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Stay a while and listen...
Kristian the non-profit worker
Board games, Video-Game design, Board-game design
Playing video- and board games, Traveling to different parts of the world.
In 1999 I decided that I want to make my hobby into a career. I started the long journey and applied for a High-school that focused on Nature and Science and IT. After that I got into Mälardalen University where I got my Masters Degree in Computer Science.
It was during my time at the University I created kristiankarlberg.se. I have since then added my portfolio with various creations, spanning from, drawing to 3d modeling, from making music to programming and art.
When i moved to Gothenburg in order to live with my fiancee I got a job as an IT-Technician.
If you want to read more about me, head over to the CV-section of this homepage. (Or download my Curriculum Vitae directly from here.
My name is Kristian and I'm 28 years old. I'm born and raised in a suburb in Stockholm where I've lived together with my parents and two brothers. During my childhood I grew up with video games. My first contact with games started with my father who had a game console called IntelliVision. Me and my brothers spent many days playing games called Golf and Burger Time. This was later followed by games on other consoles such as Commodore 64, NES, SNES, PSX and other consoles.
At junior High-School my parents bought a PC that opened up doors to a whole new world of games and opportunities. Eventually, me and my friends started to create levels for games such as Doom, Quake, Quake II, Half-Life and other games. We frequently traded levels with each other, trying to outperform each others levels and therefore create more creative and better levels.
My interest in game development continued to evolve in High School where I choose to study Nature&Science and IT. During my years at high-school I had acquainted myself with Adobe Photoshop and Kinetix 3d Studio Max 4.0. I came to learn both of these applications because I started to develop units for one of my favourite games; Total Annihilation, developed by Cavedog. We were a group of people who together developed new units we shared with the Total Annihilation Community. My main role in the team was to model, animate, texture and create small renders called buildpics.
In High-school my special interest started to become more costly. This meant I needed to find myself a job, and I did. I worked every weekend at Burger King> located in the heart of Stockholm. Burger King was a great experience and it taught me how to handle stress and work in a team. But after a while I felt I needed to develop, I therefore applied for a opening at IKEA located in Barkarby. I got the job, and was thereafter a part of the big IKEA-Family.
I graduated high-school with good grades and choose to continue my work at IKEA for another year until the academic in me once again was awakened! I applied for Mälardalen University where i studied Computer Science. Here I could really explore and widen my competence in the area and start to learn different aspects of game development. Parallel to my studies I continued to work every other weekend at IKEA fora year. I choose to end the IKEA chapter of my life and instead started my own business; kristiankarlberg. I use this business to promote myself when I develop graphics and design for various artist, companies and people.
In connection with my studies at the University and staring my own business, my Interest of playing games shifted towards exploration of understanding how to put across a story for the player and understanding the mechanics of a game (how you play the game, what rules the game follows etc.) My interest of exploring different game mechanics lead me to board games. Towards the end of my education my Interest for board games had grew enormously. This made me realize that there are lots of aspects in board games I can implement, advance and apply yo creative video games.
Today, I have my Masters Degree in computer Science and I am convinced that I in the future will be developing games inspired by board games.
My ambitions in my career is to in my future have been apart of a team developing a AAA-title and see my name in the credits-list. In 10 years I aim for to have one of my video games and board games published, either through a established company or through creating my own game studio
I dont see myself as a programmer. However the skills i have today has made it possible for me to create game prototypes. I think its valuable for any game designer to have some knowledge of code so that you can interact with the programmers involved in a project.
As of today these are the programming languages which i have been using throughout my education and career.
I can also use the following languages for designing and developing websites.
Over the years I have come to use many applications. The list below shows what applications I frequently use, and master, when developing games, graphics and websites.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Autodesk 3d Studio Max
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Office
Since 2008 I've applied my general computer skills and started to work as an IT-Technician. In this occupation i would set up and maintain server-environments.
I am very familiar with Microsofts client and server products especially the following:
Clients:
Servers
I would say I have excellent computer skills. I've used computers for the past 20 years. All of the computers except my very first one, I have built myself.
By knowing how all the parts of the computer interact which each other, it's easy for me to fault-find and fix a broken computer.
1996 - 1999
Junior High-School, Akallaskolan
General courses
click for courses and grades
1999 - 2002
High School, IT-Gymnasiet in Kista/Rissne
Nature Science with IT approach.
click for courses and grades
2003 - 2008
University, Mälardalens University
Masters Degree in Computer Science.
click for courses and grades
During my five years at the university I have had time to read a lot of courses. I've listed a handful of the most interesting courses which should show the width of my education..
Game Development
Network:
Psychology:
Programming:
Math:
Others:
2003 - 2008
Worked like a "slave" for kåren
Worked as a volunteer (which kåren calls "slaves") multiple times at the kåren where I served beverages and cleaned after hundreds of students.
2004, 2007
Responsible for DALO's Rookieweeks
I was responsible for arranging games and activities for ~100 students over a period of three weeks. This means 15 days of games and activities.
2005.02.01 - 2006.05.03
Cashier for DALO
I was the cashier for my student fraternity DALO. I was in charge for balancing the account and keeping track of the fraternity's economy.
2006.11.01 - 2007.04.01
Mälardalen University, Högvarv
I was in charge for the IT-section. I was responsible for the homepage and also administrated a LAN and gave support to the clients of the LAN.
2001.02.01 - 2001.05.01
Burger King AB
I worked as a cashier and as a chef in the kitchen.
2001.07.15 - 2004.07.15
IKEA Barkarby
I worked in the restaurant as a chef, cashier, busboy et.al.
2006.01.01 - as of today
kristiankarlberg.se
I started my own business where I create design and graphics for small companies, musical artists and regular people.
2009-2011 - as of today
IT-Hantverkarna
Setting up and managing IT-environments for customers of various sized (1 to 70 emplyess).
I can speak and understand the following languages: