Thomas Blair's portfolio summarizes his work as a video game designer from 2001-2022. Some of the key projects he worked on include Crowfall, an MMO where he designed classes, talents, stats, races, and tools; 5 Dragons, a mobile card battler where he focused on combat, progression, and world design; and DragonTown, a Facebook game where he implemented professions, crafting, quests, and viral mechanics. He also contributed to titles like DC Universe Online and several unreleased projects. The portfolio demonstrates his experience across many roles and genres, with a focus on system and content design.
Supersize your production pipe enjmin 2013 v1.1 hdslantsixgames
The document discusses a presentation on optimizing a game studio's production pipeline. It introduces the speaker, Paul Simon Martin from Slant Six Games, and discusses how production pipelines have evolved over time. Key aspects of optimizing the pipeline that are covered include infrastructure for asset storage, automated building and testing, content authoring tools, data conversion processes, and metrics tracking. The goal is to minimize iteration times and latency throughout the entire process.
Zynga uses automated feature engineering to build machine learning models at scale for personalizing gameplay experiences across its many games and millions of players. It leverages libraries like FeatureTools to generate features from raw event data, representing each player with a single row. This reduces manual feature engineering work. Models powered by these features include propensity models, segmentation, anomaly detection, and recommendations. Zynga deploys these models using a Databricks/PySpark stack to handle the large data volumes from its many players. Automated feature engineering has enabled Zynga to build portfolio-scale data products that power personalization across its games.
Maximize Your Production Effort (English)slantsixgames
This document discusses how to maximize production efficiency through efficient content authoring tools and pipelines for inter-studio asset development. It covers topics like infrastructure, content authoring, data conversion, game runtime considerations, and asset sharing. The key recommendations are to identify and reduce latency throughout the production pipeline, automate processes as much as possible, prioritize tool and workflow improvements, and treat outsourcing partners like internal team members to maximize output.
BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013 - Gaming on BlackBerrySegitiga.Net
Slide presentation by Sujoy Ghosh (Marketing Manager, App World & Content Marketing - APAC, BlackBerry) & Pratik Sapra (Application Development Consultant, BlackBerry) on BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013 in Hong Kong, September 27 2013 titled Gaming on BlackBerry.
GDC Europe 2014: Unreal Engine 4 for Programmers - Lessons Learned & Things t...Gerke Max Preussner
A high-level overview of Unreal Engine 4, its game framework, the Slate user interface library, Unreal Motion Graphics, and Editor and Engine extensibility. Presented at GDC Europe in Cologne, Germany.
Also includes bonus slides on concurrency and parallelism features, general tips for programmers and Epic's build and automation infrastructure.
Impact AI 2020: Portfolio-Scale Data Science at ZyngaBen Weber
Ben Weber presents on portfolio-scale data science at Zynga. Zynga aims to build data products using automated feature engineering to handle its tens of millions of players across multiple games and platforms. It leverages libraries like FeatureTools to generate features at scale from raw event data, powering applications like propensity models, segmentation, anomaly detection, and recommendations. By automating feature engineering, Zynga has minimized manual work and sped up model development and deployment cycles for its portfolio of games.
Supersize your production pipe enjmin 2013 v1.1 hdslantsixgames
The document discusses a presentation on optimizing a game studio's production pipeline. It introduces the speaker, Paul Simon Martin from Slant Six Games, and discusses how production pipelines have evolved over time. Key aspects of optimizing the pipeline that are covered include infrastructure for asset storage, automated building and testing, content authoring tools, data conversion processes, and metrics tracking. The goal is to minimize iteration times and latency throughout the entire process.
Zynga uses automated feature engineering to build machine learning models at scale for personalizing gameplay experiences across its many games and millions of players. It leverages libraries like FeatureTools to generate features from raw event data, representing each player with a single row. This reduces manual feature engineering work. Models powered by these features include propensity models, segmentation, anomaly detection, and recommendations. Zynga deploys these models using a Databricks/PySpark stack to handle the large data volumes from its many players. Automated feature engineering has enabled Zynga to build portfolio-scale data products that power personalization across its games.
Maximize Your Production Effort (English)slantsixgames
This document discusses how to maximize production efficiency through efficient content authoring tools and pipelines for inter-studio asset development. It covers topics like infrastructure, content authoring, data conversion, game runtime considerations, and asset sharing. The key recommendations are to identify and reduce latency throughout the production pipeline, automate processes as much as possible, prioritize tool and workflow improvements, and treat outsourcing partners like internal team members to maximize output.
BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013 - Gaming on BlackBerrySegitiga.Net
Slide presentation by Sujoy Ghosh (Marketing Manager, App World & Content Marketing - APAC, BlackBerry) & Pratik Sapra (Application Development Consultant, BlackBerry) on BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013 in Hong Kong, September 27 2013 titled Gaming on BlackBerry.
GDC Europe 2014: Unreal Engine 4 for Programmers - Lessons Learned & Things t...Gerke Max Preussner
A high-level overview of Unreal Engine 4, its game framework, the Slate user interface library, Unreal Motion Graphics, and Editor and Engine extensibility. Presented at GDC Europe in Cologne, Germany.
Also includes bonus slides on concurrency and parallelism features, general tips for programmers and Epic's build and automation infrastructure.
Impact AI 2020: Portfolio-Scale Data Science at ZyngaBen Weber
Ben Weber presents on portfolio-scale data science at Zynga. Zynga aims to build data products using automated feature engineering to handle its tens of millions of players across multiple games and platforms. It leverages libraries like FeatureTools to generate features at scale from raw event data, powering applications like propensity models, segmentation, anomaly detection, and recommendations. By automating feature engineering, Zynga has minimized manual work and sped up model development and deployment cycles for its portfolio of games.
Monkey Rush is an arcade mobile game, developed by using java scripts, HTML5 and Panda JS game engine.
The mobile game is aside-scroller where the player has to use the touch screen and tap to control the flying monkey, trying to fly between rows of logs without going to get in touch with them.
