Portfolio

The “Unannounced Survival Game” at Blizzard was a dream project, combining elements of an open-world survival game with a captivating theme. As a member of the POI (Points of Interest) team, the focus was on designing PvEvP (Player versus Environment versus Player) spaces within the open world to create dynamic conflict zones.

I was fortunate to lead the effort on the tent-pole experience in the first zone being fleshed out. The effort included leading brainstorming sessions with dozens of fellow developers. Creative ideas often spawn from the chaos of these sessions and my experience here was no different.

Once our team landed on a theme and mechanic for the space we worked tirelessly on white-boxing the space and breaking ground on the logic for the POI. Working daily with a handful of level designers and narrative writers, we quickly built a fun and engaging space for players to explore and engage in some intense PvEvP.

Ultimately I’m very proud of what we built during that year, and it’s an experience I’ll hold close for years.

Main Contributions:

• Tentpole POI Design – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Supporting POI Design – Design / Prototype
• Interactable World Objects – Design / Prototype
• POI Gameplay Logic – Design / Prototype / Implementation

I jumped into Infinite post Halo 5 launch, initially serving as a Narrative Designer concentrated on the Combat Chatter System and Environmental Storytelling. Subsequently, an opportunity arose to transition to the World Team with a focus on combat, puzzle mechanics, and mission flow.

Realizing my dream of contributing to Halo campaign levels, I found immense satisfaction in constructing encounters and prototyping puzzles. During the early stages of development, we engaged in extensive experimentation with various gameplay systems, particularly focused on Points of Interest (POI) combat and capture mechanics. This phase, marked by daily prototyping and minimal design constraints, was personally rewarding. Although the game evolved away from some of those systems, elements persisted and manifested in the final product. Notably, a system I initially prototyped as a player-controlled orbital cannon transformed into the infamousTank Gun featured in Outpost Tremonius. All my prototypes for the project found a home in my test level humorously named “Shenanigans Island,” which was my “happy place.”

The project posed significant challenges, pushing our tools to their limits throughout development. The engine, initially designed for linear shooters, faced hurdles adapting to the demands of open-world exploration. Multiple extensions to the project timeline and scope reductions were necessitated, resulting in a game that differed considerably from its initial vision.

Despite the arduous development conditions, I take immense pride in the final product. Spearheading three golden path locations in the expansive Halo universe, I handled the prototyping, item and loot population, enemy AI logic, and successfully shipped each location.

Halo Infinite Portfolio Link

• Outpost Tremonius = YouTube Link
• Excavation Site = YouTube Link
• House Of Reckoning = YouTube Link
• Outpost Tremonius = YouTube Link (No Commentary)
• Excavation Site = YouTube Link (No Commentary)
• House Of Reckoning = YouTube Link (No Commentary)

Main Contributions:

• Outpost Tremonius – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Excavation Site – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• House Of Reckoning – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Pelican Down Mission – Design / Prototype
• The Sequence Mission – Implementation

I joined the Halo 5: Guardians team shortly after the release of Halo 4, which lacked combat chatter. My primary responsibility was to revive the chatter system from previous Halo games and enhance it to create a vibrant atmosphere for players in both campaign and multiplayer modes. Collaborating closely with the combat and encounters team, we reconstructed the chatter system to robustly support moment-to-moment combat through AI/gameplay events.

I dedicated numerous hours to analyzing opportunities for chatter in both campaign and multiplayer scenarios, devising ways to seamlessly integrate with various character actions. I developed a call-and-response system that triggered based on the ongoing action, allowing characters on any team to respond to each other’s chatter lines. This system not only created the illusion of intelligence for the AI but also provided tactical chatter for discerning players.

Once the core system was operating seamlessly, my focus shifted to voice-over (VO) recording and implementing the delivered character lines. I participated in over 40 recording sessions, with some held in person at the WB recording studio in California. In total, we recorded and implemented more than 30,000 lines of dialogue for scripted scenes and combat chatter.

