Uma Claire Teelock graduated Purdue Polytechnic with a Bachelor of Science in both game development and animation, with a minor in organization leadership, in fall of 2024. Since then, she has become an associate producer at Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes many household-name products including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.
Purdue Polytechnic interviewed Teelock, covering everything from what she has learned at Purdue, inspirations and mentors, and even what is currently captivating her attention in the games industry:
Can you tell us more about what first drew you to game production and how you decided to pursue this path?
Funnily enough, I actually came to Purdue wanting to be a character artist! I've been 3D modeling since middle school—I still do it for fun. I thought that games would be a great way to create art and characters that I loved. I pursued this through my sophomore year until I took CGT 365 with Dr. Whittinghill in the last semester of that year. I started making a game with my team and took on a leadership role as well as an art role. I quickly fell in love with the process of leading a team!
I love organizing things, planning ahead of time, anticipating and preventing risk, and guide the moving pieces of people's work into a final product! The time it takes to be a producer is more intensive than I expected, so I dropped the art role and went to production full time.
Dr. Whittinghill then gave me the amazing opportunity to lead a project of his making, so I spent a year working on that as the producer of a team of 15. Through his guidance I was able to really grow in the role and get inspired to learn on my own. Production is a place where you can see the full picture, work with creatives, and solve fun challenges. At its core, you help people get what they need to succeed, and that is the fulfillment I've always wanted in my career. Plus, I get to work with video games! I can't imagine doing much else!
What’s one experience that has most shaped your approach as a producer?
Most of my production career was shaped slowly over time, through projects, certifications, mentorships, production communities, and self-study. If I had to choose, I would choose the year-long game project I was on that was directed by Dr. Whittinghill. He was very hands-off (though he guided me when I asked), so I was able to really get in the shoes of a real producer and I learned so much during my stay there!
How do you approach getting to know your team members and understanding their individual goals?
At the beginning of the project or as people come onto the team, I ask them to tell me what they need. Are they looking to improve in a certain field? Are they just doing this for fun? Is there a particular feature that they would like to handle? I also generally ask about their workload, as we are students and our education should come first. We should not be pressuring our teammates to pull all-nighters to meet expectations if those are set too high. There's also a lot of value in chatting before and after our meetings. Through this, we can really get to know our team and build trust and camaraderie!
You seem to place a lot of value on structure, and use management software and applications to best preserve a sense of order on projects. What place do these systems have in your process?
Software tools are a great way to provide structure! If we are consistent and organized (which isn't the case sometimes), we use the Jira and Confluence constantly throughout the project. They are meant to be hubs of information that our teammates can go to at any time, either to record their progress or to share information with the rest of the team.
What are you playing now?
I'm still muddling through Persona 5 Royal! Unfortunately, school and other personal projects have gotten in the way, so I haven't been able to touch any games since the summer. Now that I'm graduating, I hope to spend more time relaxing and playing! I tend to prefer story-driven games with turn-based or no combat because I suck at mashing buttons in the right order!
How do you manage the balance between structure and flexibility within a project, especially when unexpected challenges arise?
To me, structure is a very important part of the process of making a game (or any other project). However, structures must be set up properly in order to function in ways that actually benefit the team instead of limiting them. By setting explicit goals, using Jira or some other software to track progress, creating a team hierarchy, and creating a central knowledge base, I try to achieve three goals: availability, transparency, and guidance.
The idea is that any time a teammate has a question or needs help, they know what's going on, where to find information, and what is expected of them or what they need to do next. Software such as Confluence and Jira are just tools through which I can reach these goals. I happen to really like these, but there are plenty of other options out there! I may or may not have my own task tracker I use with industry standards so I can track my homework and personal projects.
It is important to keep in mind that these structures should be reevaluated and refined as the project goes on. If something doesn't work or there are edge cases, structures should flex to make sure they stay an asset and not a blocker.
What’s your process for setting up and managing sprints? How do you handle any obstacles or changes in the middle of a sprint?
We work on a weekly sprint cadence that corresponds with our team meetings. I end the sprint at the midnight before our team meeting and spend the day processing our progress and make a plan for the rest of the sprint. First, I evaluate what gotten done and what didn't get done. Are there any tasks that didn't get completed that someone else was relying on? Are there more important priorities that need to be completed ASAP, even at the expense of an in-progress task? How did we make progress to our next milestone (or did we at all)? Are our teammates also working on things that meet their personal goals and passions? From this I create a rough pass of what I'd like everyone to work on so that we can make meaningful progress.