• Used HTML5, Java Scripts, Panda js HTML5 game engine to make the game application.
• Implemented on Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) development framework.
• Used Adobe Photoshop to design the graphs
The document outlines the process of game development from concept to distribution. It begins with developing the initial game idea and pitching it to a publisher. If accepted, a proof of concept prototype is built and a design document is created. An development team is then assembled and the project is broken into milestones. The game passes through alpha and beta testing stages before being finalized as a gold master and mass produced for distribution.
The document discusses Playfab's new User Generated Content service, which allows game developers to empower players to create and share custom content. It describes how the service works, including how players can upload, manage, search for, and consume UGC items. It also covers basics of moderation and roadmap items like community moderation and deeper commerce support.
The document discusses PlayFab's real-time analytics and experimentation capabilities for games. It provides an overview of PlayFab's analytics features such as real-time analytics, business analytics, data exploration, and custom reporting. It also describes how PlayFab allows for A/B experimentation through assigning players to treatments, measuring results, and facilitating trustworthy experimentation at scale. The document aims to help users get started with PlayFab by downloading SDKs and sending custom events to gain insights from player data.
Developing applications and games in Unity engine - Matej Jariabka, Rudolf Ka...gamifi.cc
gamifi.cc team - Rudolf & Matej presented on local tech/mobile/games conference experience with Unity & game development in general.
We also list some other tools that might help you. First part covers business tips & reasons to use Unity.
Unreal Engine Basics 01 - Game FrameworkNick Pruehs
First chapter of the lecture Unreal Engine Basics taught at SAE Institute Hamburg.
- Getting familiar with Unreal Engine as a technology, framework and toolset
- Learning the basics about writing Unreal Engine C++ code
An overview of Apple's game development technologies, followed up by tips and techniques for using UIKit for game development. The later third of the talk is an overview of games I've worked on in UIKit.
Understanding and improving games through machine learning - Natasha LatyshevaLauren Cormack
Data Scientist at Jagex - Jagex has a diverse games portfolio, including a large MMORPG (RuneScape), a tactical FPS (Block N Load) and a collectible card game (Chronicle). In this presentation, Natasha Latysheva will showcase recent and upcoming data science and machine learning projects at Jagex – including quest recommender systems, player clustering by playstyle, deep learning player lifecycle sequences, and automatic bot and abuse detection – to give a taster of the insights that a machine learning approach can provide, whilst also offering project ideas for your own games.
Snowplow: open source game analytics powered by AWSGiuseppe Gaviani
This is a presentation by Alex Dean and Yali Sassoon at Snowplow about open source game analytics powered by AWS. It was presented at the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, February 2017
Developing and optimizing a procedural game: The Elder Scrolls Blades- Unite ...Unity Technologies
The Elder Scrolls Blades strove to produce high-quality visuals on modern mobile devices. This talk will describe the challenges of achieving that level of quality in procedurally generated 3D environments.
Speakers:
Simon-Pierre Thibault - Bethesda Game Studios
Sergei Savchenko - Bethesda Game Studios
Watch the session here: https://youtu.be/KbxiGH6igBk
This document provides an overview of Cocos2D, an open source framework for building 2D games and other interactive applications. It discusses Cocos2D's scene graph structure, principal classes like CCNode and CCDirector, use of sprites and actions, and tools for working with Cocos2D like TexturePacker. It also compares building games with Cocos2D on iOS versus Android and introduces Cocos2D-X for cross-platform development and Cocos2D-HTML5 for web games.
Niko Sévoz is a game designer who specializes in conception, design, production, and exploitation of games. He brings a focus on user experience, problem-flagging, communication, team coordination, and solutions. Some of his past projects include Carmen San Diego, Curious World App, Umigo, Bayam 7/13, iLearnWith series, iReadWith series, Maryland State Assessment, and Woozworld. He has experience in game concepts, level design, technical aspects, wireframes, flow charts, and project management.
This document summarizes the game design work of Matt Ekins for the online game School of Dragons. It describes the game's educational focus and gameplay elements. As the senior designer, Ekins led the design of several core systems, including the Science Lab for teaching the scientific method, the fishing and flying mechanics, dragon stables, player progression tracking, and clan/party systems. He worked closely with other teams to implement these original designs and ensure they balanced education, fun, and monetization.
(GAM301) Real-Time Game Analytics with Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, and A...Amazon Web Services
Success in free-to-play gaming requires knowing what your players love most. The faster you can respond to players' behavior, the better your chances of success. Learn how mobile game company GREE, with over 150 million users worldwide, built a real-time analytics pipeline for their games using Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon DynamoDB. They walk through their analytics architecture, the choices they made, the challenges they overcame, and the benefits they gained. Also hear how GREE migrated to the new system while keeping their games running and collecting metrics.
This was a triumph: Evolving intelligent bots for videogames. And for Science. Pablo García Sánchez
Presentation given to students from IES Montes Orientales about our work on computational intellgence for games by Geneura group of the University of Granada.
The document provides an overview of the PlayStation Vita hardware and software capabilities for developers. It describes the Vita's high resolution screen, quad core processor, and powerful GPU. The document highlights key differentiational aspects like the dual analog sticks, touch screen, cameras, and motion sensors. It also summarizes libraries, tools, and middleware to simplify development, including facial recognition, augmented reality, and location-based services. Graphics are rendered using tile-based deferred rendering to efficiently manage on-chip memory and hidden surface removal.
Parabolic antenna alignment system with Real-Time Angle Position FeedbackStevenPatrick17
Introduction
Parabolic antennas are a crucial component in many communication systems, including satellite communications, radio telescopes, and television broadcasting. Ensuring these antennas are properly aligned is vital for optimal performance and signal strength. A parabolic antenna alignment system, equipped with real-time angle position feedback and fault tracking, is designed to address this need. This document delves into the components, design, and implementation of such a system, highlighting its significance and applications.
