Game Development Portfolio
Current Projects

Gears of War 5 | The Coalition Studio (Microsoft)
Software Test Engineer

The world is crumbling. Humanity’s reliance on technology has become their downfall and enemies are uniting to wipe out all survivors. As Kait you must journey across the biggest, most beautiful Gears world to uncover the origins of the Locust, and fight with your squad to protect what’s left.

• Never Fight Alone : Play solo or with a friend in local split-screen co-op, or online co-op. Battle alongside your friends anywhere with cross-play between Xbox One and PC.

• Explore Sera : Skim across glaciers, sail over deserts and descend into sunken ruins to discover the largest and most diverse Gears world ever created.

• Visual Showcase : Play every mode in 4K Ultra HD resolution with stunning HDR at a smooth 60 frames per second.

• Additional features, co-op and competitive modes still to be announced.

SPIRIT NIGHT | MirrorMe Media
Game Developer / Designer

Development on SPIRIT NIGHT started in August 2018. I have been directly responsible for writing all concept drafts, pitch documents and design documentation for the project to date; directly responsible for all project management and creative direction tasks during post-production development including prototyping, pitching, concept creation and various design tasks (current); responsible for pitching the early project concepts to industry colleagues and team in September 2018.

SPIRIT NIGHT, In the early hours after Halloween of 1991, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery boys, two forbidden lovers, and one stargazing loner uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama, small-town gossip, and supernatural mysteries collide in this coming-of-age adventure about friendships, first love, and the last days of childhood.  

Recent Projects

Hand of Fate 2 | Defiant Development
Junior Designer

I started as a design intern at Defiant Dev and was later hired as a contract Junior Designer over the Sept 2017 - Mar 2018 months. I was responsible for the setup, appraisal and adjustments of camera rigs across all 40+ combat scenes of the base game; tagging all voice over for the 'Dealer' character with appropriate animations (Unity Engine) for the main release and the Endless DLC; general difficulty scaling and balancing across majority of the games core content including content featured in the Endless DLC; I assisted in quality assurance and game testing in accordance with the QA leads direction and studio practices.

Hand of Fate 2 is now available on PC, Mac, Linux, XB1, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Hand of Fate 2 was awarded the AGDA Game of the Year award in 2017 (Australian Game Developer Awards). It has also been featured on sites including Kotaku, Game Informer, IGN and Polygon.

Hand of Fate 2: Game Master's Toolkit | Defiant Development | Click here to read my modding documentation ► | Click here to read my post mortem ►
Junior Designer

Over Dec 2017 - Mar 2018 I was a key designer working on the Hand of Fate 2: Game Master’s Toolkit (modding). I was directly responsible for the conception, development and release of the documentation behind the toolkit. This process involved working closely with senior programming and design members to best document modding processes for public use, conduct extensive usability testing of the toolkit in engine, design and create mods in engine to be released to the community, and to provide post release support through Steam. I wrote an extensive post mortem on my work over this entire project, you can read it here!

Side Projects

The Art of Lighting for Games | CGMA Master's Academy | Click here to visit my ArtStation ► | View my certificate of completion ►
Lighting & Composition

Over Feb 2018 - Apr 2018 I completed ‘The Art of Lighting for Games’ master class run by the CGMA 3D Master’s Academy. In this elective I was given an intermediate introduction to the science, technology, and art of lighting for games. In the first half of the course, I learnt the fundamentals of how light works, how we simulate and emulate the physical characteristics of light in a digital environment, and how we can break all the rules for the sake of art. The second half of the course I demonstrated some different approaches to lighting various scenes for visual appeal, mood, story, cut-scenes, gameplay and navigation. You can view all of my lighting work here!

Level Design for Games | CGMA Master's Academy | View my certificate of completion ►
Level and Environment Design

Over Feb 2018 - Apr 2018 I completed the ‘Level Design for Games’ master class run by the CGMA 3D Master’s Academy. Through this elective I approached 3D game level environments from a design perspective, exploring the theory of games, shape composition, architecture, and player psychology that goes into a crafting game environments. I designed and iterated on level setups from the initial planning phases through to playable prototypes, including crafting immersion and modeling shapes that intrigue, surprise, and inspire players through Maya. I explored how to design for game mechanics and narrative, as well as creating level progressions that support character development and player experience.

