Jens Andersson

From Entertainment Bobber Wiki

Jens Andersson
Born	July 21, 1976
Place	Härnösand, Sweden
Companies	Starbreeze Studios AB, Collective Smiles, LucasArts
Job type	Game designer, programmer, artist

Jens Andersson is a game designer, programmer and artist. He was born on July 21, 1976 and grew up in small town of Härnösand, Ångermanland, northern Sweden (population of 18,000). Jens was a part of the original Starbreeze Studios AB founded in 1998 and headquartered in his hometown Härnösand. After the acquisition of Starbreeze Studios AB by O3 Games AB, Jens Andersson, together with Starbreeze Studios, moved to Uppsala, Sweden and since then worked on such notorious projects as The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and The Darkness.

Biography

Upon graduating from a high school, Jens Andersson landed his first job as a programmer to work on a military command and control system for Swedish marine. After that, Jens studied computer science for a year before quiting to join and work at Starbreeze Studios AB.

Since 2000 and up until its release in August 2002, Jens Andersson worked on a third-person perspective action game set in medieval era, Enclave. The game was received generally well by press and was praised for its stunning graphics but got strongly criticized for high level of difficulty. Jens is credited as a lead game programmer, game designer and a project manager for this game.

Since 2002 and up until its release in 2004, Jens Andersson worked on a first-person perspective action game based on the popular movie series starring Vin Diesel, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. The game tells the story which happened prior to the events of both movies, Pitch Black (2000) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). It had incredible graphics and was highly ranked in reviews but was still criticized for being too short. Jens is credited as a lead game programmer and lead designer for this game.

Since 2004 and up until its release in 2007, Jens Andersson worked on a first-person perspective action game based on an American comic book series by the same name published by Top Cow Productions, The Darkness. The game tells a story of Jackie Escatado, a mafia hitman, who, upon reaching his 21st birthday, finds himself wielding the power called The Darkness. Starbreeze's game was, once again, praised for its stunning graphics, but criticized for game mechanics which were getting boring pretty fast. Jens is credited as a lead designer and tools programmer for this game.

End of 2006, Jens Andersson took a sabbatical from Starbreeze Studios AB, when The Darkness project was near its closing, to work on private projects and do a bit of studying. Having more spare time allowed Jens not only to work on any projects he was interested in, but also to take some elementary courses in psychology, statistics and linguistics. Feeling that he can learn any computer related stuff on his own, Jens is primarily interested in studying cognitive science. Jens still continued to work part-time for Starbreeze up until August 2008, when he left the company for good.

December 2006, Jens Andersson, together with Ida Rödén, started to work on the Rorschach project. Rorschach is a stylish adventure video game for PC and PSP. It uses scanned ink-drawings made by Ida and utilizes an interesting approach to a dialogue system developed by Jens where the player can carry a limited amount of conversation topics in the inventory.

March 2007, Jens Andersson found an independent developing company called Collecting Smiles. The company is headquartered in Umeå, Sweden. Even though there are no other employees registered in the company, Jens have built a network of freelancers to work with on his projects.

May 2007, Jens Andersson started to work on the Colors! project. Colors! is a simplistic but powerful painting application based on the modern painting techniques originally developed for graphics tablets.

June 2007, Jens Andersson's project Colors! is released for Nintendo DS homebrew, the software written for the Nintendo DS by hobbyist programmers.

December 2007, Jens Andersson started to work on the Hyena project. Hyena is an audio gamebook player being developed for multiple platforms. The goal of the project is to allow to play games without looking at the screen.

September 2008, Jens Andersson's project Colors! is released for iPhone and iPod Touch. There are two different versions available for download from App Store: a free version which lacks the save option called Colors! Lite, and the full version which can be bought for a small fee, Colors!.

January 2009, Jens Andersson relocates to San Francisco, USA to start working for LucasArts as a lead designer. Jens becomes a part of a new team, the project the team is working on will be announced some time mid-2009.

Interviews

• HomeLAN (archived), interview with Fredrik Sjöö and Jens Andersson about Enclave.