The Molasses Flood (2022 - Present)
Associate Design Director
Housemarque (2021 - 2022)
Lead Game Designer
Established new processes for the Design Department for improved cross-team collaboration.
Led design of the Returnal co-op from when I started through ship (see: Playstation Blog post).
High-level vision planning, design, and coordination on an unannounced project; oversaw Systems, Combat, AI/NPC, and Technical Design.
Arkane Studios (2018-2021)
Lead Gameplay Designer
Worked closely with designers, engineers, animators, and VFX artists to achieve AAA results in cross-disciplinary areas of the game.
Spearheaded initiatives to create first-person gunplay on par with other AAA FPSs and expanding on Arkane's tradition of an immersive, fluid player package.
Led design, prototyping, and guided nativization of Redfall's Heroes and their unique Hero Powers.
Ongoing management and mentorship of designers and developers to help them achieve their goals in the industry.
Joy Machine (2016-2018)
Founder and Sole Developer
I started Joy Machine to make games that are dynamic, surprising, and just challenging enough. Joy Machine’s first game was Steel Hunters — a co-op sandbox action game about building highly-customizable mechs to fight way much, much bigger mechs ("behemoths").
I have characterized the work on Steel Hunters as getting six years of experience over the course of two years. I learned a lot from research and putting it to practice in content, art pipeline, gameplay code, physics and collision detection/response (custom player controller), engine/rendering work, and so on. If there’s a next time, I’ll research how to ship on time.
The design for the game, however, was what always kept me going and is best summarized in an article I wrote for VentureBeat on Systems-Based Design.
planet3 (2015-2017)
Lead Experience Developer and Senior Tech Designer
Took a break from the Games Industry to join an education technology startup. The goal was to create a multimedia educational curriculum “replacement”. Our approach combined a variety of Interactives (graphs/diagrams/simple simulations that can be manipulated), Videos, and Immersive Experiences. I started as Sr. Technical Designer ended being Lead Experience Developer.
Summary:
Worked on a comprehensive renderering feature set (in Unity) and small touches to overhaul our graphical capabilities even on low-end systems.
Prepared our client to run in WebGL 1.0 on Chromebooks.
Worked extensively with third-party vendors to ensure good practice and quality deliveries, as well as general support as-needed.
Managed the entire Unity development team as we worked towards various milestones leading up to a pilot program launch in Nevada, and the steps to follow.
Art+Craft (2015)
Senior VFX and Technical Artist
I was brought in as a consultant on Crowfall initially. This turned into a contract role as a sort of Senior VFX Artist. Overall, my goal was to help define the look-and-feel of VFX in Crowfall while establishing a workflow that worked best for the team. I proposed the adoption of PopcornFX as a VFX middleware solution, assisted with the technical integration of the middleware, worked on suite of effects for the game’s early class archetypes, and setup templates for future use.
I was asked to stay on a while longer as a Technical Artist to provide an efficient set of standard shaders to help the team further realize their unique, stylized style while adhering to Physically Based Rendering principles and standards. I also created some generally-useful shaders and post-processing effects: atmospherics with light shafts, a couple solutions for ambient occlusion (SSAO and HBAO), and enhancements to the existing bloom effect that was in place.
Team Chaos (2013-2015)
Game Director and Executive Producer
Instead of paragraphs, here's just a list as a rough idea of what I did across the eight games I worked on:
Creator and director for Rooster Teeth vs. Zombiens. Also pitching it to both Rooster Teeth and Team Chaos.
Creative director for all internal projects.
Project planning and task management internally (with high-level planning and management directions on external projects).
System, gameplay, and level design.
Sole writer for all projects (only Rooster Teeth vs. Zombiens, Elements, and Loot Raiders were text-heavy).
Project pitches for interested third-parties.
Voice acting (anything that wasn't human).
VO recording session direction with the Rooster Teeth cast (this was a blast).
Side-projects (Team Chaos-published):
SUPERCHROMA.
Cat vs. Aliens.
SPACE COLORS.
Team Projects:
Loot Raiders.
Dragon Academy.
Dragon Raiders.
I Dig It: Journey to the Core.
Enigmo: Explore.
Dragon Trials.
Elements: Broken Lands.
Projects
LightBox Interactive (2009-2013)
Senior Game Designer
Entering as a Game Designer rather than a programmer, I started early on Starhawk (PS3) working on project-wide design and prototype mission/level design and scripting. As a Sr. Game Designer (mid-project), I worked on level and mission design and scripting, cutscenes, and misc. gameplay/systems prototypes. Also: a long list of other things.
After Starhawk's release, I moved on to our next project (peripherally overseeing Starhawk's expansions): an untitled space multiplayer shooter for the PlayStation 4 (then known as Orbis). I did high-level design work and assistance on the primary tech/engine game PS4 prototype. Primarily, I co-developed a more fully-featured game prototype in Unity with Starhawk's lead designer (to complement the PS4 prototype).
Due to that cancelation, the studio downsized to eight people, and I became co-lead designer and was a primary developer on the prototype for the mobile game PlunderNauts, published by Backflip Studios.
— Starhawk (PS3).
— Untitled Space Multiplayer Shooter Prototype (PS4/Orbis).
— PlunderNauts (Mobile).
Projects
Stardock Entertainment (2007 - 2009)
Gameplay and Technical Engineer
My first professional job out of college involved gameplay, graphics, and engine development across a variety of projects. I worked primarily as a gameplay developer and graphics/engine programmer — tackling the joys of DirectX 7, early-HLSL, and the Win32 API daily with my beloved C++. I transitioned the internal engine over to a more API-agnostic structure, did a variety of rendering work across our two primary internal projects (at the time), and gameplay development and prototyping.
I also did extensive design and development work on two our primary project’s largest tools that were intended to be player-facing game features, in addition to their internal usage.
— Galactic Civilization 2: Twilight of the Arnor.
— The Political Machine 2008.
— Sins of a Solar Empire.
— Demigod.
— Elemental: War of Magic (Early Development).
