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Khalil Abdullah
Khalil Abdullah
01:18

Khalil Abdullah

Decoy Games

Beverly, MA USA

"There’s strength in representation. There’s strength in seeing someone as a role model."

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Khalil's work combines: Technology, Design, and Building Things

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Day In The Life

Co-founder & CEO

I am an indie game developer and I co-own the game studio Decoy Games.

01:21

Day In The Life Of An Indie Game Developer

My Day to Day

I start my day by looking over the task board with my brother and then tackling each task that needs to get done that day. We also make sure to realign ourselves with our goals, especially during development periods. Development involves a lot of coding and art design. As we work, we’ll sync up throughout the day to make sure we’re both on track. We also spend time managing our community through social media. If a convention is coming up, we’ll spend time organizing equipment and getting ready.

Skills & Education

Advice for getting started

The computer science and game design industries are very white-male dominated, so there have been many times when I was one of the only Black people in the class or on the team. It gets to a point where you start doubting if you even belong in that space because no one looks like you. However, once I started comparing just my skills and my work with the others around me, I knew I was good and could be successful.

Here's the path I took:

  • High School

  • Bachelor's Degree

    Computer Science

    University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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Life & Career Milestones

My path in life has been direct

  • 1.

    Growing up, I always had a passion for video games and knew that I wanted to get into game design.

  • 2.

    I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and majored in computer science, which was the closest major to game design that the college offered.

  • 3.

    During my fourth year of college, I finally got an assignment to design a flash game—I put a lot of effort and passion into the assignment and it ended up being the inspiration for our current game!

  • 4.

    After graduating, I went into tech sales and performed software demonstrations for potential clients.

  • 5.

    While working, my brother and I kept up with our passion for video game design on the side and kept building off of the game I had created in college.

  • 6.

    We maintained our nine-to-five jobs for about 10 years while creating our video game until we felt we were able to leave and transition to game design full time.

  • 7.

    I co-founded Decoy Games with my brother and am now a full-time indie game developer.

Defining Moments

How I responded to discouragement

  • THE NOISE

    Messages from Myself:

    Maybe I don't belong in this space.

  • How I responded:

    The computer science and game design industries are very white-male dominated, so there have been many times when I was one of the only Black people in the class or on the team. It gets to a point where you start doubting if you even belong in that space because no one looks like you. However, once I started comparing just my skills and my work with the others around me, I knew I was good and could be successful.

Experiences and challenges that shaped me

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  • Feeling like I didn't belong was a huge roadblock for me. Computer science is predominantly made up of white males and I also didn't have a background in it before college. It took a while but I eventually gained the confidence I needed to succeed.

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