Despite the Combat Chatter core team comprising only four individuals, we collaborated with over 70 people across the campaign and multiplayer teams to trigger, record, integrate, and voice the lines. My experience on this project was immensely fulfilling, and I forged lasting friendships along the way.

Main Contributions:

• Campaign Combat Chatter System – Design / Implementation
• Multiplayer Combat Chatter System – Design / Implementation
• Recording Sessions – Script Preparation / Direction Support

For Deer Hunter 2014, I worked on the Multiplayer balance and rewards system. My main focus was designing the matchmaking rewards appropriate for various types of players. I would define when player rewards would increase based on performance and how much reward currency was appropriate based on current loadouts and progression.

I was hired by 343i midway through development of Deer Hunter 2014.

Main Contributions:

• Multiplayer Combat Weapon Balance – Design
• Progression payouts and frequency – Design

Tons of Guns was a progression shooter that utilized the iPhone gyroscopic movement technology that was just released. The game required players to constantly collect and use better guns to defeat various street gangs and mobsters.

My role on Tons of Guns was Lead Gameplay Design where I oversaw weapon balance and gameplay. I designed and created hundreds of weapons that allowed players to move up the ranks. Gameplay was fairly simple with enemies moving back and forth on the screen in front of the player who would tilt their phone to aim while unloading their weapon.

This was a very small team of only 10 people and our timeline was just under a year. It was a very quick development cycle with little room for iteration. Overall, it was a quick project with a great team.

Main Contributions:

• Weapons Design – Design / Implementation
• Enemy Design – Design / Implementation
• Combat Design – Design / Implementation

Bombshells was an interesting project to say the least, as it was our first project after being acquired by GLU mobile. The team had a concept for an aerial combat game that utilized the iPhone’s motion controls with a cartoonish feel and style. The pilot design was questionable at best, and the last instance of the studio using outsourced concept art.

Gameplay involved massive cartoonish weapons attached to the wings of some outlandish aircraft. Dogfights were fast and acrobatic with endless barrel rolls and loops. The weapons ranged from oversized nukes to energy beam blasters.

I was responsible for the design and balance of all aircraft and weapons used in the game. The task was very challenging with our tools which were designed for small linear games, not evergreen mobile games with endless micro-transactions. I enjoyed the team and the project, but it was my first painful development experiences with lackluster tools.

Our initial offering included 20 aircraft and 60+ named weapons.

Main Contributions:

• Weapons Design – Design / Prototype/ Implementation
• Aircraft Design – Design / Implementation
• Arena Design – Design / Prototype
• PVP Combat Design – Design / Implementation

Comic Combat was the successor to Infinity Gauntlet which was a successful cartoon brawler that released the previous year. Our team originally designed this game to be a direct expansion to the previous title, but the direction changed with the release of the uDraw tablet for the Wii platform.

Our team pivoted the game to work with a new control scheme that utilized drawing functions used for special abilities. Each hero would have different actions resulting in various flashy attacks. The controls were very limited while using the tablet, resulting in a greatly simplified game to accommodate these limitations. Overall the game did very poorly with so few uDraw tablets being sold which resulted in a miniscule user-base. This project was very challenging for the team with very low morale and a serious lack of support from the publisher.

My role was focused on the Player’s hero actions and enemy attack systems.

Main Contributions:

• Player Hero Design – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Enemy Design – Design / Prototype / Implementation

Superhero Squad was an amazing project that was very fun to develop. The IP had few limits on gameplay and didn’t take itself too seriously which allowed us to explore some very silly humor.

Working with the Marvel IP was a dream of mine, and this was an exciting opportunity to jump into the universe. The combat was a simple cartoon brawler on a camera rail with large mobs of enemies to smash through. Each chapter featured a boss arena with custom scripting and behaviors. I was responsible for these boss arenas and worked on enemy scripting, mission scripting, and camera rail controls.

This game was successful and an example of an overall great project for our team.

Main Contributions:

• Boss Arena Design – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Enemy Design – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Level Design – Implementation
• Camera Design – Implementation

Kung Fu Panda 2 was a cartoon brawler with a huge number of cutscenes between combat arenas. Each area started and ended with a scripted cutscene, which was my main focus on this project. I supported the narrative team with the camera rails and scene propping work.

