I’ve spent my whole life in the pursuit of game design, a lifelong gamer and devoted fan of many genres, absorbing the craft and developing my own creative skills through the many mods and game projects I’ve created over the years. In my professional work, I’ve always worked hard to create spaces for innovative player agency, and dedicated myself to putting the player at the heart of the story.
Below you can see some of the skills I’ve developed along the way: creating worlds and immersive experiences as a LEVEL DESIGNER has always been my foundation, followed by my development of projects with a CINEMATIC and NARRATIVE focus, and last yet most importantly, you can find some of the GAME DESIGN goals I’ve pursued in my solo creations and among various developer teams.
[read: My design philosophy]
Like a live theater production, the player is the starring actor and the game is a play in which the designer invites them to participate. That isn’t to say the game world revolves around the player, only that the gameplay does. Sometimes the player performs in an established role, sometimes it’s more of an improv, but the game’s purpose is to respond to the player, and narrative provides the context for the choices the player wants to make. Uniquely among creative mediums, games provide a channel to receive player input and, crucially, to respond. Just as games can be expressed in their most fundamental mechanics (jumping -> a platformer, shooting -> a shooter…) so are game narratives expressed as the agency they lend to a player’s choices: the richer the mechanics for defining your character, the stronger the game narrative. (Not every game needs an overt narrative, but I daresay every game has at least some contextual background, even if it’s just a snake and an apple.)
Jesterbox Creations 