Scott

Lead Designer

Attracted by Red 5 Studio’s recent Golden Ticket recruitment initiative, Scott Youngblood joined the team in Aliso Viejo in April 2007 after spending six years at Sony’s Oregon offices working on the Syphon Filter franchise.

A 17-year veteran of the computer games industry, Scott first took a position as a network technician at developer Dynamix in 1990, while studying computer science at the University of Oregon. Quickly realizing that creating games was his true passion, Scott began programming for Dynamix, working on sports titles such as Front Page Sports: Football & Baseball series. Scott quickly moved up the ranks to lead designer, and held this position on the critically acclaimed first-person-shooter titles, Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2. After leaving Dynamix in 1999, Scott spent time at Electronic Arts’ Redwood Shores campus working on the alternate-reality title, Majestic.

A fan of the classic titles found in the darkened confines of game rooms of the 1970s and 80s, Scott spends free time adding to his impressive collection of restored game cabinets from the days when Pac-Man and Galaga ruled. When not reliving the glory days of gaming, Scott hits the trails on either a set of skis or his mountain bike or attending the needs of his wife Janice and their neurotic cat, named “Mouse.”

Q: What was your first computer?
A: The first computer that was mine to call my own was a Commodore-64. Previously I had spent a great deal of time on my dad’s TRS-80 Model 16—that’s right, dual 8 inch floppy drives, baby! In order to get me off of his machine, he eventually bought me the C-64 with a tape drive. The first game that I had for it was Temple of Apshi on cassette. Don’t talk to me about load times until you’ve played that game.

Q: Favorite sleepless moment?
A: A good friend of mine and I stayed up all night playing M.U.L.E. For the C-64. I remember his mom telling us not to stay up too late, then coming down in the morning after what seemed like minutes later. Man, was she pissed that we’d stayed up all night playing video games! For shame!

Q: What’s your favorite game, and what would you change?
A: Man. It’s tough picking a favorite. I guess the one game that I would definitely want to have on a desert island would be Robotron: 2084. The game is just awesome; it makes me sweat and curse like no other game I’ve ever played. Frantic action combined with split second planning creates one of the most insanely fun games ever!

The one thing I’d fix? The cheating AI…because I clearly shot that robot who killed me!