His origins.

David Canela studied the Videogame Development Master at the Complutense University of Madrid eleven years ago. Then his professional course changed forever. He went from classical computing to level and characters designing, and to deciding how the camera would work to have a greater effect on the player and much more… He started creating worlds. David worked for Pyro Studios for 2 years where he designing work for Cops, a game that never see the light. His next project was the videogame adaptation of Planet 51 movie for Wii. After that he was involved in developing games for Facebook, but he wasn’t much of a fan of it, so he decided he needed a change. Something he didn’t know back then was that when he signed for Gameloft he would have ended making sports’ games… for Facebook. Destiny was kind of cruel back then. But at the end you always learn from everything. After a short period of time he found a new job at Virtual Toys where he worked for 3 years. And they were not always easy and happy years. But he never stopped giving his best and he designed characters, levels, made concepts to help the FX team… a little bit of everything. At the same time he started teaching in U-Tad, and when he talks about being a teacher his eyes illuminate. There he didn’t only teach others his knowledge but also reinforced it, and he learned from others. Destiny paid him well in this ocassion and some of his old students are now his colleagues at Tequila Works. He stopped teaching regularly some years ago but you can still attend his speeches at videogames events and some classes at the Complutense University. Back to videogames, after having worked for half of the Spanish companies an idea came to his mind and brought him to Tequila Works, where he’s been working for the last 5 years. All the choices he’s made, in his own words, have always brought him to somewhere better, and this is why he’s always taken the risk.

OK, but what’s his job in Tequila Works?

He started working in RiME when the project had already started, and his main task was to do white boxes. And what’s that? Something really simple to explain. It means to prepare the initial and basic design of a level, making the structure of what is gonna happen in each of the zones to make sure it all makes sense. He also worked in the mechanics of the game, and that’s what he likes the most: To pay attention to the character, how he moves, how he interacts with the environment, how the camera moves around him… Thanks to his programming knowledge he could communicate better with the team in order to express his vision knowing what programmers were capable of. In 2018 he had the chance to work for Google, and he couldn’t say no. The bases of what would become GYLT were there, and because of his experiencie in RiME he was named Game Director of the project for Stadia. Something that he loves about Tequila Works is that feedback is always welcome. Constructive opinions are always intended to improve a product.

What does it mean to be the Game Director of GYLT.

The Director is the one who takes decisions. He’s in charge of crafting a goal since the beginning of the project and making sure it is achieved, even sometimes it means to get rid off of some ideas. He has to be consequent with the times of production and meet delivery deadlines. The original idea for the game came from Guillermo Moreno, and then it was Canela and Kevin Sardá the ones who made it evolve until what GYLT has become. Even though, Canela was more focused on the game designing and its development and Kevin more in the narrative matters. To be continued… Y esta es la historia de David Canela hasta ahora en Tequila Works, ¿qué vendrá después? [*Información embargada*].