Importance of Parabolic Antenna Alignment
The alignment of a parabolic antenna directly affects its performance. Even minor misalignments can lead to significant signal loss, which can degrade the quality of the received signal or cause communication failures. Proper alignment ensures that the antenna's focal point is accurately directed toward the signal source, maximizing the antenna's gain and efficiency. This precision is especially crucial in applications like satellite communications, where the antenna must track geostationary satellites with high accuracy.
Components of a Parabolic Antenna Alignment System
A parabolic antenna alignment system typically includes the following components:
Parabolic Dish: The primary reflector that collects and focuses incoming signals.
Feedhorn and Low Noise Block (LNB): Positioned at the dish's focal point to receive signals.
Stepper or Servo Motors: Adjust the azimuth (horizontal) and elevation (vertical) angles of the antenna.
Microcontroller (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry Pi): Processes sensor data and controls the motors.
Potentiometers: Provide feedback on the antenna's current angle positions.
Fault Detection Sensors: Monitor for potential faults such as cable discontinuities or LNB failures.
Control Software: Runs on the microcontroller, handling real-time processing and decision-making.
Real-Time Angle Position Feedback
Real-time feedback on the antenna's angle position is essential for maintaining precise alignment. This feedback is typically provided by potentiometers or rotary encoders, which continuously monitor the azimuth and elevation angles. The microcontroller reads this data and adjusts the motors accordingly to keep the antenna aligned with the signal source.
Fault Tracking in Antenna Alignment Systems
Fault tracking is vital for the reliability and performance of the antenna system. Common faults include cable discontinuities, LNB malfunctions, and motor failures. Sensors integrated into the system can detect these faults and either notify the user or initiate corrective actions automatically.
Design and Implementation
1. Parabolic Dish and Feedhorn
The parabolic dish is designed to reflect incoming signals to a focal point where the feedhorn and LNB are located. The dish's size and shape depend on the specific application and frequency range.
2. Motors and Position Control
Stepper motors or servo motors are used to control the azimuth and elevation of
Monkey Rush is an arcade mobile game, developed by using java scripts, HTML5 and Panda JS game engine.
The mobile game is aside-scroller where the player has to use the touch screen and tap to control the flying monkey, trying to fly between rows of logs without going to get in touch with them.
• Used HTML5, Java Scripts, Panda js HTML5 game engine to make the game application.
• Implemented on Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) development framework.
• Used Adobe Photoshop to design the graphs
The document outlines the process of game development from concept to distribution. It begins with developing the initial game idea and pitching it to a publisher. If accepted, a proof of concept prototype is built and a design document is created. An development team is then assembled and the project is broken into milestones. The game passes through alpha and beta testing stages before being finalized as a gold master and mass produced for distribution.
The document discusses Playfab's new User Generated Content service, which allows game developers to empower players to create and share custom content. It describes how the service works, including how players can upload, manage, search for, and consume UGC items. It also covers basics of moderation and roadmap items like community moderation and deeper commerce support.
The document discusses PlayFab's real-time analytics and experimentation capabilities for games. It provides an overview of PlayFab's analytics features such as real-time analytics, business analytics, data exploration, and custom reporting. It also describes how PlayFab allows for A/B experimentation through assigning players to treatments, measuring results, and facilitating trustworthy experimentation at scale. The document aims to help users get started with PlayFab by downloading SDKs and sending custom events to gain insights from player data.
Developing applications and games in Unity engine - Matej Jariabka, Rudolf Ka...gamifi.cc
gamifi.cc team - Rudolf & Matej presented on local tech/mobile/games conference experience with Unity & game development in general.
We also list some other tools that might help you. First part covers business tips & reasons to use Unity.
Unreal Engine Basics 01 - Game FrameworkNick Pruehs
First chapter of the lecture Unreal Engine Basics taught at SAE Institute Hamburg.
- Getting familiar with Unreal Engine as a technology, framework and toolset
- Learning the basics about writing Unreal Engine C++ code
An overview of Apple's game development technologies, followed up by tips and techniques for using UIKit for game development. The later third of the talk is an overview of games I've worked on in UIKit.
Understanding and improving games through machine learning - Natasha LatyshevaLauren Cormack
Data Scientist at Jagex - Jagex has a diverse games portfolio, including a large MMORPG (RuneScape), a tactical FPS (Block N Load) and a collectible card game (Chronicle). In this presentation, Natasha Latysheva will showcase recent and upcoming data science and machine learning projects at Jagex – including quest recommender systems, player clustering by playstyle, deep learning player lifecycle sequences, and automatic bot and abuse detection – to give a taster of the insights that a machine learning approach can provide, whilst also offering project ideas for your own games.
Snowplow: open source game analytics powered by AWSGiuseppe Gaviani
This is a presentation by Alex Dean and Yali Sassoon at Snowplow about open source game analytics powered by AWS. It was presented at the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, February 2017
Developing and optimizing a procedural game: The Elder Scrolls Blades- Unite ...Unity Technologies
The Elder Scrolls Blades strove to produce high-quality visuals on modern mobile devices. This talk will describe the challenges of achieving that level of quality in procedurally generated 3D environments.
Speakers:
Simon-Pierre Thibault - Bethesda Game Studios
Sergei Savchenko - Bethesda Game Studios
Watch the session here: https://youtu.be/KbxiGH6igBk
This document provides an overview of Cocos2D, an open source framework for building 2D games and other interactive applications. It discusses Cocos2D's scene graph structure, principal classes like CCNode and CCDirector, use of sprites and actions, and tools for working with Cocos2D like TexturePacker. It also compares building games with Cocos2D on iOS versus Android and introduces Cocos2D-X for cross-platform development and Cocos2D-HTML5 for web games.
Niko Sévoz is a game designer who specializes in conception, design, production, and exploitation of games. He brings a focus on user experience, problem-flagging, communication, team coordination, and solutions. Some of his past projects include Carmen San Diego, Curious World App, Umigo, Bayam 7/13, iLearnWith series, iReadWith series, Maryland State Assessment, and Woozworld. He has experience in game concepts, level design, technical aspects, wireframes, flow charts, and project management.
