Robin Hunicke

Robin Hunicke
Hunicke in 2018
Born (1973-03-15) March 15, 1973 (age 51)
Albany, New York, U.S.
Occupations
Notable work
Websitewww.funomena.com

Robin Hunicke (/ˈhʌnɪki/; born March 15, 1973) is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena.

Hunicke began her career at Electronic Arts where she worked on multiple games including MySims as Lead Designer and Boom Blox and its sequel as a Producer. After leaving EA, she was hired by thatgamecompany where she produced Journey, an online cooperative game for the PlayStation 3. After its completion, Hunicke joined Tiny Speck to develop the social MMORPG Glitch, teaming with Katamari Damacy creator and personal friend Keita Takahashi. Prior to the release of Glitch, Hunicke left Tiny Speck to co-found Funomena together with Martin Middleton, former teammate and engineer at thatgamecompany. In October 2012, Funomena announced their first project: "to build a game that takes data from a pedometer and does something fun with it."[1] They announced two new games, Wattam (directed by Keita Takahashi) and Luna, "a tactile puzzle game set in a vibrant and sculptural story-book world", both of which have been released with Hunicke credited as executive producer.[2]

Hunicke is recognized in the industry for her support of indie games, experimentation in game design, research in dynamic difficulty adjustment, and the advocacy of women within the games industry.[3] She has been accused of emotionally abusing Funomena employees.[4][5]

  1. ^ "Funomena – Awesome Day". Funomena. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved October 10, 2012.
  2. ^ "Luna". Funomena. Archived from the original on December 10, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  3. ^ "GDC Vault – Indie Gamemaker Rant". GDCVault. Archived from the original on September 21, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
  4. ^ Chalk, Andy (March 18, 2022). "Two reports paint a troubling picture of workplace abuses at acclaimed indie studios". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on March 18, 2022. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  5. ^ Bryant Francis (March 18, 2022). "Funomena co-founder Robin Hunicke accused of workplace emotional abuse". Game Developer. Archived from the original on March 19, 2022. Retrieved March 20, 2022.