Sometimes within the gaming community, people at times look at game developers as being ‘god-like'. Not that I'm trying to crush any egos here, but in this small series of ‘get personal' interviews my goal is to shoot down that myth and show that game developers are people just like you and me (except they have super-cool jobs, work too many hours to count during crunch time, and create immersive worlds that provide us with countless hours of entertainment). Okay, maybe 'god-like' isn't so far off. Actually, my goal behind this particular interview was to get to know the developer as a person. To find out more about what drives him within his job, rather than asking the straight old: ‘What game engine are you presently working with.'

Today we talk with Raven Software's Kenn Hoekstra to find out what life as a ‘Project Admin' for a game company pushing out highly praised games (Soldier of Fortune, Elite Force) is really like.

Sharky Extreme: As a gentle start, can you tell us a bit about Raven Software, and how you came to work there?

Kenn Hoekstra: Two brothers, Brian and Steve Raffel, who started the company with an Amiga computer in Steve's basement, founded Raven Software in 1990. In ten years, the company has released more than fourteen titles, not including ports to other platforms. Activision purchased the company in 1997. Since then, we've released Hexen II, Hexen II: Portal of Praevus, Heretic II, Soldier of Fortune and Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force.

I came to Raven in February of 1997 to interview for a job as a level designer. They offered to take me on as a training project and if I worked out, I'd get to stay. I worked as a level designer on Take No Prisoners, Hexen II: Portal of Praevus, HexenWorld and briefly on Heretic II and Soldier of Fortune, though none of that work made it into those two titles. Around that time, my father died and I lost interest in level design. I applied for the Project Administrator position within the company in November of 1998 and I've served the company in that position ever since.