This document summarizes the game design work of Matt Ekins for the online game School of Dragons. It describes the game's educational focus and gameplay elements. As the senior designer, Ekins led the design of several core systems, including the Science Lab for teaching the scientific method, the fishing and flying mechanics, dragon stables, player progression tracking, and clan/party systems. He worked closely with other teams to implement these original designs and ensure they balanced education, fun, and monetization.
(GAM301) Real-Time Game Analytics with Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, and A...Amazon Web Services
Success in free-to-play gaming requires knowing what your players love most. The faster you can respond to players' behavior, the better your chances of success. Learn how mobile game company GREE, with over 150 million users worldwide, built a real-time analytics pipeline for their games using Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon DynamoDB. They walk through their analytics architecture, the choices they made, the challenges they overcame, and the benefits they gained. Also hear how GREE migrated to the new system while keeping their games running and collecting metrics.
This was a triumph: Evolving intelligent bots for videogames. And for Science. Pablo García Sánchez
Presentation given to students from IES Montes Orientales about our work on computational intellgence for games by Geneura group of the University of Granada.
The document provides an overview of the PlayStation Vita hardware and software capabilities for developers. It describes the Vita's high resolution screen, quad core processor, and powerful GPU. The document highlights key differentiational aspects like the dual analog sticks, touch screen, cameras, and motion sensors. It also summarizes libraries, tools, and middleware to simplify development, including facial recognition, augmented reality, and location-based services. Graphics are rendered using tile-based deferred rendering to efficiently manage on-chip memory and hidden surface removal.
Parabolic antenna alignment system with Real-Time Angle Position FeedbackStevenPatrick17
Introduction
Parabolic antennas are a crucial component in many communication systems, including satellite communications, radio telescopes, and television broadcasting. Ensuring these antennas are properly aligned is vital for optimal performance and signal strength. A parabolic antenna alignment system, equipped with real-time angle position feedback and fault tracking, is designed to address this need. This document delves into the components, design, and implementation of such a system, highlighting its significance and applications.
Importance of Parabolic Antenna Alignment
The alignment of a parabolic antenna directly affects its performance. Even minor misalignments can lead to significant signal loss, which can degrade the quality of the received signal or cause communication failures. Proper alignment ensures that the antenna's focal point is accurately directed toward the signal source, maximizing the antenna's gain and efficiency. This precision is especially crucial in applications like satellite communications, where the antenna must track geostationary satellites with high accuracy.
Components of a Parabolic Antenna Alignment System
A parabolic antenna alignment system typically includes the following components:
Parabolic Dish: The primary reflector that collects and focuses incoming signals.
Feedhorn and Low Noise Block (LNB): Positioned at the dish's focal point to receive signals.
Stepper or Servo Motors: Adjust the azimuth (horizontal) and elevation (vertical) angles of the antenna.
Microcontroller (e.g., Arduino, Raspberry Pi): Processes sensor data and controls the motors.
Potentiometers: Provide feedback on the antenna's current angle positions.
Fault Detection Sensors: Monitor for potential faults such as cable discontinuities or LNB failures.
Control Software: Runs on the microcontroller, handling real-time processing and decision-making.
Real-Time Angle Position Feedback
Real-time feedback on the antenna's angle position is essential for maintaining precise alignment. This feedback is typically provided by potentiometers or rotary encoders, which continuously monitor the azimuth and elevation angles. The microcontroller reads this data and adjusts the motors accordingly to keep the antenna aligned with the signal source.
Fault Tracking in Antenna Alignment Systems
Fault tracking is vital for the reliability and performance of the antenna system. Common faults include cable discontinuities, LNB malfunctions, and motor failures. Sensors integrated into the system can detect these faults and either notify the user or initiate corrective actions automatically.
Design and Implementation
1. Parabolic Dish and Feedhorn
The parabolic dish is designed to reflect incoming signals to a focal point where the feedhorn and LNB are located. The dish's size and shape depend on the specific application and frequency range.
2. Motors and Position Control
Stepper motors or servo motors are used to control the azimuth and elevation of
I am an accomplished and driven administrative management professional with a proven track record of supporting senior executives and managing administrative teams. I am skilled in strategic planning, project management, and organizational development, and have extensive experience in improving processes, enhancing productivity, and implementing solutions to support business objectives and growth.
