Maschinen-Mensch

## The Studio

Curious Expedition was made by Riad Djemili (code) and Johannes Kristmann (art). They worked closely together at the AAA games development studio YAGER in Berlin for 8 years. During their time at YAGER they worked on Spec Ops: The Line and Dead Island 2. At the beginning of 2014 they quit their jobs and founded the studio Maschinen-Mensch. Since then, the team has slowly grown to 8 people, in addition to external collaborators. They love creating games using a mix of carefully hand-crafted elements and procedural gameplay to create unique experiences for players. Their first game Curious Expedition sold more than 300.000 copies across all platforms.

Curious Expedition was made by Riad Djemili (code) and Johannes Kristmann (art). They worked closely together at the AAA games development studio YAGER in Berlin for 8 years. During their time at YAGER they worked on Spec Ops: The Line and Dead Island 2. At the beginning of 2014 they quit their jobs and founded the studio Maschinen-Mensch. Since then, the team has slowly grown to 8 people, in addition to external collaborators. They love creating games using a mix of carefully hand-crafted elements and procedural gameplay to create unique experiences for players. Their first game Curious Expedition sold more than 300.000 copies across all platforms.

As a studio they aim to offer opportunities to local artists and creators and strive to be a part of the vivid, wonderful Berlin indie scene through collaborations, events and their shared office space and collective, Saftladen.

## The Team

### Riad Djemili (CEO)

As a kid, Riad’s favorite book was a board game manual. So, designing games was just the next logical step for him. After studying computer science in Berlin he worked in AAA development for over 7 years on titles such as Spec Ops: The Line and Dead Island 2. He co-founded Maschinen-Mensch with Johannes to create games that explore social dynamics of the real world. Riad loves to play chess, ride his bike around town and photography.

CURIOUS FACT: One of things that fascinates Riad the most is data visualization and he is constantly designing systems, rules and tools that help him manage his life.

### Johannes Kristmann (Game Director)

Jo has been working in games for over 10 years before co-founding Maschinen-Mensch with Riad. When not thinking of new weird creatures, costumes and characters and being a vocal and important part of the Berlin game dev scene, Johannes spends as much time as he can with his family. He is an outdoor guy through and through and loves gardening, hiking and strolling through the forest.

CURIOUS FACT: Jo has a surprising talent for painting nails and loves to wear his designs around the office.

## Trivia

* Their company name Maschinen-Mensch means “machine-human”. The first name that they landed on was “HIC SVNT LEONES”. They prepared all the company foundation papers with that name and then got second thoughts at the last moment and had to come up with a new name within half an hour. If you’ve ever started a company or project then you know that coming up with a name is probably the hardest part of it all.
* Before Curious Expedition was released, back in 2014 Riad and Jo created a small game for the Ludum Dare 29 game jam titled Planet Corp. — you can play it here (but don't tell anyone).