Episode 57: The Role of a Systems Developer with Hi-Rez's Dayle Flowers

Game Development has many roles: Gameplay Developer, Systems Developer, Level Designer, Character Artist, Sound Designer, Game Designer, and many more. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the role of a Systems Developer. To do so, I have the pleasure of talking with Dayle Flowers, lead developer on Paladins at Hi-Rez Studios. Before becoming a lead developer, Dayle had several years of experience as a Systems Developer. He explains what the job of a Systems Developer is in a game studio and what mindset and skills are needed to do this job. He also clarifies the differences between a Gameplay Programmer and a Systems Developer. In addition, we talk about Paladins and its controversial similarities with Overwatch. Towards the end of the episode, Dayle shares some of the good practices that he uses to make his game development process more efficient and stay productive.