2. Game Context (2015-2021)
• Genre: Action Combat MMO for PC - PvP centric
• Designer Data entered into Google Sheets and exported into
Unity Asset files
• Visual scripting language for NPC and player powers
• Template based item system (all items were “snowflakes”)
• 3rd person Action Combat
Crowfall
3. Crowfall: Classes
Class Design
• Designed 10 out of 11 of the base classes
• Designed and implemented hundreds of player
powers across the 11 base classes
• Each class started with a google sheet drawing laying
out the core powers and the key effects of each, ie this
one is a bleed, this one is a stun
4. Crowfall: Class Talents
Talent Trees
• Designed and implemented hundreds of talent nodes across the
11 base classes
• Each class had a talent tree with 3 dedicated promotion classes
• Each Promotion class was mutually exclusive with others
• Added lore snippets to nodes in order to help sell story of the
world
5. Crowfall: Statistics
Player Stats
• Designed over 600 stats between all game systems
(combat, harvesting, crafting)
• Derived statistical model (Parent stats influenced
multiple children stats)
• As linear as possible statistic growth to provide as level
a playing field in PvP as possible
6. Crowfall: Racial Powers
Races
• Designed and Implemented passive and active powers for 12
races ranging from 6-8 per race
• Each race needed to feel very different, so powers were
extremely impactful from double jumping and glide to extra
discipline slots or invisibility while standing still
• Tuned statistical attribute variations between races so that
elves were smart but weak whereas half-giants were strong but
dumb
7. Crowfall: Powers Tool
Powers Tool
• Designed visual scripting language and tool for use with implementing
Player Powers that was ultimately used to implement over 1500 NPC and
player powers
• Hundreds of logic options within each power to handle various use cases
from simple Buffs to complicated Proc Effects
• Powers had to execute instantly on client for smooth gameplay, yet be
verified on the server such that players could not cheat game rules
8. Crowfall: Harvesting
Harvesting
• Designed and implemented harvesting core “action harvesting”
minigame (reused combat system mechanics)
• Designed “Weak Spot” feature (use reticle to aim at randomly
placed target on resource node)
• Implemented “Group” harvesting for team-based harvesting
• Itemized thousands of rows of treasure table data
10. Crowfall: Crafting
Crafting
• Designed crafting system with many goals in mind;
• Have as few recipes in players recipe book with as many
possible product outcomes as possible
• Allow player freedom to determine stats
• Allow players to risk outcome stats and decrease the risk
via profession progression
• Attempt to capture the allure of Star Wars Galaxies
crafting system
• Implemented over 895 recipes with over 6062 potential
outcomes (based on resource inputs players could change the
outcome product)
11. Crowfall: Crafting Experiment
Experimentation
• Players could earn experimentation points through item and
discipline progression, which allowed them to allocate to stats
on the items
• Post point allocation the player would press run experiment and
each Pip would roll on skill vs difficulty and grant a result, the
higher the result the more stats granted per pip
12. Crowfall: Team Documentation
Documentation
• Wrote hundreds of GDDs for game features
• Using simple visualization programs, documented how
systems worked for other designers and engineers to
understand
13. Crowfall: Systems Calculators
Documentation
• Created many Excel Calculators to simulate game
systems to validate the content outside the game
(Combat Formula Calculator shown below)
14. Crowfall: Face of the Game
YouTube and Twitch Engagement
• Represented the company and title at all opportunities
• Monthly Twitch/YouTube Q+A series for over 5 years
• Periodic Development videos
• Trips to foreign countries
15. Crowfall: Holiday Events
Holiday Events
• Designed and implemented Crowmas, Valkyntines
Day, and The Great Hunt events
• Leveraged existing game systems, mainly crafting and
harvesting systems to buy items from event vendors
• Event vendors required alternate currencies that sold
limited event items arranged in Pixel Art layout
16. 5 Dragons
Game Context (2014)
• Genre: Async multi player Card Battler RPG for IoS
• Data entered into Goggle Sheets and exported into Unity Asset
files
• No designer scripting
17. 5 Dragons: Combat Tutorial
Combat Tutorial Design
• Attempted to simplify complicated card rotation
mechanic
• Cards represented current move and next move
• Class abilities and consumable tokens layered in
18. 5 Dragons: Progression
Player Stats
• Designed to directly modify the values of the cards in combat
• Had to be as simple as possible yet have a variety of stats for
itemization needs
Ability Design
• Players could spend CHI points in combat to use a Buff or Curse ability
• Abilities designed to be more interesting than +- values to stats
Itemization
• Designed to directly modify the values of the cards in combat, except
for amulets which granted temporary tokens when specific cards were
used
19. 5 Dragons: World Design
World
• Broken into multiple continents with multiple scenes per continent
• NPC level was based on how linear progression based on player level
• Repeatable dungeons provided player XP and items
Navigation
• Different encounters and actions could be had via tapping on a node;
rest, travel, story, combat
Story
• Wrote dialogue with a tone of silly and kung-fu tropes
20. 5 Dragons: Metrics
Dropout Metrics
• Implemented hooks in combat tutorial, and globally in order to identify
where players were dropping out of the funnel
• Smoothed out drop off points to show measurable improvement
between versions
21. Game Context (2013)
• Genre: Mobile arcade project developed in Unity Engine
• Demo Title – not on public store
• Data hard coded into objects
• Script in C#
Mobile Project: Moon Master 2013
22. Mobile Project: Moon Master 2013
Arcade Style
• Based on Atari 1979 Lunar Lander Arcade Machine
• Implemented all game code and 10 levels to master
• Levels balanced around rewarding players fuel for landing
on platforms, run out of fuel and ship explodes
Mobile Specific Code
• Implemented virtual joystick
• Exported to Windows Based Android device (Nexus 7)
Assets
• Used free assets available from variety of internet sources
• Primarily 3D assets with Unity default UI
23. Game Context (2013)
• Genre: Mobile Star Wars RPG for IoS using Adobe AIR
• Unlaunched Title
• Data entered into Goggle Documents, exported into proprietary
game assets
• Script in Lua
• Reference based item system
