2002 - 2009

Roles
Senior Technical Game Designer
Open World Game Designer

Achievements Summary

• Contributed valuable feedback on balancing and ability ideas (like wall slide and pole swing) that helped shape the genre-defying web-swinging experience.

• Became lead locomotion-based mission designer for all Spider-Man games due to expert knowledge of locomotion systems.

• Mentored and tutored designers on game systems and proprietary engine tools.

• Assisted Shaba and Luxoflux with creating game content, including engine tools and mission design.

Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen
(Xbox 360, Playstation 2/3, Wii, Windows)

Tools & Skills
3DS Max, Perforce

I humbly took the helm on enhancing race missions for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at Luxoflux, drawing on my proven expertise in designing races from Spider-Man titles.

Level Design

• Led the design of high-intensity race missions in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PS3), featuring the fast-paced character Sideways in both Autobot and Decepticon campaigns, where players raced through checkpoints against a tight timer.

Timer-Pause Mechanic
Introduced an Innovative Timer-Pause mechanic using shootable skill-shot icons to add skill depth. Most of all, it was insanely easy to implement. Only took 2 extra lines of code:

SkillshotBonus = 10;
CurrentTime -= SkillshotBonus;

Objective Tracking Mechanic
Within a week on the job I developed a mechanic for directing the player to the next objective that utilized the existing tools and required no additional support from engineering or art.

It simply involved placing triggers such that they straddled the current and next objective markers. When the next marker was hit, the trigger would be replaced.

(Refer to image below.)

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
(Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 2/3, Windows)

Tools & Skills
Proprietary engine tools for object
and camera placement, C-based scripting,
Excel, Perforce.

Assisted Shaba engineers on proprietary engine tool usage and locomotion design using my 6+ years of experience in locomotion-based mission design.

Designed and scripted story missions in collaboration with engineers, art and design teams.

Mission Design

• Designed and scripted - using a proprietary C-based scripting language - mission progression, cinematics, and enemy spawns for Ryker's Island Prison Break C-based script.

Spider-Man 3
(Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 2/3, Windows)

Tools & Skills
Proprietary engine tools for object
and camera placement, C-based scripting,
Excel, Perforce.

Scripted all aspects of all side mission events using a proprietary C-based scripting language - using proprietary engine tools to place markers and gameplay objects, and using text files to manage transform data for appropriate assets.

Trick Race Missions

• Designed, implemented, and balanced difficulty, for all trick races in the Spider-Man 3 series.

• Worked directly with engineer to tune to rumble effects.

Sky Dive Missions

• Collaborated with the locomotion engineer to create a new control scheme for the sky dive missions and designed and implemented all sky dive missions.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour
(GameCube, Xbox Playstation 2)

Tools & Skills
Renderware, Signal &
Trigger tools, Alienbrain

Some designers from Treyarch, including myself, were dispatched to Spark to assist with design for one of their missions. Here we learned new tools and a completely different development workflow from scratch in order to create a mission so the game could ship with a complete story.

Mission Design

• Used a trigger and signal system to manage objective progression for the Tillet, Belgium mission.

• Implemented enemy soldier and tank spawns, set pathing for goto's, set flak cannon and turret emplacements, positioned ammo and health pickups, and created paths and triggers for airplane flyovers.

Ultimate Spider-Man
(GameCube, Xbox Playstation 2)

Tools & Skills
Proprietary engine tools for object
and camera placement, C-based scripting,
Excel, Perforce.

Due to my extensive knowledge with locomotion on the Spider-Man 2 game, I was put in charge of doing similar missions for Ultimate Spider-Man.

This was a fascinating experience because I was able to change the approach of race mission creation so that it could suit the locomotion abilities of Venom in addition to Spider-Man and his new features, specifically being able to climb and repel on the cast web.

Spider-Man Trick Race Missions

• Scripted all aspects of all side mission events using a proprietary scripting language, and placed markers and gameplay objects using engine tools.

Venom Trick Race Missions

• Designing Venom races required a different design philosophy. Venom's locomotion is a bit slower than Spider-Man's because it requires direct contact with the physical world.
  
  Since Venom's locomotion ability set was more limited, I introduced enemies to mix it up and play on the character's strengths.

Johnny Storm Missions

• Designed all Johnny Storm Races and created a dynamic cinematic system that changed based on player performance.

• Some missions were hooked into story progression.

• All missions were implemented using C-based script, data files for efficient game object storage and retrieval, and proprietary in-engine tools to place objects and manipulate camera.

Spider-Man 2
(GameCube, Xbox, Playstation 2)

Tools & Skills
Proprietary engine tools for object
and camera placement, C-based scripting,
Excel, Perforce.

This is where my adventure into technical game design began. Under the guidance of engineers and game designers senior to me, I learned how to script in a C-based language and within a few months was put in charge of doing all locomotion-based missions for not only this project, but all Spider-Man games developed by Treyarch and partner companies thereafter.

Trick Races Missions

• Designed, implemented and balanced most trick race content - over half of the easy races, over two thirds of medium and all hard and insane races.

Pizza Delivery Missions

• Designed all Pizza Delivery missions and all game mechanics associated with it: uncontrolled locomotion (acrobatics) ruins the pizza and degrades reward, .

• Engineers introduced me to the concept of state machines. I then employed state machines to drive context sensitive AI/NPC behavior.

• Designed and implemented a dynamic cinematics system featuring performance-based voice-over, context-sensitive NPC animations, and randomized bystander behavior to increase world dynamism and replayability.

• Designed and implemented all audio and VO for pizza delivery gameplay and cinematics.

Daily Bugle Missions

• Designed all Daily Bugle missions and created a dynamic cinematic system that changed based on player performance.

• Some missions were hooked into story progression.

• All missions were implemented using C-based script, data files for efficient game object storage and retrieval.

• Proprietary in-engine tools used to place objects and manipulate camera before taking object transforms.

Mary Jane Missions

• Designed all Mary Jane missions, cinematics, audio playback and progression through an iterative and highly collaborative process with engineers, design and art folk.

Directional Attack Mini Game

• Designed and scripted the Directional Attack mini game that taught players how to do directional attacks.

• Workarounds were necessary to get this mini game to work properly, due to the lack of inheritance in the language used.