Category Archives: Portfolio

Mavericks Proving Grounds

Design, Games, Level Design, Portfolio, Projects, , , ,

Introduction: Whilst at Automaton I worked as a Level Designer, where I iterated and developed world content for Mavericks a next-gen Open-World MMO FPS developed in CryEngine using SpatialOS.

Platform: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 | Time: 2 months |  Role: Level Designer | Team Size: ~40

Design Goal: Deliver a 1.8km battle royale play space for the alpha release of Automaton Games’s original IP‘Mavericks’, a next-gen Open-World MMO FPS developed in CryEngine using SpatialOS.

Paper Maps

Papers map concepts.

Natural World/Minor Points of Interest (POI’s)

Iterated and developed the natural world whilst distributing minor points of interest for further iteration by art. Major tasks for this included:

  • Reference gathering.
  • Terrain sculpting.
  • Texture painting.
  • Foliage placement.
  • Blockout, and iteration of POI’s.

Mid Size POI’s

Blocked out, and iterated a number of mid sized points of interest.

  • River VIllage
  • Sawmill Deforestation Iteration 1
  • Sawmill Deforestation Iteration 2

Iterated on flow, and cover of existing mid sized points of interest.

Large POI’s

  • Sawmill POI
  • Trainyard POI
  • Biomass POI

Enhanced existing major points of interest, as well as blocking out significant areas of the Sawmill, and Biomass POI.

Battlefield 5

Design, Games, Level Design, Portfolio, Projects, , , , , ,

Introduction: I once again had the opportunity to work for DICE LA. This time round I was given additional ownership, and made contributions in Battlefield 5’s content Chapter’s 3 and 4.

Platform: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 | Time: 1 year |  Role: Multiplayer Designer | Team Size: ~100

Design Goal: Support Battlefield 5’s live service pipeline with high quality content for players.

My Contributions

Chapter 3: Trial by Fire

Firestorm

  • Augmented EA Criterion’s design of Lake Village a major point of interest in Battlefield 5’s Firestorm game mode.
    • Using Confluence I created level design notes for implementation by level artists of natural areas, major and minor POI’s in a several 1km areas of the Firestorm launch map.
    • The note format prepared in confluence was set by EA Criterion as a standard for level designers on the project.

Mercury

  • Initial fortification design, then iteration with a senior designer.
  • Level design feedback – cover, sightlines, layout.
  • Map maintenance assistance.

Chapter 4: Defying the Odds

Marita

  • Level design feedback.
  • Squad conquest layout proposals, and implementation.

Provence

  • Iteration of the Provence map.
  • Scheduling playtests and conducting post playtest feedback discussions.
  • Map maintenance – spawn points, floating objects, blocking off areas.
  • Supported level design with visual scripting efforts implementing:
    • Fortification prefab clusters that were used in multiple levels.
    • A means of blocking off second story floors.

General

  • Gathering telemetry to present to senior and lead designers.
  • Writing and iterating documentation to improve work processes.
  • Fixed bugs reported by QA on JIRA.

Battlefield 1

Design, Games, Level Design, Portfolio, Projects, , , , , ,

Introduction: Over the summer of 2017 I interned at DICE LA, a studio of Electronic Arts. My time was spent working with DICE LA to ship the downloadable content In the Name of The Tsar for Battlefield 1.

Platform: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 | Time: 12 weeks |  Role: Game Designer | Team Size: ~90

Design Goal:

  • Deliver high quality level content through iteration.
  • Develop my ability to analyze and critique level design in a professional environment.
  • Practice supporting the efforts and vision of senior designers on the team.

My Contributions:

  • Bolstered Battlefield 1’s DLC content with map analysis. This took the form of:
    • Collecting, processing, and documenting Battlefield 1 level data for use by senior level designers.
    • Offering map feedback on flow, map features, cover, spawn placement, and play space volumes.
  • Used Frostbite’s visual scripting language to implement:
    • Content bug fixes from JIRA tickets.
    • Then iterate based on feedback of game modes such as Supply Drop, Team Death Match, War Pigeons, and Domination for multiple levels in the DLC pack.