Mobile: Unannounced Star Wars Title
24. Mobile: Unannounced Star Wars
Title
Player Characters
• Designed 20 Star Wars character's complete ability packages
• Implemented Han Solo, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker,
Chewbacca, R2-D2, and Bobba Fett abilities
• Created synergy amongst characters via abilities
NPC Characters
• Designed 10 iconic Star Wars Villain character's ability
packages
• Implemented variety of Tusken raiders to use as grunts, mini
bosses and bosses for Tatooine content
Itemization
• Designed and implemented variety of items to be equipped
by the Hero characters
Documentation
• Documented all systems within game
• Created “how-to” guides on how to implement abilities,
status effects, characters, and use export tools
25. Game Context (2012)
• Genre: Facebook Social-Casual MMO targeted at 35-50 year old
female demographic
• Designer Data entered in “excel like” adobe Flash system bolted
on top of a template back-end
• Script in Lua
• Template based item system
Facebook: DragonTown
26. Facebook: DragonTown
Core Game Loops
• Designed Core Game Loops
Character Professions
• Designed and implemented the following professions:
Farming, Mining, Lumberjacking, Woodworking, Smithing,
Cooking
• Designed and implemented all time-reengagement
activities
Crafting System
• Designed and implemented all crafting progression and
recipes
Quest Content
• Designed content path based on crafting profession
progression
• Implemented 350 hours (based on crafting/harvesting
times) of quest content
Virality
• Designed all viral post opportunities: quest completions,
crafting completions, dragon growth stage completions,
and boss kills
• Designed and implemented viral crafting requirements to
complete recipes
Analytics
• Used analytics to optimize player quests
• Removed or modified quests where more than 1% of
players fell out of game
Crop Level Time (hours) Cost Cash Delta Seconds Cash per second
Dragonberry 1 0.08 25 30 5 300 0.016666667
Corn 2 0.5 30 40 10 1800 0.005555556
Sugarcane 3 4 35 95 60 14400 0.004166667
Wheat 4 1 45 60 15 3600 0.004166667
Cotton 5 2 50 80 30 7200 0.004166667
Cocoa 6 3 55 100 45 10800 0.004166667
Potato 7 6 60 150 90 21600 0.004166667
Soybean 8 8 65 185 120 28800 0.004166667
Tomato 9 12 70 200 130 43200 0.003009259
Jalepeno 10 14 75 230 155 50400 0.003075397
Strawberry 11 16 80 255 175 57600 0.003038194
Oat 12 18 85 280 195 64800 0.003009259
Cabbage 13 20 90 310 220 72000 0.003055556
Rice 14 24 95 355 260 86400 0.003009259
Grapefruit 15 36 100 500 400 129600 0.00308642
Farming Data
Cash per Second goal values
1-8 hours .004
8+ hours .003
27. Facebook: DragonTown
Profession Experience
• Different curves based on profession type
• Customized based on length of time to perform content
and energy usage
Knobs Harvesting Cooking Level Harvesting Cooking
xpBase 90 30 2 quest driven quest driven
newbie var 1.22 1.05 3 quest driven quest driven
variable 1.22 1.075 4 90 30
medium var 1.15 1.1 5 200 62
advanced var 1.08 1.15 6 334 95
7 497 130
8 696 170
Formula 9 939 213
10 1236 259
11 1598 308
12 2040 361
13 2436 427
14 2891 500
15 3415 580
16 4017 668
17 4710 765
18 5507 872
19 6423 989
20 7027 1167
21 7679 1372
22 8383 1608
23 9144 1879
24 9966 2191
25 10853 2550
26 11811 2963
27 12846 3437
28 13964 3983
29 15171 4610
30 16475 5332
xpBase+(previousLevel*knobVariable)
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43
XP
Value
Level
Profession XP Curves
Harvesting XP
Cooking Xp
28. Game Context (2011)
• Genre: Facebook Social-Casual Isometric Vineyard Builder
targeted at 35-50 year old female demographic
• Designers entered data into a single Excel sheet which then
exported to web file
• Script in Lua
• Template based item system
Facebook: My Vineyard
29. Facebook: My Vineyard Live
Veteran Reward System
• Designed system
• The longer players played, the more Veteran Points
they earned which could be spent on special items in
veteran’s catalog
Secondary Fermenting System
• Designed system
• Extends length of time it takes to ferment wine
• Enabled players to earn higher score on wine barrels
Extended Player levels
• Extended XP curve for 10 additional levels
Analytics
• Used Analytics to optimize prices of game decorations
30. DC Universe Online
Game Context (2007-2010)
• Genre: Action Combat MMO for Console and PC
• Designer Data entered into database integrated into Unreal 3
• No designer scripting
• Kismet and Matinee removed from Unreal, later added back piecemeal
as custom encounter tool and “cool cam” system
• Referenced based item system
• 3rd person action combat
31. DC Universe Online
Player Stats
• Designed with console players in mind
• Skill with controller had to matter
• As linear as possible statistic growth
• Non derived statistical model
Itemization
• Designed stats amount from items to make up 20% of
character total power
• Compelling item appearance collection mechanic
• Implemented many of the more complicated “fun
items” (trinkets that player clicked for buffs or form
changes)
Experience
• Designed “time to level” around console players
• Quick to max level (weeks instead of months)
32. DCUO: Trait Trees
Traits System
• Allowed players to customize character by spending Power Points in 2
power type trees and a generic Iconic power tree
• All load out combat abilities originated in the trait trees
• Allowed players to spend a different pool of Skill Points on movement
mode abilities
• Implemented the following trait power trees and abilities contained
within: Fire-Immolation, Ice-Cryogenics, Mental-Illusion, Nature-
Shapeshifting, Sorcery-Summoning, Gadgets-Traps
• Implemented random powers in Iconic powers tree
• Implemented random powers in movement mode trees.
33. Player Supers Constants
Base Finisher Damage 80
Power Cost 1000 Base Ability Cost 200
Projectile (1 or 0) 0 Dmg per Power 0.4
Ranged Autohit (1 or 0) 0 Ranged Projectile 0.8572
AOE (1 or 0) 0 Ranged Autohit 0.75
Cone (1 or 0) 0 AOE 0.66
Stun in seconds 0 Cone 0.75
Knockdown (1 or 0) 0 1sec Stun = dmg 16
Stat per 5% per sec 0 Stun Effect Ratio (1sec) 0.2
Snare 50% (sec) 0 Knockdown = dmg 24
Suppression (sec) 0 Knockdown Effect Ratio 0.3
Root (sec) 0 Snare 50% = dmg 3.2
Mez (sec) 0 Snare Effect Ratio (1sec) 0.04
Encase (sec) 0 Suppression = dmg 8
%DoT Damage (Max 100) 100 Suppression Effect Ratio 0.1
DoT duration (sec) 12 Root = dmg 6.6672
DoT Ticks per second 1 Root Effect Ratio 0.08334
(unused) Cast Time (sec) 0 1sec Encase (no immunity) 14.024
0 Encase NO immunity Ratio 0.1753
+Break Damage Threshold 0 Stat Mod = dmg 0.32
Stat mod per 5% (1 sec) 0.004
Damage 0 Mez = dmg 10.08
DoT Damage per Tick 53.33 Mez Effect Ratio (1 sec) 0.126
Mez break ratio 0.32
