She is guest at Seneca Valley STEM series

By Jared Stonesifer, Eagle Staff Writer

JACKSON TWP — Most kids these days are experts on video games, which is fitting considering several hundred Seneca Valley students Friday morning listened to a lecturer talk about her career in the video game industry.

Those students came to listen to Heidi McDonald, a computer game designer and writer for Schell Games in Pittsburgh.

McDonald came to speak as part of Seneca Valley’s ongoing STEM lecture series, an event that brings in outside professionals to talk about their various careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

A career building video games can seem enticing to just about any high school student, but that doesn’t mean it’s all fun and games.

“I lot of people think game design is easy,” McDonald said. “There’s a lot of forethought, a lot of logic and a lot of math that goes into it.”

McDonald said she works in a studio that creates all sorts of video games. She said two out of every three games created are for educational purposes, while the rest are created solely for entertainment purposes.

For instance, McDonald said she’s currently working on an educational game that is designed to increase literacy in middle school students.

Her game revolves around a central character who must reopen a library by finding books scattered across the game. However, the central character is accompanied on his journey by various fictional characters like Tom Sawyer and others.

Her job is to not only design the concept of the game but to create the dialogue between the characters.

McDonald said she is seen as the “office mom” because she works mostly with younger men in their early 20s. But that doesn’t mean the industry is off-limits to women.

If anything, her experience brings a lot to the table when designers are working on concepts for a new game.

“Whenever they refer to Zelda as ‘old school’ I just roll my eyes,” she said.

McDonald also travels around the world giving lectures about her specialty, which is studying romance between characters in single-play, role-playing games.

Seneca Valley teacher David Lowe, one of the organizers of the STEM lecture series, said it was a no-brainer to bring McDonald to the district.

Almost all of his students love video games, yet most have no idea how to break into the industry.

“Now they get to hear her experiences and expertise,” Lowe said. “Kids don’t know about everything that’s out there for them in the job market, so we have someone like Heidi here to explain that.”

Ashley Berman, a student from Cranberry Township who’s in charge of the school’s Science Honors Society, echoed her teacher’s sentiment and said she always attends the STEM series even if it’s a subject she’s not interested in.

“It’s good to hear about all the different jobs available and to see what’s out there,” Berman said.

Alex Park, a student from Cranberry Township, agreed and said he attends the STEM series if only because it opens new doors.

“There’s a huge variety of speakers that come in, so it’s nice we can pick and choose which ones to attend,” Park said.