Meet the team: Nikolay Gatilov

We continue meeting with the team behind Vostok Games.
Today we chat with Nikolay Gatilov, Art Director of Survarium.
He talks about himself, his passion for Survarium and draws philosophical links between life, art and game development.

Full name and position in the company
Nikolay Gatilov, Art Director.

How old are you?
33

How long have you been in the industry?
14+ years.

What made you get into the game development industry?
14 years ago the game industry in Ukraine was only starting out and to me as an artist it was a new direction.

What do you do on the project? What’s your scope of responsibility?
The key task I have is to visualize in every level the interesting storyline our game designers come up with. The objects of every artist/modeler on the team must correspond to the unified stylistics of the in-game graphics. Also I finalize the levels in terms of composition and draw the concept artwork.

What is the Survarium project to you? What is the motivation that drives you forward in your work on the game?
First and foremost, I take it as a new experience, an ambitious and deeply involved project. I like the very idea behind it. So the key motivation is the implementation of that idea into the game.

Taking into account that game- making is a creative job, are there any special sources of inspiration? What helps you get tuned-in to your work?
The key source of inspiration is life itself. You need to observe it and notice small details in order to understand how they have been artistically “crafted” and then transfer/render them into our project. Another big inspiration comes from the photos of the Chernobyl zone. There we see a fear which mankind thinks of only at the times of big-scale catastrophes and cataclysms.

Name us your best-loved three PC games.
Diablo, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Battlefield

What are your favourite music/ bands?
The world offers plenty of good music. The ones that I listen to mostly are Auktyon, Nino Rota, Nina Hagen, Iggy Pop, Rolling Stones.

What has been your most memorable experience in the industry so far?
In my career I’ve seen a lot, both good and bad. The most striking recent experience is of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 collapsing half-way. It compares to a cold shower, which motivates you to keep moving forward, just to finally deliver what we couldn’t in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.

What’s your vision of the game industry’s future?
The industry in Ukraine and ex-USSR has been developing so fast that certain steps were very hard to predict, but for the casual games, of course . I am pleased to see the Ukrainian market still hosts a few companies that develop their proprietary product.
Speaking about the future, I guess we are all steadily moving into Free-to-play and its development and transformation.

Would you like to tell us anything else about yourself?
I love: my family, art, sculpture, MiniCooper to drive and travel. I don’t like: Cynics, hypocrites, as well as people making vapid promises.

I like to spend my free time painting. The ones who are interested in seeing my work can visit my web-site: www.gatilov.com.