About Me
Hello! I’m Qingyue (Annie) Sun, a designer and storyteller passionate about crafting interactive worlds that connect emotion, systems, and play. I’m currently based in Salt Lake City, Utah, working full-time as a Credit Risk Analyst at Goldman Sachs, a role that sharpens my systems thinking and structural thinking. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where I majored in Information Science + Data Science with minors in Computer Science and Game Studies & Design. During college, I participated in various Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) research, exploring how design can shape perception, decision-making, and empathy. This experience continues to guide how I build meaningful player experiences.
I’m deeply drawn to story-focused games both as a player and a creator because I believe life itself is about play. Happiness is something we ultimately seek, and games offer a profound way to explore it not merely as joy but as a full spectrum of emotion, such as sorrow and tension, helping us understand the world and ourselves in new ways. They are more interactive than films and more visually immediate than books, allowing us to “live”, to experience more than one life within our single lifetime. I love designing experiences that invite people to reflect on themselves, question their choices, and connect with the world in a more meaningful way. To me, game design is a bridge between data and emotion, logic and wonder. It’s an art of turning imagination into interaction.
Creative Works Outside of Game Design…
My creativity also extends into UI /UX design. My projects explore how thoughtful interaction and visual clarity can make complex systems feel natural and human. One of my projects, Ultra Music Practice, has turned into a revenue-generating platform that supports musicians in their daily practice. See more at my UI design portfolio!
I have played music since childhood. Starting with the piano when I was five, I moved on to learning the violin, the drum set, and the guitar. I also compose original music. I have been a violinist in the orchestra for years and started my pop band, Steak Riot, in 2022.
I love creative writing. I started publishing stories and poems at a young age and published my book Igniting Snow in China during high school. It is a collection of my poems, short novels, prose, etc.. I donated hundreds of copies to middle schools to inspire students.
As I studied in various countries (China, England, Australia, and the US), I'm dedicated to breaking down the language barriers that hinder the spread of human wisdom through translation. I have translated around ten picture books and an academic theory book.
A good game designer is also a good gamer!
Ranked 92nd for hunter “Jack” in Identity V Global Server in 2022.
Achieved Diamond Rank as a Jungler in League of Legends NA server in 2024.
