Resume

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About Me (1992)

One of the recurring problems I see in game development, particularly in multiplayer projects, is how often multiplayer environments are treated as secondary content rather than as a core part of the player experience. Well-designed multiplayer spaces can do much more than provide somewhere to compete: they create room for a metagame to develop, give a game a distinctive visual identity, and give highly engaged players something worth mastering, discussing, sharing, and returning to. That audience can become one of a game’s strongest sources of organic advocacy and word of mouth, while also providing the foundation for a deeper competitive ecosystem.

Making this work requires more than level design; it requires strong coordination between design, art, engineering, production, and the players themselves. I have spent many years working at that intersection through professional game development, community leadership, and long-term involvement in competitive map ecosystems: Administering tournament map pools, mentoring creators, and working alongside developers to bring community-created content into official competitive play. Much of my work has ultimately been about solving the problems between a good idea and a finished, playable experience.

And that is what I enjoy most: bringing people and ideas together, solving problems and building things.

Experience

Game & Level Design

  • Experienced on prototyping/pre-production in game & level design positions, agile prototyping.
  • Long experience on single and multiplayer level design for strategy game titles, scripting levels, greyboxing.
  • Experienced with procedural Level Design production tools such as World Machine, Houdini, Substance Designer Height Maps and UE4 Level Design Toolkits.
  • Strong quality assurance experience and general level optimization.
  • Considerable experience level dressing & environment art in order to allow for good viewing experiences on Singleplayer, Multiplayer and E-Sport settings.

Software

  • Applications: HoudiniFX, Substance Painter & Designer, 3DS Max, Maya, Zbrush, Blender, World Machine, Photoshop, NDO, Tortoise SVN.
  • Engines: SC2 Galaxy Engine, Essence Engine, Unity, Unreal Engine.
  • Languages: Visual Scripting, SC2 Scripting/Trigger work, HTML, CSS. (Unity Experience: simple C#).

Team

  • Strong quality assurance skills, honed over the years of doing Level Design for highly competitive Multiplayer environments.
  • Strong Teamwork, communication skills and something which I consider of high regard: Empathy.
  • Calm under high stress situations (Done bug fixing for Live E-Sport tournaments!).
  • Forward Thinking, always trying to identify possible future pain points so possible future problems can be easily addressed.

Projects & Work History

Iron Harvest • KingArt Games • Freelance Multiplayer Level Designer, Level Artist (2019-2020)

  • Grey boxing and map design of several levels from sketch to delivery.
  • Strongly interfaced with Lead Level Designer and other Level Designers and Artists, quickly iterating on our environments and aiming varied gameplay for each independent map.
  • Pathfinding, Clipping/Collision and other general optimization with in-house tools.
  • Created moodboards and other visual tools to showcase/pitch new environments, props and assets for 3D prop artists to create and leadership to discuss.
  • Created Level Design documents providing feedback and pain points for the at the time available multiplayer maps and how to improve them for better less awkward gameplay.
  • Level dressing/Level art of the game world using procedural tools and simple gameplay lighting, final lighting was implemented by Lead Artist Stefan Obst.

Immortal: Gates of Pyrus • Sunspear Games • Lead Multiplayer Level Designer, Environmental Artist (2018)

  • Grey boxing and map design.
  • Gamemode protyping and iteration.
  • Close design talks with Lead Game Designer on core gameplay problems and finding solutions to those.
  • Working with 3D artists and developing up our main asset production pipeline.
  • Polishing, modifying, retopologizing and optimizing our in-house and commissioned 3D assets.
  • Interfaced with Lead Producer to improve the marketability of our environment, all the while keeping it Lore friendly.
  • Pathfinding, Clipping/Collision and other general optimization.
  • Light creation of Environmental Art, 2D and 3D assets.
  • Level dressing and simple gameplay lighting.

TeamLiquid Mapmaking Contest • Blizzard Entertainment | TeamLiquid.net • Judge & Quality Assurance/Level Optimization (2017-2019)

  • Discussion & selection of maps based on the selected desired outcomes of StarCraft II Development Team alongside Pro-Gamers and other SC2 Community figures.
  • Optimized the art, terrain and assured the technical quality of the TeamLiquid Map Contest finalists, in order to streamline Blizzard’s QA pipeline, and avoid issues with the official TeamLiquid Map Contest E-Sport Tournament.
  • Gave technical data about possible technical engine issues with certain map selections and implemented fixes to said problems.
  • Communicated with finalists in order to give tangible map feedback to contest participants and future submitters.

Dawn of War III Community Mapmaker (2017-2018)

  • Creation of maps for the Dawn of War III community.
  • Environmental dressing of levels.
  • Working with the DoW III community to fill the gameplay gaps of Relic’s official multiplayer map pool.

VanguardPrototype • SunSpear Games • Lead Level Designer, Level Artist, Quality assurance. (2016-2017)

  • Prototype, design, implementation, optimization & QA of Multiplayer maps.
  • Environmental dressing of levels.
  • Asset modification/creation to fit the environmental concept art.
  • Level balancing for multiplayer games, maps used on competitive Vanguard Prototype E-Sport Tournaments.
  • Discussed and give feedback to Lead Game Designers for possible system modifications to address balance and design issues, including deep economic game economy systems.
  • Agile iteration of levels, greyboxing.

StarCraft Mapmaking Association • MapCave.net • Director (2014-2017)

  • Administrative yet very hands on position.
  • Created communication links with Blizzard Entertainment Community Managers & Developers.
  • Managed several SC2 E-Sport tournament map pools, and gave advice about market strategy to promote the usage of high quality community level design.
  • Mentored & helped newer community mapmakers to create high quality multiplayer level design.
  • Wrote extensively about specific level design frameworks, and how to approach the balancing of highly competitive RTS titles such as StarCraft II.

StarbowMod • Level & Game Designer, Quality assurance & Optimization (2014-2016)

  • Prototype, design, implementation, engine optimization & QA of StarBow multiplayer maps.
  • Map pool design & oversight.
  • Level dressing, gameplay & engine optimizations, quality assurance.
  • Discussed and gave Lead Game Designers feedback over unit balancing and terrain interactions/unit-terrain balancing.
  • Worked with Lead Game Designers on implementation of unit design ideas.

StarCraft II Community Mapmaker/Modder • KTVMaps.wordpress.com (2010-2017)

  • Creation of maps for the StarCraft II E-Sports community.
  • Prototyping, production, playtesting, iteration, environmental concept art & environmental dressing of levels.
  • Writing of level design guides for other community mapmakers & Pro-Gamers.
  • Writing of game design opinion pieces from the ground level for the StarCraft II Development Team. (A Mapmaker’s Perspective series)
  • Mentoring of other newer community mapmakers.
  • Maintenance and updating of older Community Tutorials and Guides.

Tournament administrator, E-Sports map pool manager & quality assurance:

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