{<>} (IT'S WHATEVER YOU THINK IT IS) | Heartbeat 2018 Game Jam | Click here to download the print & play ►
Designer

{<>} is a cooperative card game about relationship maintenance. It’s played between 3-players and borrows mechanics from the tabletop RPG genre. Players can expect to take part in narrative authorship, character creation and development, and roleplaying. While it’s a game focused on the understanding and maintenance of relationships, we hope that it serves as a fulfilling, nurturing, and informative experience for you, your playing partner, and those who assume the role of Happenstance, a third player whose role is to author moments in the couples relationship. {<>} was a game created at Heartbeat 2018, for the Heartbeat Game Jam.

{<>} was winner of the 'Non-Digital' game award and finalist for the 'Excellence in Narrative' game award at the 2018 Freeplay Independent Games Festival Awards.

University Projects

G.I.A.N.T.S | Tiny Sail Games | Click here to download the game ►
Project Lead / Designer

Over Feb 2017 - Aug 2017 I was the Project Lead and Lead Designer on our capstone final project G.I.A.N.T.S at SAE Institute. I was directly responsible for directing our development team of 10 over the 6 months of production; running weekly stand up's over those 6 months; keeping the project in scope to meet our ambitious creative milestones.

As lead designer I was directly responsible for owning all of the core game concept; level design that complimented cooperative puzzle solving; creating and testing gameplay flowcharts with various gameplay interactions, these including our core mechanics; designed the colour blind friendly mode for the game; animated cut-scene direction, including narrative and storyboard development alongside our lead artists; level artist (various); Lighting and Post FX for the entire game; design documentation (creation, iteration, and management) including our master design document, puzzle design document, and the teams project management spreadsheets.

Myself alongside the extended development team were awarded with the 'Creative Achievement Award' for the class of 2017 at SAE Institute. G.I.A.N.T.S was recognized as being the best and most outstanding major project of any higher education program offered at SAE Institute (Brisbane) for that year. We were also included on Kotaku AU - "What's Your Favourite Australian Game Of 2017?" .

Freedom Through A Lens | Resist Jam 2017 | Click here to download the game ►
Designer / Developer

A photography exploration game in a painterly visual style created for the #ResistJam. We abide to the 'Freedom of Press' diversifier, in that the game showcases press and journalism through gameplay. I was directly responsible for developing and owning the whole game concept; level design that complimented our gameplay; creating flowcharts for various gameplay interactions (photography hotspots); all of the writing for our interactable characters and the final story implemented in Fungus; level artist; I was also external collaboration liaison working closely with our graphic designer/artist.

Waypoint VICE - "Picture the Surveillance State in this Game"
New Normative: Progressive Gaming - "How public demonstrations become playable"
Warpdoor - Freedom Through A Lens
FreeGamePlanet - Freedom Through A Lens
Jupiter Hadley - YouTuber and writer of Indie Games
GameJamCurator - Resist Jam: Treasure Chest #20

Remnants of Celestial Giants | Make-a-thing 2017 | Click here to download the game ►
Designer / Developer

A photography exploration game inspired by the keywords: Remedy, Vermilion, and Parallel. This was a solo project completed for the make-a-thing game jam, some elements that I achieved with this project were designing, creating and implementing the VFX, Post FX, Shaders and Graphics into the project that made it visually distinct; The iteration of an established C# code base to best suit my designs, this included implementation of a system that would post screenshots to social media.

Home Grown | Studio 2 | Click here to download the game ►
Designer / Developer / Audio

Home Grown was my first major project at SAE Institute. It explores the feeling of home in the form of the player growing and caring for their own garden. I was directly responsible for the design and ownership of the core game concept; designing and implementing the visual style into the Unity Engine; all Lighting, VFX, Post FX and Graphics work in Unity Engine; scripting the plant growth cycle for all 4 plant types, the day/night wait cycle, the audio acceleration/pitch/volume system for plant growth, the companion planting system and the watering and feeding mechanics for the game; debugging and fixing bugs; conducting public game testing sessions for the game over production; pitching ideas and concepts; public presentation and showcase in Brisbane City followed by public release.