Unfortunately the project was not very successful as it required customers to have an Xbox Kinect Sensor. The install base at release was very low, resulting in a very small potential customer base.

Main Contributions:

• Camera Track – Design / Implementation
• Scene Propping – Implementation

Princess and the Frog was a massive project for our studio and a new experience for me working with Disney as the publisher. The game was scheduled to accompany the theatrical movie release which applied substantial time pressure to our team.

The game was a mini-game collection with a central hub used for meta progression. The mini-games were all designed to utilize the Wii control scheme with lots of gyroscopic movement and targeting.

My role on this project was the Associate Design Lead where I would learn how to manage the small design team. This was my first leadership role and I was thrilled to learn from an experienced Design Director. Regrettably, midway through the project the Design Director left the studio and I was thrown into the leadership position for the remainder of the project. I enjoyed the challenge, but it resulted in a very stressful summer of teaching myself leadership techniques with a team of 6 designers. The end result was mixed with a lackluster movie release and game sales. Years later I have enjoyed playing this game with my young kids, which is very rewarding.

Main Contributions:

• Mini-games Lead – Design / Prototype
• Hub Progression – Design / Prototype / Implementation
• Tutorial – Design

Where the Wild Things Are may be my favorite game I’ve ever worked on in terms of the development process. The game was a platforming brawler set in the Wild Things universe with a very unique story. Our tools were very polished for this type of game, and production was very smooth for much of the project.

I developed a third of the levels for this project with the help of a Level Designer and Artist. Our trio worked together very well and we were always ahead of schedule on our deliverables. Our small team absorbed another two levels later in the project due to struggling teams, but we never fell behind.

During development we would often play 8 player Halo 3 on a pair of Xboxes in our development lounge. These extremely loud and entertainment sessions would eventually lead me to work for 343i years later.

Unfortunately the Design Lead unexpectedly died near the end of development which was truly gut wrenching for myself and the team. Dream Smith was an amazing designer and good friend.

Main Contributions:

• Breakables and Props – Implementation
• Camera Track – Prototype / Implementation
• Enemy Encounters – Prototype / Implementation
• Level Layout – Prototype / Implementation

I joined the Indiana Jones team very late in development once Shrek the 3rd shipped, and work on Wild Things was still early. Indiana Jones was a simple puzzle brawler akin to Shrek which allowed me to quickly ramp up and help with level propping and camera rail work.

Main Contributions:

• Camera Track – Implementation
• Level Propping – Implementation

My first game as a professional game developer was Shrek the 3rd, which was a simple puzzle brawler on camera rails. This game was the inaugural title using a new proprietary game engine and started as a tech demo.

Much of development was spent helping define engine needs and testing tool improvements as they were developed. My main task was building camera rails that would guide the player through various levels. Beyond that I would add smashable objects to combat areas and simple combat encounter setup.

This project was mainly focused on learning the process of game development and various tools. I mainly used Python scripting and Maya for level blocking. It was the first time using a node based scripting language resulting in some humorously messy spaghetti graphs.

Main Contributions:

• Breakables and Props – Implementation
• Camera Track – Implementation
• Enemy Encounters – Implementation
• Level Layout – Implementation

Empires Mod was a project developed by 3 people who never met outside of in-game voice coms. We had one Engineer, one Level Designer, one 3D modeler, and lots of free time.

The game was quite simple in theory with two teams fighting for control of a large FPS map. One player on each team would be the commander playing a top-down RTS, the rest of the team would scramble around building and fighting in an FPS style game.

I was the Level Designer of the team, and produced all but one of the initial maps made for the project. We focused on layout over detail as the world would fill up with commander built structures as the game progressed.

The project was fantastic, and a huge part of why I eventually jumped into the games industry. Working long nights during college, I was able to build with few limits and no deadlines. I’ve lost touch with the other OG Empire devs over the years, but it was truely an amazing development project for me.

Main Contributions:

• Level Design – Design / Implementation