources, and information about the Global Game Jam at globalgamejam.org.
[00:48:43] Catch us on Substack and on YouTube and anywhere else you find podcasts. This has been the GGJ Podcast. Thanks for listening, and keep making games