From CADA to Spilprisen: The Story Behind Atacan and Infernal Logistics
Meet Atacan, a CADA student who found his way into CG and game development through a background in sociology, theatre and a passion for creative storytelling. Originally from Türkiye, Atacan started his journey at CADA with the 3D Bootcamp, followed by the 3D Essentials Course, which led him to the 3D Digital Artist Programme. During his 5th semester, he joined DADIU, where he became part of the team behind Infernal Logistics, a student game developed over 7 weeks that went on to win Best Student Game at Spilprisen. We caught up with Atacan to hear about his time at CADA, his experience at DADIU, and how Infernal Logistics came to life.
What can you tell us about your journey into CG and what brought you to CADA?
My path here wasn't a straight line. I have a bachelor's degree in Sociology, and for years my creative starting point was narrative writing: stories, poems and scenarios, some of them award-winning. That grew into seven years working at a state theatre in İzmir, where I worked with voice acting, stage acting, set and graphic design, and video editing.
It actually started earlier than that, when I was a kid. I never really took notes the normal way. I'd draw instead. The environment I was in, the people I was listening to, even a feeling I had, I'd sketch it rather than write it down. I collected a lot of different art forms over the years, and for a long time it was hard to choose just one and let the others go.
Eventually, I realized I didn't have to choose just one. A game, like a film, is a huge collection of artistic skills coming together: writing, performance, lighting, environment, editing and more. My background on literature became a narrative instinct. The theatre years gave me a real, physical sense of lighting and environment. Acting taught me to understand animation and performance. Video editing gave me a cinematic eye. None of my previous experience had to be left behind; it could all find a place together in CG.
When I moved to Denmark, I had no idea how to make games or work in 3D, none at all. CADA became more or less my one real option, and it turned out to be the right one. I started with a bootcamp, and that was the first time I ever opened ZBrush. I sculpted a dragon with a rooster's head. From there I moved on to the 3D Essentials Course, and after that, I decided to give CADA a real shot and I enrolled in their 3D Digital Artist Programme.
How did you become involved in infernal logistics, and what was your role as a CG Artist?
Getting here wasn't easy. I spent two years at CADA, often working 35 hours a week on top of my studies. It was hard, but it came from wanting to do something good, proving something to myself, and watching myself get better, day by day.
The DADIU semester came around after two years at CADA, and I can say it was the most valuable semester of my education. Before DADIU, we'd done group projects where everyone was a CG artist, so we were all speaking the same language. DADIU showed me how much bigger the games industry actually is. A game isn't just CG. It needs sound, story, mechanics, music, marketing, production, direction, a soul.
I applied to DADIU as a CG Artist from CADA and was placed in a team of 13 people from different fields, universities, nationalities and backgrounds. Together, during the final seven-week production phase at ITU, we built Infernal Logistics.
Working alongside people I hadn't met before, in a new environment, really refreshed my motivation. There was coffee, snacks, laughter, exhaustion, hard work, good days and bad ones. By the end of it, we had Infernal Logistics.
As a CG Artist, I worked across modelling, texturing, rigging, animation and VFX, and got to experiment with procedural modelling for the first time. I'm now also helping with game design and narrative structure.
What does it take to create a game in just seven weeks?
What made it possible was structure. We had solid planning from day one: morning stand-ups, regular follow-up meetings, visits from our teachers, and great communication across a 13-person team from completely different fields. That structure is what lets a group of people who'd never worked together before actually function like a real studio in such a short window.
Beyond the structure, it took long days and even longer nights, more coffee than I can count, and a lot of laughter and stubborn hard work. You don't finish a game in that time without good planning, but you also don't finish it without a team willing to put in the hours when the planning alone isn't enough.
How did working with a multidisciplinary DADIU team shape you as an artist?
Before DADIU, my sense of teamwork came from projects where everyone was a CG artist. We all thought in the same terms and saw problems the same way. DADIU broke that. Suddenly I was working alongside programmers, sound designers, writers, producers, people who looked at the same game and saw something completely different from what I saw.
That changed how I work. A model or a texture isn't just a visual choice anymore. I started thinking about how it would read once it had sound behind it, how it would need to move once it was rigged and animated, and how it fit into a mechanic someone else was building at the same time.
It also made me more communicative as an artist. On a real multidisciplinary team, you have to explain your intent, adjust in real time in stand-ups, and trust people outside your field to shape something you made. That's a different skill than sculpting or texturing, and it's one I don't think I could have learned anywhere except inside a team like that.
When did you realise the game could be something special, and what did winning Best Student Game at Spilprisen mean to you?
The first real signal came at our DADIU graduation presentation. We got very good feedback, and personally, I had people come up to me specifically to say our art team had done great work. That was the first moment we realized we'd actually made something good.
Then Copenhagen Gaming Week came around, and that's where it really clicked. Every DADIU team got a rare chance to present their games to a real audience. More than the feedback, it was the first time we watched actual players sit down with Infernal Logistics, laugh, and enjoy it. Seeing people have fun with something we built from nothing in seven weeks, that's when I knew we'd made a game worth continuing.
At the end of Copenhagen Gaming Week, we were awarded Best Student Game on the big stage at Spilprisen. And there was a strange, perfect coincidence to it: our “infernal” game won on Friday the 13th. For a story built around an eerie 80s mystery set on the fog-shrouded Mistwood Isle, it honestly felt like the perfect match.
Looking ahead, how has your experience at CADA and working on infernal logistics shaped what you want to do next as a CG Artist?
Winning at Spilprisen wasn't an ending. It was a door opening into the Danish delegation with Games Denmark, who have supported us at every step since. After Spilprisen, we got the chance to meet players and represent the game again at Nordic Game in Malmö. We then sat down as a team and planned where we wanted to take Infernal Logistics, and what more we needed to do to get it there.
That planning brought us to our first real business experience as a studio: we were invited to Copenhagen Matchup to pitch the game to publishers and investors and it was humbling in the best way. I realized how long the road ahead actually is. We got genuinely valuable advice from publishers, and a real look at the games market, the trends, the preferences, the moods that shape what gets made and what gets funded.
And then it all led to Gamescom. Standing in Cologne as part of the Danish delegation, pitching our work to publishers and industry professionals from all around the world felt unbelievable because Infernal Logistics had started as a seven-week student project less than a year earlier. That's not something I could have imagined when I first opened ZBrush at that bootcamp
And now, while we're still in contact with publishers and preparing to apply for funding, we're in pre-production for the final commercial version of Infernal Logistics. We still have a little way to go before we can see the final build, but the project is still moving forward.
Honestly, I thought this story would end with the DADIU semester, and that I'd move on to my thesis. It didn't work out that way. One step kept leading to the next, one chance opened another, one door led to the next door, and somewhere along the way, this became one of the most special chapters of my life so far.
Where I go next as a CG Artist, I honestly don't fully know yet. But if this journey has taught me anything, it's that sometimes you don't know where the next door leads until you keep walking toward it.
Read more about CADA's 3D Digital Artist education and what it takes to become a student.