Ever since I first turned on my Super Nintendo…
I have been in love with video games. Their ability to take me to far away places where I can both experience and interact with my fantasies, even ones I never knew I had, is the reason I chose to pursue a career in the video game industry.
“Some designers try to keep uninfluenced by other games, so their creations are all their own. I feel like that is as enlightened as a scientist that decides to ignore science they don’t create”
— Richard Garfield
I was the kid that would make my mom crazy with the fantastical messes I would make in my bedroom. All from re-imagining my Pokemon cards and Hot Wheels cars as soldiers in make-believe wars and battlegrounds. I would stay up all night enacting ambushes, creating lines of succession, and just having fun; my way. Its not that I did not know the rules to playing the Pokemon TCG or that I had nowhere to display my miniature car collection but rather I wanted to create an experience worth having. Of course I did not know at the time but as I got older I realized these rules I was creating for myself were actually the building blocks to every video game.
Setting up rules and guidelines to frame my experience have turned into habits with which I live my life and contrary to how that sounds, designing and engineering scenarios with that mindset have led to some of the most enjoyable times in my life. It was not until I made it to Full Sail University that I recognized that the same mindset I had learned as a core tenant of my engineering degree was also behind the success of many video games as well. That addition by subtraction and working within constraints could also lead to fun.
All through out my Game Design degree I worked on a wide variety of projects. Each challenging my perceptions of the human psyche and what constitutes good game design. In many ways my approach to game design is still influenced by those late nights playing war with Pokemon cards and Hot Wheels cars. I am never afraid to experiment with new concepts or combinations of game mechanics. Its this unyielding desire to experiment that forms my creative eye for game design.
Its certainly served me well to this point in my career. My time at Pipeworks was a veritable treasure trove of design experience across a wide variety of projects. With each project pushing my ability to adapt quickly to new teams and game development tools. The quick turnover between such different projects has also given me the chance to hone my leadership, approach to level design, and scripting in ways that efficiently merge great gameplay and design.