Guadara, Eric

Game development students at County College of Morris (CCM) don’t have to look far to find a professor passionate about the field. Included among the outstanding Information Technologies faculty is Professor Eric Guadara, who possesses extensive experience in game design.

Video games have held the interest of Guadara ever since he was a child. When it came time to attend college, however, he chose to major in English, creative writing and film at Rutgers University. He then received his certificate to teach from Seton Hall University and began teaching English classes at Columbia High School.

For Guadara, teaching is exciting and new every day. “I like the idea of opening up people’s minds by giving them a broader perspective. A lot of the time, I have students who have a very narrow perspective on things, and I like to be there to say, ‘Hey, did you think about this?’”

After three years of teaching high school students, Guadara changed career paths and returned to his original passion, focusing on video games. He went back to college and earned his Master of Arts in Digital Game Design and Development from Long Island University. Throughout grad school, he created about a dozen “fully formed games” and many more prototypes.

From 2010 to 2017, Guadara combined his love for writing and gaming by traveling the country, attending video game expos and writing about them. In 2017, he began working as a QA Analyst with the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization. Getting the job, he notes, was not easy and took quite a bit of determination.

While the game development and design field can be intimidating, it is also extremely exciting. “It marries a multitude of disciplines that can be used an infinite number of ways,” he notes. “We’ve just started scratching the surface of what games can be and what games can do. Students should want to make games because it’s challenging but fulfilling.”

When he’s not teaching or creating his own games, Guadara enjoys playing games. In fact, for one year, he was the top player in the world for a game called “Spelunker HD” – a two-dimensional computer game similar to “Super Mario.” “I was even invited to play for the creators to prove I wasn’t using any cheat codes,” he joked.