Asher Volmer

Asher Vollmer is a graduate of the Interactive Media & Games Division at USC and has been featured numerous times on cinema.usc.edu for his accomplishments in the field of gaming. Vollmer is currently the Game Designer for an independent development team called Sirvo. Many of his games have found commercial and independent success, including Threes!, Puzzlejuice and Semi-Automatic.

Vollmer was named by Polygon as one of the 50 Admirable Gaming People of 2014 for his work on Threes!, and was additionally nominated for the same game at the 2015 Game Designer Choice Awards in the Best Handheld/Mobile category. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, in the case of Threes!, Vollmer has discovered just how inspiring the concept of his idea is with the emergence of replicas including 1024 and 2048 that gained rampant popularity just weeks after Vollmer launched his program.

Vollmer’s development and design experience includes previously working at thatgamecompany with fellow alumnus, Jenova Chen. Vollmer was with the company from August 2012 to April 2013 and decided to leave the in order to explore his own path in the industry of indie gaming. Other experience Vollmer gained prior to thatgamecompany includes working as a Designer for fantasy gaming company, The Odd Gentlemen, and as a Flash Game Prototype Designer at game development startup, Broodworks.

Currently, Vollmer is developing a new strategy game called Close Castles. Demoed on an Xbox 360, Close Castles is a multilayer game where players can build three types of structures out of castles located in corners of a grid map. These type of castles include towers that fire at incoming enemies, houses that make “loyal subjects” and markets that make money. Players start in corners of a “grid map” and are represented by castles. Vollmer says the game’s name is inspired by castles built too close to one another, therefore starting a mutually assured destruction scenario.

For more information on Vollmer, please visit: http://ashervollmer.tumblr.com/home.