  • Somme – Conquest Paper Map V1
  • Somme – Conquest Paper Map V2

Jedi Challenges: Darkside Expansion Duels

Design, Games, Portfolio, Projects, , , , ,

Platform: iOS, Android | Time: 12 weeks |  Role: Game Designer | Team Size: 7

Design Goals:

  • Create a functional and effective game tutorial.
  • Design and implement a unique and enjoyable Rey lightsaber battle across three difficulties.

My Contributions:

  • Contributed to team and design focused brainstorming sessions.
  • Implemented, and iterated the games tutorial, and Rey lightsaber battle using behavior trees.
  • Designed a differentiated Rey battle experience through layering mechanics and developing combat sequences.

Angle Jungle

Design, Games, Level Design, Portfolio, Projects, , , , , , , , ,

Introduction: Angle Jungle is an award winning puzzle game built by a team of students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center in 15 weeks for Pennsylvania’s Intermediate Unit 1. Angle Jungle has value to first graders and above, its primary purpose though is as a supplement for 4th to 6th graders learning basic geometry.

Awards: Serious Play 2017 Gold Award Winner, CHI Play 2017 Jury Award Winner, Finalist for 50th Carnegie Mellon University Founders Award

Publications:

  1. Angle Jungle: An Educational Game About Angles
  2. Carnegie Mellon News Article
  3. Angle Jungle Gamasutra Article

Platform: iOS | Time: 15 weeks | Role: Game Designer | Team Size: 4

Design Goal: The goal of the project was to achieve the following transformations in our target demographic:

  • Primary Transformation: Build familiarity with the angle by having players solve puzzles that use a mechanic that encodes the numeric and spatial representations of angles
  • Secondary Transformations:
    • Introduce positive and negative angles
    • Introduce clockwise and anticlockwise rotation
    • Introduce angles greater than 180 degrees
    • Build familiarity with the protractor tool

Design Challenges: We faced a number of design challenges during this project:

  • Protractor tool introduction
  • Finding an mechanic which made angles essential
  • Crafting fun and engaging puzzles
  • Crafting additional sources of motivation

My Contributions: As the game designer on the project I took the lead on directing our creative efforts. My efforts helped create a well received, fun, and engaging experience which made a good attempt to achieve our transformational goals. Other areas I made significant contributions in were:

  • An ideation process that created the main mechanic of the game
  • Crafting and refining transformational/puzzle complexity (game complexity that serves a transformational goal) within the experience
  • Design of the motivational elements within the experience
  • Conducting and interpreting playtests

Download: Angle Jungle has been released on iOS and can be downloaded here

Development Process: Post

Source Code: GitHub 

Presentation:

Multi

Design, Games, Portfolio, Programming, , , , ,

Introduction: Multi is a game built on Game Maker for Windows using Game Makers scripting language. Players control a character who traverses a series of levels in a platformer style game play.

Platform: Windows | Time: 3 weeks |  Roles: Programmer – Game Designer – Artist – Sound Designer | Team Size: 1

Design Goal: The primary ‘design goal’ with this project was to further my design skills whilst practicing level and mechanic design.

Design Challenges:

  • Creating levels that were interesting to play with the mechanics I created.
  • Difficulty design.
  • Teaching players how to play.
  • Audio which included, character, and environment sound design.

My Contributions:

  • Programmed the code of the game (adapting some freely available physics code). I completely designed the game.
  • Made the majority of art assets (character art and animation taken from a game maker tutorial)
  • Collected audio that suited the game play from free sources (credits bundled with Multi).
  • Conducted play testing with younger audiences which I believed would be interested in the game.

Download:

Follow the link below to download a .zip file containing the game. When the download is complete, unzip the file then have a look the read-me and, then run the .exe file to play the game.

 Download Multi!

Continue reading Multi →