/ About
I've been a designer in the industry for over 20 years handling a wide range of disciplines while working with teams both small and large. I've lead teams, improved tech and trained juniors. I'm regularly drawn to the technical side of development and always have a side project on the go.
Current Work
Trash City Turbo
After many years in the industry I know I'm most content when making tight, smartly-scoped projects that embrace the medium without breaking the bank. To that end, I've joined forces with the super talented Concept Artist Shaun Mooney and we've formed Machinefun. We're working hard on our debut title Trash City Turbo and sharing the development on our socials.
Teaching - The University of Greater Manchester
I love being able to help the next generation of developers by sharing my industry experience with them whenever I can. I'm currently teaching on the Games Development (Ma) course at Greater Manchester University.
Unannounced Multiplayer Arena Battler
A vibrant, irreverent and manic multiplayer battler, this project is love letter to classic 'couch combat' games like Bomberman or Power Stone. This is the last project from my time at Clever Beans, a studio I've loved working at as Design Lead.
- Design Lead
- Combat Design and Balancing
- Level Design
- Story Writing
Past Titles
Gods Will Fall
This was a massive project for Clever Beans. Ambitious in both it's scope and design direction (perhaps a little too ambitious) it's a grand roguelike where you guide a doomed band of Celtic warriors in their battle against vile Gods that rule over them. The key hook is the generative storytelling woven into to your choices and actions. Each warrior has a procedurally generated backstory and a set of relationships with their fellow warriors and even the Gods. Every decision, victory and loss causes a ripple of effects through your team as their morale, abilities and desires change. The Design Pillar was about telling stories that only video-games can - stories that emerge from your actions and choices, different every time.
Win or lose, you walk away with a unique tale that is personal to yourself and the little heroes you fell in love with along the way
- Project Director
- Top Level Design
- Story Writing
- Combat Design
- Level Design
- Boss Fight Design
- Balancing
Rime
This collaboration came about due to our close ties with Sony who asked us to help out on the title and we didn't hesitate to accept. Working closely with Tequila Works in Spain I worked on bringing some extra depth to the puzzle mechanics and level design without compromising the dreamlike wonder that made it such a beautiful world.
- Level Design
- Puzzle Mechanics Programming
Spyhunter
It wasn't often that we got to work on something other than LEGO titles during my time at TT-Fusion so I was really pleased when I was asked to lead a handheld revival of the retro classic - Spyhunter. With limited resources and design team of junior designers I relished the challenge of maximising our productivity by carefully controlling the scope whilst letting my team get as creative as possible.
- Design Lead
- World Design
- Combat Design
- Mission Design
- Story Writing
Guinness World Records
Another rare, non-LEGO game at TT-Fusion. Myself and a number of other Senior Designers were brought on board to help in the latter stages. We refined and revised many of the minigames, iterating on the concepts and smoothing off the rough edges to maximise the immediacy of this varied selection of minigames.
- Minigame Development
LEGO Games
In my 8 years at TT-Fusion I worked on a lot of LEGO Games (to the point I can't remember them all). I was the main point of contact for technical support when it came to Level Design and Scripting within our in-house engine and personally drove the development of our editor to make development more enjoyable and reliable. I was a lead on a number of projects and my wide skillset earned me a reputation as a 'fixer' that could jump on any problem issues - large or small.
- Design Lead
- Level Design
- Mechanics Design
- Minigame Design
- Editor Development
