Lorena Müller – Womenize! – Inspiring Stories
Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational individuals from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Lorena Müller, AR Designer & Developer at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences. She speaks about how her diverse experience across performance, game development, research, and creative work has made her adaptable, interdisciplinary, solution-oriented, and open to unconventional career paths in the games industry. Read more about Lorena here:
Hi Lorena! Your career combines many different creative worlds, from performance art and animation to game development and research. How have these different experiences shaped the skills you use today, and how have they helped you build your path in the games industry?
I’m interested in lots of different things and I really enjoy learning. Diving into all these different areas made me good at quickly learning new skills and adapting to a new working environment. This has made me very flexible.
Another important aspect is that I have worked with many different kinds of people from different professional backgrounds: performers, actors, stage technicians, programmers, event managers, musicians, pyro technicians, social scientists, game researchers and so on. I have also worked in lots of these roles myself. Therefore, I can look at things from lots of different lenses and anticipate how other departments work and what they might need. It also helps with communication. Best thing is, so far this has worked everywhere, not only in the areas that I already know.
The variety also boosts creativity as it makes you see intersections between areas and come up with unusual combinations. I think especially combining physical and digital elements on stage or for games still holds lots of unexplored potential.
Your work has taken you from student projects and independent artistic work to research projects like “AusWege” and LoGaCulture. What transferable skills have helped you navigate these different environments and continue growing as a game developer?
There isn’t really a single “typical” day because my tasks vary quite a lot depending on what’s currently needed. Usually, I start my day by coming to campus and either working on my daily tasks in the office or attending meetings with colleagues or the student groups I supervise. On other days, I teach classes, prepare lectures, or hold feedback sessions with students.
Since becoming Head Instructor, my responsibilities have also expanded beyond teaching. I spend more time planning lectures, working on the content of our modules, and collaborating with the other Head Instructors to continuously improve our curriculum and the overall learning experience for our students.
The moments where I feel I have a big impact are definitely during feedback sessions. Rather than simply giving students the solution, I try to guide them towards finding it themselves. I think learning how to approach and solve problems independently is one of the most valuable skills they can develop.
It’s incredibly rewarding to see the moment when something finally clicks—when a student solves a problem they’ve been stuck on for days or sees their own idea come to life as something they can actually play. Those moments remind me why I enjoy being in this position so much.
I also try to give students as many opportunities as possible to connect with people from the games industry. Whether that’s recommending game jams, going to game related hangouts, or inviting developers to give talks at our campus, I want students to build connections early on and gain insights into what working in the industry is really like.
Many people entering the games industry are looking for a clear career path, but your journey shows that careers can develop in unexpected ways. What advice would you give to people who want to build a sustainable career in games while staying open to different opportunities?
OIf you are like me, and your primary motivation is to create cool stuff with cool people, then my advice may help you: Don’t base your goals on a certain job position. Instead, find out what this position means to you and why you want it, what you expect from it. There might be way more positions that can satisfy you than you realize. I’ve never had a goal that was like “In 5 years I want to work as X at studio Y” but rather “In 5 years I want to work with people that I like and enjoy what I am doing (while being able to pay my rent)”. This opens up more options for you and it may bring you to unexpected places. The world changes extremely fast anyway. So instead of making a long term plan, I’d rather check out the opportunities I have right now.
My second piece of advice is a more practical one that I only recently learned to embrace: Present yourself at public events. Submit your crappy prototype somewhere. It’s less scary than you think. Worst case is, they say no and you have produced a lot of useful material that you can use later on. Best case is, you are nominated and gain attention as a developer.
Also: apply as a speaker at conferences and such. This is a great way to talk about the things you love and to show off your work and skills. It makes you visible and offers a nice way for networking that does not include sneaking up to people and awkwardly crashing into their conversations.