I joined Aardman Animations to work on Chicken Run: Eggstraction, a top-down stealth-action game. Taking on the role as an all-round designer, I primarily focused on 3Cs and game feel - polishing the character controller, attacks and abilities, implementing and adjusting animations, enemy AI behaviour trees and player-enemy interactions.
I also used UE5’s blueprint to create a ‘smart camera’ tool, UI interaction prompts, as well as providing additional level design for the single campaign & multiplayer modes.
One of my favourite tasks was to implement trademark Aardman slapstick moments - guards tripping or slipping on things, running into each other, getting sucked into vents or buckets getting stuck on their foots. Not only were these great sight gags, but served as fun gameplay to help the player temporarily incapacitate enemies and escape.
PUPS was an online four player PvE character action game, focusing on combining fast, fluid and expressive player traversal with satisfyingly chunking and devastating melee combat.
My role as Senior Designer was split between combat/traversal design and mission/level design.
On the combat side, I was heavily involved in creating and designing different strings of light and heavy attacks, dodges and parries for two of the four player characters.
I had oversight of different combos for each character's playstyle and weapon of choice, as well as the general feel of each attack string. I worked on sourcing animations, clipping them and creating interesting combos, adjusting interrupt/buffer times, VFX, camera shake, hit-stop, knockback, aerial juggling and many other things to provide juicy feedback for each hit.
I also worked closely with gameplay programmers to tweak the feel of player movement and traversal to create a responsive and fun player controller adjusting parameters like; run speed, jump height, sliding, wallrunning, dashing, vaulting etc.
On the level and mission side, I was for the vast majority of the project the sole level designer, creating every main level in the lead up and through pre-production. These were a mix of linear and sandbox style levels, used to showcase level pacing, traversal abilities and combat arenas.
I also had a hand in creating and scripting several mission types and implementing mission-specific UI elements, such as objectives, waypoints, timers and prompts.
Alongside the general white-boxing of levels, I also created every single destructible prop, every animated asset and scripted many gameplay mechanics such as working security cameras/watchtowers, turrets that track the player, alarm systems, keycards, various doors and gates, tripwires, mines to name a few!
Finally, I built and designed lot of the traversal-based props used to integrate into the environment. These included, fan boost pads, bouncy parasols & awnings, grindable balconies & railings, traffic light swing bars and many others.
OlliOlli World is a BAFTA nominated and TIGA/DICE award winning skateboarding platformer, set in the vibrant, eccentric world of Radlandia.
I worked on the base game and both DLCs as a Senior Designer, creating and designing a huge portion of the levels, side quests, and challenges, across each biome and highlighting each unique game mechanic or tapping into the arsenal of skill and tricks the player can pull off.
With each new area, the goal was to remix, reinvent or create wholly unique ideas to challenge the player in original ways, but above all else making sure you were locked into the iconic ‘flow-state’ gaming Roll7 is known for.
A few notable levels I created were Grizzly Rapids (where you race the bear), Molten Manufacturing - where the level can be beat going forwards and backwards - and Gilded Palace, a sprawling network of paths that overlap and converge on each other.
Project Erebus is a 3rd person stealth-action project that is inspired by classics such as Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 and the Hitman series. This project has been made in the space of 3 months in my free time!
The primary goals of this Project Erebus are to build out an extremely solid character controller, continue to master the Gameplay Ability System (GAS) and explore developing a game with online PVE multiplayer in mind, further learning the intricacies and challenges of network replication, something I began more deeply working on during PUPs at Roll7.
The project showcases different advanced movement states, such as vaulting, mantling, ledge-shimmying, cover movement and peeking. It also incorporates different blend states for strafing whilst in crouch, prone or standing.
In it’s current state, Project Erebus also includes enemy AI, which can patrol, hear and investigate player noises, wake-up stunned comrades, engage in combat and alert attention of nearby guards.
The project is available to demo through Steam on request.
SoulsWaker was a project I started to really push my skills learning visual scripting in Blueprint, and prototype various game design systems and mechanics.
My main areas of focus were combat and stealth, inventory and item data, Enemy AI, character animation systems and states, amongst many other gameplay interactions.
The intent was not to necessarily ‘finish’ the project, rather use it as a tool to skill up in areas of game development I hadn’t previously explored. A lot of this exploration ultimately became very useful on future projects.
Beacon is a top-down Sci-Fi Action Roguelike
You play as Freja, the lone survivor of the crew of a large spaceship that crashed on a strange planet. The planet is home to a mysterious containment facility that confines various genetic abominations, odd occult items, and incomprehensible alien technology.
Upon your arrival you learn that the containment systems have been breached due to parts of your crashed ship destroying areas of the facility and that the whole planet has been overrun with the beings that were released and the automated containment drones that are attempting to subdue them.
You must acquire bits and pieces of hardware to reboot the distress beacon in the remains of your crashed ship and call for help so that you can escape this unforgiving planet.
Gameplay is an eclectic mix inspired by genre staples such as The Binding of Isaac, Teleglitch, Spelunky, Nuclear Throne and Risk of Rain, but defined by our own unique twist to the formula.
On Beacon, I performed a myriad of jobs. be it high level game design work, designing enemies, items & contributing to game play mechanics & scenarios. To building the environments themselves, lending my level design skills and artistic abilities to craft interesting playable spaces. On top of that, I am in charge of all the music & sound design, creating all foley and composing the soundtrack for in game and trailers.
The End of the World is a side scrolling exploration game for the broken hearted. You play as a lonely man in a world that ended when he lost his love.
The game was created by Sean Wenham, a friend and colleague I worked with during my time at Ubisoft Reflections.
I created the core soundtrack that appears throughout the game.