However, it's usually unavoidable that someone didn't mark some tasks as complete or can't work on the tasks I chose for technical or personal reasons. It's important to think on the fly to adjust the work to work around these obstacles. Changes in the middle of the sprint are annoying but also unavoidable. First, I check to see if this immediately blocks anyone from doing their work; luckily, this rarely happens, but if it does then we need to rearrange tasks for that sprint. If it doesn't immediately block someone, it is usually ok to address the issue in the next meeting or sprint setup.
It is also important to diagnose the issue. If a computer or software isn't working, how long will that take and what can they do while they fix the issue? If the students have other priorities, how can we adjust what they commit to so that we aren't waiting on work that can't get done at the moment? Most of this is solved one-on-one with either their sub-team lead or with me.
What have been some of the most valuable lessons you learned from your internship experiences with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast (WotC)?
There are so many pathways in games that aren't direct development that are still very satisfying! Until my internship, I really wanted to work in development at a large studio, then go to indie. I couldn't really imagine anything but being down in the trenches with developers and helping them as much as I can. I wanted to get my hands dirty, contribute creatively, the whole nine yards.
When I saw the "Creative Producer" internship at Hasbro/WotC, I was so stoked! But when I got there It was licensing, not development. Instead of making the games, I was talking to studios to make sure they represented our brands correctly. I was so afraid of being bored out of my mind, but it ended up being so much fun! I wasn't using Jira and Confluence, but I still got to watch games grow. I wasn't bouncing around within a team to get the latest updates, but I got to talk to so many different teams to get the information I needed to help clients. I wasn't expecting to have any creative say, but I got to draw over concept art and they used my ideas! Licensing sounded like something that would be a boring office job with no impact, but it satisfied my passion: helping people make games.
There are so many ways to apply your skills, so no one should limit themselves to one role when looking for their career. Obviously, it's okay to have a dream job and pursue that as much as you can, but don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and try something new! I love traditional production still and I'm happy that I am continuing to do it while I'm still in school, and I've learned so much through it, but now I'm not hinging my entire life on it.
I also learned that brand guides can be 500 pages long. And I learned way more about Transformers in three weeks than I ever expected to learn in my lifetime.
During your internship, you mentioned several mentors who helped shape your journey. How did their guidance impact your approach to production and leadership?
My mentors during the internship were the most inspiring and cool people ever! During my internship they helped me understand all the inner working of helping games get out the door and then let me actually contribute to their work. They let me watch them work and I got to see that everyone had some level of leadership in their jobs.
Even if you are lower on the chain, you still have agency and lead your clients to success. That means you can guide conversations, make decisions and recommendations, and accumulate information to pass on to those who need it. I've learned that production is mainly soft skills. You need to talk to other teams, talk to clients, talk to co-workers and become a point of communication for anyone to get the information they need. Informal networks and relationships are everything.
I would also like to thank my mentor for production before I got my internship! She was the one who guided me in traditional production, acting as a teacher and sounding board as I led my projects. Without her guidance I would not be where I am today.
What’s one emerging trend in game production or technology that excites you, and how do you plan to incorporate it into your work?
This is not so much a technology or something that will directly impact my work, but it seems like more people are appreciating QA workers, who test the game endlessly to ensure that it is ready for release. I think that they formed a union? They are the unsung heroes of the industry and deserve all of the respect and recognition they can get!
(Also, let it be known that I hate generative AI for so many reasons, and I hope to never use it.)
What’s one game or project (past or present) you’re especially proud of, and why?
I'm most proud of the game I am currently working on with a team of 20 students. We're called Black Swan Studios and we are developing an RTS called Worlds Collide where you play against another player, building obstacles and manipulating the terrain to protect your bases!
Our team is dedicated and talented, well organized, and everyone supports each other. We are students and our schedules are very busy, so while we haven't made the progress I was initially hoping for, we've gotten beautiful results so far. I am proud of my team and I hope that they are able to complete the project and release it on Steam after I'm gone. They have worked hard and I wish I could reward them with more than just snacks!
Finally, what’s something surprising about your role that people might not expect?
If producers are doing their job correctly, their work should not be very noticeable to their teams. A producer is supposed to prevent blocks, make workflows easier, and generally support the team. The support can be noticed by individual teammates, but by reducing the number of blocks it's easy to believe that production is going smoothly because they can't see what was avoided.
Workflows should be refined so that producers aren't needed very often to solve workflow issues. Building a good culture can reduce unhealthy conflict and uplift any dissenting voices so informed decisions can be made. Producers are the oil in the machine, and you don't notice it until the gears start squeaking. Their work is valuable and should garner respect, but otherwise the best producers aren't needed to fight fires very often. When they do, those fires should be put out quickly and efficiently!
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