Welcome to my digital mojo dojo casa house.
My name is Rick Marazzani, and this is my attempt to corral the online entropy of some of the things I have written, posted, designed, and built in one place.
My Quick Bio: Geek dad, game guy, book nerd, recovering techie, and sometime writer. I am a veteran game designer and producer/project manager. Mostly casual games for web, mobile, and PC. Your mom (or grandma) might have heard of my games.
I am a GenX dude from California now living on the 45th Parallel in the Willamette Valley. More granular: born in Oakland in the 70s, grew up in Martinez in the East Bay, UCSB alum, career in games and tech in the Bay Area, and moved to Salem Oregon a few years ago.
Salem is nice. In many ways it feels like California 20 years ago. Cell coverage is spotty, Waze doesn’t have critical mass to be useful, people still print out MapQuest for their destination, folks smile and wave, and the official font is Comic Sans. But, like the East Bay suburbs were twenty years ago, the schools are good, the streets are safe, and the downtown is thriving.
A bit more about me…
My joyful childhood planted the seeds for my creative adulthood. My imagination was empowered by Fisher-Price, Star Wars, LEGO, TSR, and Atari.
Then, as a grown up, I worked hard and to keep using my imagination professionally. The games biz is more than fun ideas; it takes a well rounded crew with equal portions of project management, engineering, art, and business savvy to ship a successful game. I was able to work on some of my favorite game franchises, and learn from OG video game innovators like Will Wright and Trip Hawkins.
It has been a few years since I worked in games. Since then I have worked on a few apps, wrote a little, did some online marketing and web stuff for friends and family, and worked at places that brought me joy and satisfaction. In Salem I work for a large non-profit fitness/sports/community center as Director of Marketing. This job hits the sweet spot of giving me a creative outlet, flexing my project management and producer chops, and a place where I can help others thrive.
Things Rick Says…
- “Ship it!” All good. Launch, execute, proceed, fire away!
- “You ship by shipping.” They way you launch a project is by launching it. At some point you just gotta ship.
- “Automagically” As in, “the website automagically pre-populates the form.” The magical process under the hood in the black box. Someone’s clever code.
- “Yes IF, instead of ‘no because.'”
- “Our job is to delight and entertain.” Games, stories, memes, events, should keep this in mind.
- “It’s all good.” Except when it isn’t. Things are then “not good.”
- “It’s good to be good.” Another tautology.
- “Don’t hurt people or take their stuff.” If only more people followed this simple philosophy.