Educational Project (TBD)
I started as the primary level designer for a multiplayer educational tablet game intended for the school environment. I was responsible for the entire layout of all primary content as well as the technical aspects of connecting the maps together. Additionally I worked closely with the programming department to help develop the tools we needed to create our game world.
During the second phase of the project my role was expanded to include content and narrative design as well. I was given control of an entire section of the game. This involved such tasks as the overall story, creating NPCs and their dialog, implementing the main storyline gameplay using our proprietary scripting language, writing side quests, planning distribution of player rewards, design and implementation of combat encounters and working closely with the art and programming departments to ensure we could deliver on the proposed content.
This position gave me a real chance to grow as a designer and develop new skills. I touched on every aspect of the design process and saw the development of content through from start to finish.
Wildstar (2014)
As a level designer for Wildstar I was tasked with the layout and general gameplay for multiple zones. This involved working closely with the narrative and environment art teams to develop compelling gameplay experiences. This involved initial meetings to iron out the overall story, pacing and player experience followed by weekly check-ins to ensure we met all of our goals.
I always start with a 2D hand drawn map I can show to the team and quickly iterate on. From there I build out a whitebox layout in engine that helps me test scale and pacing. Once that feels right I turn that into a greybox layout by roughing in gameplay and combat. It’s important to get feedback at every step of the process and to get as much gameplay roughed in early to avoid having to make major changes once final art begins.
I used our proprietary scripting language to prototype gameplay features such as housing, crafting, instanced dungeons, creature/NPC AI, player “paths” and world events such as invasions. All of these would go on to become important features of our game. This role helped to establish me as a designer willing to learn new skills and experiment to create better content.
In recognition of my work I was promoted to senior level designer and took on even greater responsibilities.
Twin Skies / Twin Skies Mini (2009 / Unreleased)
As a world designer at Meteor Games I worked on the projects Twin Skies and Twin Skies Mini. My duties on Twin Skies involved contributing to level concept, layout implementation, prototype modeling, scenario creation, event scripting, game balancing, pacing, quest implementation and game play tuning. I worked very closely with the writing department and the art department to realize their concept of our fantasy world.
My main task during this time was to create the 3D world through the following process. Starting with the lore from the writers and the concept drawings from the 2D art department I begin by creating a short design document to detail all the major features and land masses for a zone including the player experience and progression. I continue from there with a standard 2D paper layout in order to outline the physical characteristics and pacing of the zone and determine the approximate locations of major landmarks. From there I jump to a 3D space in the Big World engine and begin blocking out the zone.
The next step is repeated iteration to improve upon the design through playtesting and feedback. Iteration is second only to planning in terms of importance. Through my work at Game Wizards and Delirious Games I learned that the iterative process is the best way to achieve a high level of balance and polish.
For Twin Skies Mini, the later announced companion game to Twin Skies, we switched to a 2D format. My most recent duties included researching 2D gameplay and composing a detailed design document for the planning of the 2D game including such aspects as combat, navigation, and possibilities for monetizing the game.
I was also an active member of the “home” task force which was small team tasked with planning and implementing the player home function within the game.
Lytus (2008)
Lytus was a Game Wizards project using the Crytek 2 engine to create a 3rd person action game. I served a number of roles on this project including game designer, level designer, and puzzle designer. My main duty was to meet with the design team and hammer out the core gameplay and progression of the game. I was also tasked with designing the “Temple of Strength” and the puzzles located within. Included in this was the scripting of events using the Crytek flowgraph.
Lytus Trailer from robin64bit on Vimeo.
Match-up: Championship Construction Kit (2007)
Match-up was a racing game from Delirious Games in the Bluepoint engine designed to also be a social network. Delirious is a smaller studio so I filled several roles in the creation of this game. I filled the role of game designer by taking part in the design team to work out the game mechanics. I acted as a level designer by planning and building several tracks for the races. I acted as an environment artist by modeling/texturing cars, tracks, etc and performing clean up on outsourced art. I had some light coding/scripting duties as well in setting up controls.
Our motto at Delirious was “Gameplay innovation through obsessive iteration.” Playtests and design meetings were held daily to continuously refine the gameplay of Match-up. During out frequent brainstorm sessions the rule is that it’s not over until we have 100 ideas to improve the game. Not only do some great ideas come out, but it serves as a great design exercise.
FiVe (2007)
FiVe was a puzzle/card game from Delirious Games. I was part of the design team in charge of coming up with core game play as well as mini-games. As with Match-up, many design meetings and brainstorm sessions were held to flesh out the design of the game. Our chief goal was to create a card based game that would be simple to learn yet challenging and entertaining enough to keep the player coming back.
Detox (2007)
Detox was a Game Wizards project using the Unreal 3 engine to create a 3rd person action/shooter game. I served as lead level designer for the Infirmary stage and as a technical artist. I also took over some of the responsibilities of our producer when he left the project. As a lead I was in charge of a small team of artists. It was my responsibility to assign and critique the work of the 3D artists and to provide layouts and art direction for the concept artists. I also attended design meetings and status meetings with the leads of other teams and the art director.
Among the other responsibilities I took on was the task of compiling all of the environment assets into usable packages for the entire team. The project had no centralized repository such as SVN so the compiling together of the assets from all groups had to be carried out manually by me and then the combined packages were issued out to the teams. On the technical end of things I also created several materials and particle effects and setting up our custom characters to work in-game.
For my work on Detox I was voted 1st place MVP, for the second time, by my colleagues on a team of about 90.
Mythos (2006)
Mythos was my first project with Game Wizards. It was a First Person Shooter using the Unreal 2004 engine. This was the project that led to my becoming a lead. I started as an environment artist and thanks to my hard work I was promoted to the lead of the Norse Environment team. I was in charge of a small team of 3D artists and was responsible for assigning their assets and providing critique. Afterwards I was promoted to lead level designer and was responsible for the entire exterior as well as making fluid transitions between internal bases and the exterior. I personally worked out the technical details of working with portals in Unreal 2004. I was also in charge of gathering the assets turned in my the 3D artists into a single usable package.
For my work on Mythos I was voted 1st place MVP by my colleagues on a team of 40~50.
Student Level Design Projects (2007-2008)
In addition to the Game Wizards projects I also spent time making my own levels in Unreal 3 engine in an effort to teach myself material constructing, lighting, scripting, particles, etc. in the new engine. The centerpiece in these levels is “The School” because I used it to learn scripted events. In this level the player kicks up a door and runs down a hall and is ambushed by enemies at a certain point or when they pick up a weapon from a dead soldier.
This is a brief fly-through of some of the Unreal 3 levels I made as a student.