About
Lydia Symchych
LID-ee-ah SIM-chich
She/Her
Lydia is a storyteller, crafter, and professional game designer, with a focus on positive impact games for education, therapy, and training. She specializes in narrative design and crafting engaging, unforgettable stories full of compassion and plenty of ✨sparkles✨.
After earning her B.A. in History from Carleton College, she began her career in museums where she discovered she could tell stories through exhibit and experience design. She enjoys translating concepts across disciplines, and finding the connections between seemingly disparate subjects. She firmly believes in the power of interactive storytelling to translate complex ideas into accessible, memorable experiences. Taking inspiration from the educational PC games of her youth, Lydia strives to create games that stick with the player long after the screen goes dark.
Lydia is a flexible and adaptive teammate — she’s unafraid to kill her darlings when the story or project demands it. She thrives on small teams where she can learn new skills to tackle emerging challenges and collaborate with all departments to bring ambitious ideas to life. Her code of honor as a designer is to ask dumb questions rather than make dumb assumptions and to always update her Jira tickets.
Lydia hopes to continue creating narrative experiences that impact her players for the better.
She calls Minneapolis, Minnesota home alongside her husband and their cat - who has yet to provide narrative input but offers great moral support.
Behind the Scenes
I am currently playing: Luck Be A Landlord, Keep Driving.
Roguelikes are my comfort genre — I play them before bed to unwind and recharge for creative problem-solving the next day.
The greatest compliment I ever received in the games industry was that my sense of humor was akin to Aggro Crab’s: A coworker described Another Crab’s Treasure as a “Lydia Symchych type Soulslike,” and said he “never played another game which so immediately reminded me of someone’s sense of humor.”
During long meetings, I knit, sew, or crochet to help me focus and ensure I don’t miss a word of what’s being said.
Did you know I played Skyrim for the first time in 2023? I’ll probably tell you that fun fact more than once. It’s just so exciting to me - what a fun game!
As a child, I wanted to be a detective. On days where I connect learning objectives to puzzle mechanics or work through a tricky edge case with the engineers, I feel I’ve achieved that dream.
My cat and self-appointed manager, Raine, enforces a strict late afternoon snuggle session to promote a healthy work-life balance.