Root break ratio 0.65
DoT Dmg Bonus 0.05
Charge/Cast Time Bonus per sec 0
Max root time 12
Max mez time 8
Max suppress time 10
DPS to Finisher Ratio NA
Basic DPS 80
Variance (Finisher Damage) Min Max
Tight (10%) 0 0 Ice, Earth, Mental
Tight/Mid (15%) 0 0 Dual pistols, Dual Wield, Melee, Thrown
Mid (20%) 0 0 Light, Bow, Ring, Atomic
Wide (40%) 0 0 Fire, Electric, Two handed
Variance (DoT Tick) Min Max
Tight (10%) 48 58.66666667 Ice, Earth, Mental
Tight/Mid (15%) 45.3333333 61.33333333 Dual pistols, Dual Wield, Melee, Thrown
Mid (20%) 42.6666667 64 Light, Bow, Ring, Atomic
Wide (40%) 32 74.66666667 Fire, Electric, Two handed
Variance (Basic Attacks) Min Max
Tight (10%) 0 0 Ice, Earth, Mental
Tight/Mid (15%) 0 0 Dual pistols, Dual Wield, Melee, Thrown
Mid (20%) 0 0 Light, Bow, Ring, Atomic
Wide (40%) 0 0 Fire, Electric, Two handed
Ability Damage Calculator
• Implemented calculator which ensures all
NPC and player powers in game are
relatively balanced from a damage
perspective, based on the game effects
contained within the power
DCUO: Combat Abilities
34. Movement Challenges
• Designed and implemented system core
• Implemented and established course style baselines
for first 5 races for each of the 3 movement modes
• Players could only see challenges for their specific
movement mode
• Variable reward times were implemented to ensure
replayability (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum)
Unique Courses for Different Movement modes
• Made use off all city surfaces: the ground, the sides of
buildings, and the skyline to give each movement
mode a different “feel”
• Implemented form changes of different modes to let
players experience other movement styles than their
own
Group Movement Courses
• Implemented courses which would form change all
players into the same movement mode to challenge
each other head-to-head
DCUO: Movement Challenges
35. DCUO: Legends PvP
Legends PvP
• “King of the Hill” and “Capture and Hold” map modes
• Designed and Implemented all Legends characters abilities,
movement modes, weapon combos and, formchanges for the
following characters: Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Huntress, The Joker,
Arkham Asylum Joker, Nightwing, Robin, Two-Face, Batman, Future-
Batman
• Certain character team ups had hidden passive bonuses such as
Batman and Robin, The Joker and Harley Quinn
• Implemented victory and loss rewards as well as a daily reward for
first win of the day
• Allowed players to fulfill the fantasy of playing iconic DC characters in
a limited way so as not to have a persistent world filled with players
all playing as Batman
36. Star Wars Galaxies
Game Context (2003-2007)
• Genre: Sandbox MMO
• Designer Data entered into Excel, and exported into flat files
• Java Script language
• Template based item system (all items were “snowflakes”)
• Most servers had on average 15 million unique items
• 1 year expansion cycles
• No Designer tools beyond TextPad and Excel, all systems and
content implementation required advanced scripting skills
• 3rd person tab target traditional MMO combat
37. Star Wars Galaxies Live
Character Builder Terminal
• Known to the community as “Blue Frogs”
• Scripted tool to assist developers and later players to
test new content
• Prior to creation developers had to write and maintain
custom scripts to perform any of these tasks:
Any item in game could be added to terminal;
weapons, armor, cash, vehicles
Auto level characters
Add buffs to characters
• Utilized asset that Art department had created but
never used in game, making it highly visible if one of
these ever made it to a Live server
• Saved Developers, QA, and Test Server players
thousands of hours of time over the course of the
project
38. Star Wars Galaxies Live
Jedi Lightsaber Revamp
• Lightsabers became a slotted container
• Color Crystals, Force Crystals and Krayt Pearls could be placed inside
the saber hilt which determined color of blade and increased the
damage range
• Elemental Damage type based on color of color crystal
• Enabled the Jedi players to have a progression path for their saber
style of choice
No Trade System
• Items with No Trade script attached could not be traded to other
players or placed in others houses
• No Trade items turned containers they were placed into No Trade
while they had a No Trade item contained inside
• Enabled developers to make new content that ensured the player
had performed previous steps by looking for the presence of specific
No Trade items in the player's inventory
39. SWG: Jump to Lightspeed
Combat Upgrade - Combat Function
• Assisted in reducing combat actions script from 32,000+ lines of
code to under 1500 lines through using a single combat function that
took parameters from a data table rather than a unique function per
ability
• Converted old player abilities from script functions to excel
• Vastly sped up implementation of new combat abilities
Combat Upgrade - Armor Reclassification
• Classified armor into three types: Battle, Recon, Assault
• Classes were linked to specific armor types
• Armors had three levels of protection: Basic, Standard, Advanced
• Armor has inherent hindrances: movement speed, rate of fire, and
accuracy
• Hindrances can be reduced and cancelled out by Mitigation, which
are granted in elite combat skill boxes
• At master elite skill boxes, all hindrances for Advanced armor should
be completely mitigated
• Encouraged players to master skill trees
Combat Upgrade - Combat Levels
• Added combat levels from 1-80 based on total number of skill boxes
acquired
• Scripted a new con system for NPC’s Gray, Green, Blue, White,
Yellow, Red, Purple. Gray cons were considered trivial and purple is
"Instant Death"
• Prior to combat levels the players had no idea how difficult a NPC
combat would be
40. SWG: Rage of the Wookiees
Buff System
• Scripted system where multiple status effects could be grouped into
a single component called a Buff
• Buffs could be implemented in a single data table
• Buffs were visible to the player via icons
Multi-passenger Vehicle System
• All vehicles that looked like multiple people could sit in them gained
the functionality
• Players could /offerride /acceptride /declineride
• Implemented vehicle color customization kits
41. SWG: The Total Experience
Item System Rewrite
• Scripted a system that generated “static items”
• Static items behaved like referenced items in that they would update
data when they were loaded from database
• Enabled team to implement items in data tables rather than
templates
• Enabled team to alter item stats without attaching cleanup scripts to
items
• Items gained multiple new properties including: buffs, level