DRIVEROTIC is a driving game built in Twine, created by the talented artist pixel artist Lachlan Cartland. I worked with Lachlan to create a hypnotic and expressive soundtrack to accompany the pace of the narrative.
The Crew is an upcoming MMO RPG action driving game for PC, PS4 & Xbox One, set in a playable space representing the entirety of the USA. Co-developed by Ivory Tower and Ubisoft Reflections, The game's premise is to offer up the most complete open world driving experience, heavily focusing on online cooperative play with friends, with the ability to form factions and tackle missions & PVP or PVE events.
Since joining back in February 2013, I have been a Level Designer at Ubisoft in charge of the open world activities known as Skills. Skills are mini challenges located all around the environment, acting as competitive bursts of gameplay. Skills are unique as they actively take advantage of the surroundings as playable spaces. Be it, Hill Climb challenges to reach the summit, fast & furious Speed Skills on asphalt roads, or Scramble Skills that act as wild, off-road paths, weaving in and around the locations, testing the player's ability at every turn.
There are hundreds of these Skills dotted all over the game, each feeling unique due to the various locations available, terrain to tackle & Skill types designed to specifically challenge the different car dress types available.
At the start of 2013, after collaborating on many projects, myself and a handful of talented developers, co-founded Monothetic LLC in the pursuit of creating our own independently created videogames. Haven, a first person, sci-fi survival horror/adventure game, is our debut product. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, we are harnessing the technology to push the visual fidelity of our game's universe, a world heavy in aesthetic, style & mood.
Throughout development, as a core team member, I have provided my skills and abilities to all elements of the game, mainly contributing as Gameplay/Level Designer - taking full advantage of Blueprint - and as an Environment Artist. I am also actively involved in story, sound design & project management.
Kowloon is a point & click adventure narrative game, set in the now destroyed Kowloon Walled City. The story centres around a young girl living with her family in an incredibly densely populated, seedy & brooding environment.
With the objective of making a fully featured short-form game within 5 days, myself & co-creator Sean Wenham created everything ourselves using Gamesalad.
I worked mainly on creating the music & sound design, inventory & dialogue systems, event-scripting & minor animation work. (the kitty!)
We will be polishing up the game and releasing it free in the next month or so.
Black Snow is a first person, survival horror/adventure game, originally released November 2012, as a HL2:EP2 modification.
Heavily inspired by classic survival horror games like Silent Hill, along with notable films such as The Thing, the game quickly spread with the Source Engine development community before exploding outwards int the YouTube Let's Play community. The mod was featured in Moddb's Top 100 & PC Gamer's '90 Best Horror Games on PC'.
I contributed to a host of work, ranging from design inout & playtesting, voice acting and environment art.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-snow
Forza Horizon is a triple BAFTA nominated open world action-racing game, released in late 2012, exclusively for the Xbox 360.
The game was the first in the Forza series, to break away from it's conventional and popular simulation roots, in favor of a more playful, exciting & ultimately, open-world Forza driving experience. Set in Colorado, the game took advantage of the environmental locale, offering up great variety - not just in it's aesthetics - but in the types of roads & terrain possible to traverse & explore. This gave way to a multitude of driving opportunities, such as point-to-point races, off-road rally style events, street racing & showcase events.
I joined the team in November 2011, as a level designer not long after production had kicked in. Working with 5 other designers, we went through the whole process of sourcing interesting locations in the world, greyboxing them, playtesting & iteration, all the way through to the final art-passed tracks & events.
This meant working very closely with programmers & artists, to bring up the quality of each piece of gameplay collaboratively. From optimization of art assets & props, to performance profiling & debugging. This being my first major industry job, I learnt vast quantities of valuable know-how - from understanding other disciplines more intimately, to my own experience using various toolsets & software - and allowed me to grow much stronger as a capable designer. My time at Playground Games formed the groundwork of how I critically tackle game design today & provided my first insight into AAA development.
http://www.forzamotorsport.net/en-us/gaes/fh
Contention is a CSGO competitive multiplayer map set to be released later this year. Currently in the art-passing stage of development, the map is near completion, with the hope of being included in one of Valve's 'Operation' initiatives. I have worked on the project autonomously, with the desire to not only create a highly balanced, engaging map, but also a visually striking one.
Taking lighting & stylistic cues from games like The Last of Us, the dishevelled downtown apartment blocks and shipping yards bask in a low hanging sun, adding vibrancy and mood to the firefight. Using my in depth experience of the Source Engine, I struck a balance between presenting an aesthetically beautiful setting, with a viable & fun multiplayer gameplay experience.
The map is dense & compact, utilizing lots of verticality. This design lends itself to creating frequent bursts of conflict, map control shifting constantly back & forth with quick rotations possible. Playtesting and iteration has been key to balancing the map & I look forward to releasing it in the near future.
I have recently been reworking the map for CS2, tightening the blockout design using all the knowledge I’ve built up over the years
Canvas is a third person adventure game. created as a total conversion mod for HL2. The game followed the story of a young girl called Milena & her abilities to harness psychic powers, in a world where humans and psychics coexist. An institute called the Society of Thorns which protects the agenda & the arts of psychics is pivotal to Milena, her father and ultimately her powers. The player can directly interact with psychic forms of media, allowing her to dive into the worlds of paintings and explore their universes.
Aperture Syndrome is a 3 part single player map for Portal 2. Created for Valve's 2012 Summer Mapping Initiative.
Being allocated only two weeks of time to create a campaign from scratch, I used all my Source Engine technical know-how to create a fun, engaging & visually interesting map.
A collection of freelance work I have created over the years in various design community 'map' battles or mod projects.
