Curriculum Vitae
Welcome to my portfolio. My name is James, but feel free to call me Jim. I am a level and narrative designer living in the Greater Vancouver Area of British Columbia, Canada. Before games I spent more than 6 years…
Narrative treatment for Game Characters
Project: MythForce Engine: Unreal Editor 4 Character: Hawkins, the Ultimate Archer My role in creating Hawkins was to lead the team of three who prototyped, implemented, animated, and added visual polish to his abilities including a transparent shader. I worked with…
Research on Tomb Raider’s Third Person Camera
The Tomb Raider reboot from 2013 will always hold a special place in my heart. I frequently list it as one of the best examples of Open World design, but also one that captures the evocative potential of camera in…
Action Verbs for the Ultimate Archer
Project: MythForce Engine: Unreal Editor 4 Character: Hawkins, the Ultimate Archer Teamplay Archetype for Hawkins Ranged Initiator and Escape Expert These three player abilities are the most impactful verbs for Hawkins’ portrayal Design Intentions Hawkins uses strong bow weapon attacks, as…
Class-based upgrade systems
Project: MythForce Engine: Unreal Editor 4 Feature: Player Abilities For each of our twelve abilities, I designed and reached approval on three additional upgrades. These varied in scope, with the original intention that each upgrade must add a differentiator on the…
Mentoring at Vancouver Film School
Role: Mentor for student’s final projects Engine: Unity and Unreal Editor 4 When: Once a week over ~4 month period, from 2016-2019 Let’s focus on F.R.O.G., which is a VFS student project made in Unity. It is one of many games to…
Modding support for Tuning Packs
Project: Company of Heroes 3 Engine: Essence, a proprietary engine at Relic Feature: User Generated Content (UGC) It was just over a month until Launch day, and I discovered our public editor was missing features. There was little production team knowledge…
Ghosts n’ Goblins x Dead Rising 4
Project: Dead Rising 4 / CAPCOM Heroes Engine: Forge, a proprietary engine at CAPCOM Vancouver Character: Arthur costume from Ghosts n’ Goblins series Goblin Target Practice A variation on Shoot Targets archetype where five dangerous, evolved zombies must be hit once…
Nightingale
I contributed as a Senior Narrative Designer within the eight month period leading up to Early Access launch. The game is out now! More details to follow. Looking for something else?
Bleak Inlet
Project: The Long Dark / Survival Mode Engine: Unity 3D Timeline: In Fall 2019 for the Errant Pilgrim update My Role on Bleak Inlet — Open World Designer Level Design progression in Last Resort Cannery My initial mockups were completed…
Company of Heroes 3
Released: Spring 2023 From 2022 through 2023, I supported LiveOps features as a Technical Designer Limited Time Game Modes Playlists feature and data authoring Modding Tools, especially Tuning Packs Relic’s official Day 1 mod examples on Steam workshop Cosmetics and…
