Work Experience
The following acts as a expansion of my resume with further detail and examples from my work experience!
Bin Chicken Studios: Level Design Intern
Bin Chicken Studios
(formerly 15 Minutes of Game)
An indie game studio based out of Melbourne, Australia.
Trash is an co-op adventure crafting game where you restore balance to a trashy world.
Jump, Glide, Shield or Smash your way around a wild world, complete procedurally generated hazard dungeons, interact with rubbish creatures and customise your character with crafted forms & abilities
My role on “TRASH”:
While interning at Bin Chicken Studios my main task was level concepting for a 3D platformer. I was given sample level, and collaborated with the lead designer to better understand the scale and theme that the team was looking for, and to understand what types of settings would remain cohesive with the current world. I responsible for producing initial concepts for both the overall theme of the levels and drafting a rough outline/design of how the level may play. As well gathering reference for specific hero assets and to better communicate tone.
My Learned Experiences:
My experience was incredibly informative and an important part of my growth as a game developer. The most important “lesson” I learned was the difference between student projects and games being produced by professional level developers. There are layers to every design decision and communication with the people who better understand the overall vison of the project is what keeps a game cohesive and focused.
Rensselaer Gameful Learning Initiative: Research Assistant
My role in
Rensselaer Gameful Learning Initiative :
I worked on the RPI Gameful Learning Initiative over three separate semesters and assisted in creating games that were used as tools in a classroom setting.
200 Year Old Vampires: Reflections in the Past
My contribution to the in progress project consisted of developing sample vampire covens that the game would provide to the players as a jumping off point. Throughout my time on the project I worked closely with another writer to ensure the content was historically accurate and relevant to the space and time of the two settings developed.
Icebreaker Game
Designed as a tool to help student engineering teams get to know their project and teammates better, on their first day working together. It takes heavy influence from tabletop party games like “Apples to Apples” and “Card Against Humanity”.
Gameful & Immersive Learning Symposium info page: https://empac.rpi.edu/research/2023/gameful-and-immersive-learning-symposium
Symposium Facilitator
My role during the Gameful & Immersive Learning Symposium was as an “Expert Facilitator”. Having experience working on Gameful learning research as well as the lived experience of learning under the model in previous years of my own courses. I was tasked with help ensure activities ran smoothly and to be available for participants to better understand concepts from a designer or student perspective.
My Learned Experiences:
My experience with the Gameful Learning Initiative showed me how games can be viewed through many different lenses. Not only used as a means to relax or have fun, or so show competitive mastery. Games and also be used as simulations, tools to facilitate discourse, or even a means of disseminating ideas among a group.
Analog Game Lab: Tester
My Role with Analog Game Lab:
While working with Dr. Maurice Suckling Assistant Professor and Game Board Designer. I was charged with two primary tasks.
The first was to understand and repeatedly play-test tabletop games which Dr. Suckling designing. These games ranged in various stages of development from hand drawn paper prototypes; sample cards; and test material game boards from manufactures; to products with nearing finalized art & designs.
The second was to research assigned unique or popular published games; understand the rules; analyze the design; and submit a report distilling what was successful about game and how they were different from other competitors on the market.
My Learned Experiences:
Working with Dr. Suckling was really rewarding to be able to learn different approaches to balancing and testing games, and then be able to watch the ideas evolve into new iterations of rules.
This experience was essential in influencing on my design process and showed me that a focus on testing and iteration is how games with thoughtful and nuanced mechanics are created.
