The Molasses Flood (2022 - Present)

Lead Gameplay Designer

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). 

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.

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.