Hello!
I’m a senior game designer, servant-leader, and consultant with 10+ years of professional experience.
Born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, in 2012 I graduated from USC Games with a degree in game design and a passion for making emotionally powerful interactive experiences. I have been prototyping innovative gameplay systems, building studios, and professionally shipping Mobile, PC, and Console games ever since.
RECENT EXPERIENCE
Senior Game Designer & COO at Thirteen Games
2019 - 2022
Nova Island (iOS/Android)
My dual responsibilities at Thirteen Games were to both empower a company of talented creators to do their best work and lead the game design team by example.
Design Accomplishments
Led design of key features, mechanics, and systems such as the core game loop, tutorial/FTUE, game economy, new game modes, the cosmetics shop, and more
Used creative and technical skills to create playable prototypes to showcase designs and drive alignment within the team
Defined, refined & implemented cohesive design plans and product roadmaps
Managed and mentored design team to teach good working principles and empower individual designers to grow to their full potential
Led design team rituals such as playtests, design reviews, usability tests, etc
Production Accomplishments
Built and managed schedules. Owned and maintained the project roadmap in collaboration with key stakeholders
Hired and built a fully remote studio of 20+ veteran game devs in 2020
Established a cohesive, stable process for the game’s development in service of the creative vision and business objectives
Released on iOS/Android (2021), released 8 major updates in 2022
Identified and addressed risks, staffing deficiencies, and other areas for improvement and growth across the project and studio
Coached and mentored team leads to teach good working principles and empower managers and their direct reports to grow to their full potential
Managed external relationships, including business & marketing partners
Worked with Art and Tech Directors to establish production pipelines and ensure their teams’ output met the needs of a growing live service game
Released 8 major live-service game updates in 2022
Game Design Consultant at Pillow Castle Games
2017 - 2018
SUPERLIMINAL (PC/Mac/Switch/PS5/Xbox One)
Published by Adult Swim Games & Epic Games
I helped Pillow Castle Games refine the overall vision for the game, define the narrative world & progression, grow their team, and define the overall art style.
Led a small indie team to create a surreal first person puzzler, sold 2M+ copies
Guided production from initial prototype→vertical slice→full 3 hour PC/Console game
Created milestone-driven budgets and timelines. Collaborated with creative director, narrative designer, artists, and game programmer depending on which role/hat was most needed at the time.
Created a fully remote work environment and established SCRUM-like work processes using Slack, G Suite, and other tools
Managed key relationships with publisher--Adult Swim Games
Released on Epic Games Store (2019), Consoles (2020) and Steam (2022)
Founder, CEO at Rocket Science Amusements
2014 - 2017
LAST LIFE (PC/Console)
Published by Double Fine
I created Last Life, an original sci-fi noir adventure game set on Mars, inspired by The Walking Dead series from Telltale & Kentucky Route Zero
Created original new IP
Co-wrote interactive script using Inkle
Designed and implemented levels, UI/UX, and core systems for using Unreal Engine 4
Storyboarded and mo-cap recorded all animations for all the characters
Directed and recorded full VO with 12 professional voice actors
Established a cohesive, stable process for the game’s development in service of the creative vision and business objectives
Slamdoku (Switch/PC)
I am the creator of Slamdoku—a competitive 2 player sudoku arcade game designed for Nintendo Switch.
This 6 month side project was an experiment in packing as much puzzley multiplayer fun as I could into a tiny scope and doing everything myself.
Development on Slamdoku is currently on hold until I can find the appropriate publishing partner to help market it and release it.
EARLIER EXPERIENCE
Lead Game Designer (student) at USC Games
2010 - 2012
Blink (PC/Console)
Student project advised by Sony Santa Monica
As Lead Game Designer on this senior year group thesis project, I led a team of game designers to create a highly focused 15 minute vertical slice of a AAA game experience using Unreal Engine 3.
Blink is an action-stealth game that focuses on short-distance teleportation.
This experience working on a team of 35+ people taught me crucial lessons about creative leadership, which have greatly informed the rest of my career.
Game Designer at HUSCK
2009-2010
Paper Cakes (iPad, Wacom Bamboo)
Published by Wacom
As the game designer on this puzzle platformer, I came up with and prototyped the core mechanic of folding paper to fold space and time.
Paper Cakes was made for Wacom to promote their new Wacom Bamboo tablet. It was selected as one of ten student showcase winners at the Independent Games Festival 2010 and was also nominated for best student game. It won Best Student Game and Best Original Game Design at the Dutch Game Awards 2010.
Senior Game Designer at PEAK6 Investments
2018-2019
Gamified Trading Platform (PC/Mac)
I joined PEAK6 as the sole game designer of their ambitious new AI-assisted and *gamified* trading platform. I lead a small skunkworks team of game developers who had all been hired to figure out what these options traders greatest pain points were and come up with new way of thinking about trading that could address them all.
I led the user research effort to identify and quantify the needs of our users. From there we prototyped numerous potential directions to go in. In partnership with our users, we took the most promising prototypes and developed them into a plan for a large platform.
Ultimately, the project was cancelled for, essentially, being “too far ahead of it’s time.” In the aftermath of this small crisis, Thirteen Games was born!
Game Designer @ BBC Worldwide
2013
Dancing with the Stars: Keep Dancing (web/Facebook)
Antiques Hunter: Portobello Road (web/Facebook)
As the only game designer on staff at the time, I took ownership of two struggling F2P facebook games based on BBC intellectual properties.
I redesigned game economies, core loops, and scoring systems that led to tripled player retention and monetization.
I learned a lot about tracking KPIs at scale and the latest trends in social game design.
After these projects, I went on to Kickstart LAST LIFE.
Contract Game Designer at Pearson Education
2013
Suite of HTML5 Mini-Games (web)
At the same time as I was working for the BBC, I was also moonlighting as a Game Design Consultant & Programmer for Pearson Education.
Over the course of a 6 month contract, I created 4 HTML5 educational games, the most successful of which was called Fancy Flea.
These games were designed to teach basic math skills like number lines and fractions to kids using Pearson’s new browser-based education platform.
Rapidly building these games to meet Pearson’s educational goals was a refreshing way for me to put the game design skills I learned at USC to good use.