Hey! I'm Natalia, the founder of SolarWind Studio.

I'm deeply driven by game development and the unlimited creativity one can harness in this field. I have studied under some of the world’s best mentors and they have all taught me that life is happening for me and that we were never victims of any circumstance.

I have transformed my life through using radical movement in my body which changes my state, believing and knowing I can accomplish anything I set out to do while maintaining equanimity, and healing my body through holistic medicine.

My Journey as a Game Developer

My journey in game development began with a strong fascination for creating immersive worlds. As a kid, I loved drawing and writing stories. Later on, I studied game development at 3 colleges: Wake Tech Community College, Mercer County Community College, and Bloomfield College and got a Bachelor’s degree in Game Design.

I felt underwhelmed by the lack of focus and structure at each college. There was little to no talk about emotional intelligence, time management, workflow or business building for those who wanted to create their own game company. I was surrounded by students who would literally play video games in class instead of making them. When I looked outside of myself for instructors and institutions to give me the answers I was looking for, time and time again I was left empty handed.

Then I thought, Ah! I’ll enroll in an online game developer program where I’ll learn how to program in C#. It’s not a regular school! So, I signed up to GameDevHQ and although I did gain some knowledge in C# which is helpful for building games, the experience was very underwhelming. On several occasions, C# programming was taught in a messy way and sometimes entirely incorrect. The attitude and lack of passion in the technical coach really rubbed me the wrong way.

So, I walked away.

All of this money, time and energy I exhausted was all so I could work for someone else. Which then the question dawned on me:

Do I want to work for someone else and constantly keep trying to prove myself to break into the seemingly-impenetrable game industry?

No.