requirements, factional requirements, skill mods, statistic modifiers,
and set bonuses
• Implementing an item became a task of minutes rather than hours
42. SWG: Trials of Obi-Wan
New Game Enhancement Profession Conversion
• Data and script work to convert 35 professions into 9 iconic Star
Wars classes
• Removed any profession that didn’t fit into the new iconic 9
• Collapsed multiple professions into single iconic class
• Made character identity more accessible to players
43. SWG: Complete Online Adventures
Expertise System
• Designed framework for Expertise system
• Each class would get points as they leveled, points could be spent in
expertise boxes for additional abilities
• Players would not have enough points to purchase everything
• Each of the 9 classes would get 2 separate expertise trees
• Gave players customization within their class
Jedi Expertise Tree
• Implemented all Jedi expertise trees
• Path tree had a Lightsaber path (melee) and a Force Lightning (ranged)
path fitting the different Jedi/Sith fantasies
• Generic General Tree for force iconic Jedi abilities such as Force Run,
Saber Block
• Points were balanced such that Jedi could pick up 1 complete path and
some general skills
44. Beast Master Expertise
• Wrote Design Documentation for entire system
• Players could spend points in Beast Master Expertise tree granting them
ability to craft and use pets in combat
• Points spent in Beast Master expertise tree used the same pool of points
that were required in the class expertise trees
• Beast crafting was not a prerequisite to using beasts in combat
Beast Master Incubator
• Scripted the Beast Incubator
• Limited to one incubator per character, one use per real life day
• Energy harvested in the world was required to power the device
Beast Master Beast Crafting
• Temperature gauge to determine colorization, and armor and damage
potentials
• 4 different kinds of enzymes from different vectors(looted, crafted,
harvested) to determine attributes, skills, mutation levels
• Better quality enzymes yielded more points to distribute on attributes
• Enzymes could be customized towards higher stat value or higher
mutation chance to produce rare creatures such as Rancor or Acklay
• Awarded Patent (US 8241099) “Generating Custom Creatures”
SWG: Complete Online Adventures
46. Entertainer “Build a Buff” System
• Designed social interaction system between the Entertainer players
and the combat players
• Assisted in scripting and implementing system
• Players would visit an Entertainer in a Cantina and watch them
perform for 3 minutes
• Entertainer would construct a custom buff package which would be
applied as a single buff at end of session
• Hugely popular with the Entertainer players as well as Combat players
• Awarded Patent (US 8764554) “Customized Enhancement System”
SWG: Complete Online Adventures
47. Holiday Systems
• Designed initial system and later expanded system
• Initially a yearly gift system where rewards were placed into players
inventory upon login near the holiday
• System expanded to player performing varies content activities
generates tokens
• Tokens could be exchanged for rewards at holiday vendors
Lifeday (Christmas)
• Yearly gifts
• Special music around band at event hub
• Specialty buff items from vendors (Hoth Chocolate, Wookiee Cookies)
• Opening Lifeday presents would spawn a massive Wroshyr tree for 2
minutes at that location
Ewok Festival of Love
• Special crafting recipes
• Chocolate fountain with Ewoks surrounding it
• Flower bouquet granted from Chief Chirpa if you say in spatial chat to
him “allayloo Ta Nuv” (celebrate the love)
SWG: Complete Online Adventures
48. Fan Events
FanFest – 2004-2005-2006 SOE Fan Faire 2007-2008-2010
• Yearly event
• Sent to represent Galaxies / DCUO Teams (Voice of the Product)
• Expose upcoming features to fans
• Take feedback on existing game features
• Sit on Developer Panels to take questions about specific systems
• Entertain fans
49. EverQuest
Game Context (2001-2003)
• Genre: Sandbox-Themepark Hybrid MMO
• Designer Data entered into Database via Access frontend
• Primitive, proprietary custom scripting system
• Constrained to 100 lines per script
• Basic Script functions
• Referenced based item system
• 1 year expansion cycles
• Internet at the time limited size of live updates; mainly bug
fixing, and small content/systems that did not require new
assets to be patched
• 3rd person tab target traditional MMO combat
50. EverQuest Live
“Crown of Deceit” Questline
• First content implemented as a designer
• Multi week quest, gated mainly by faction grind
• Reward enabled large races to play as medium size
race, which made game movement and collision much
more pleasant
• Reward enabled night blind races to have best version
of night vision
• Extremely popular item
Enhanced Rogue Poison System
• First system revamp as a designer
• Poison crafting created a clickable inventory buff item
which placed a buff on players
• Poisons were mainly forms of Damage Procs, with
some utility like stuns and roots
51. EverQuest: Planes of Power
Launch Date (2002)
Cooking and Armorsmithing Crafting Recipes
• Over 300 crafting recipes
Tradeskill Epic Questline “Aid Grimel”
• Required players to have max skill level in all 7 crafting professions
• Required months of player crafting and raiding to acquire components
• Reward Signets were so sought after non crafters took up crafting
professions
Round Robin Reward Mechanic
• Rewards could be turned in to same NPC infinitely for the reward
player wanted (item a-> item b -> item c-> item d ->item a)
Armor Token System
• NPC’s dropped generic token for cloth, leather, chain, plate
• Tokens were turned in for class specific armor
• Less powerful armor tokens added for raiders to sell to less powerful
guilds
• Required player crafted components in addition to raid drops and NPC
purchased items to complete
• Created a Loop of Kill Raid Boss –> Seek Crafter -> Economy Sink
52. EverQuest: Legacy of Ykesha
Launch Date (2003)
Added all NPC creature base population to zones
• Gulf of Gunthak, Crypt of Nadox, Dulak’s Harbor
Cartography System
• Provided design specifications for map system
• Made maps for popular zones
Class Based Challenges
• Prototyped with Shaman class
• Only possible because designers gained ability to call scripts from
scripts
• Shaman had to survive by healing themselves in a ring for 2 minutes
while being attacked by 3 NPCs, with zero outside help
• Needed to maintain NPCs positions or shaman would be pushed too
far, causing spell casting to fail the “channeling” check
• Feature was cut due to inability to make a custom mini game for
every class in time (first 6-month EverQuest expansion)