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…
Leading the Player Abilities team
Project: MythForce Engine: Unreal Editor 4 Feature: Player Abilities After unexpected attrition on the design team, I was quickly offered a chance to lead the Player Abilities team towards a critical milestone. This lightweight group made excellent progress in these two…
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…
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…
Technical Gameplay and Level Design
I joined the team in mid-production, a bit over 6 months before this release candidate build.Initially, I audited project workflows and architecture; to improve consistency and advocate better for designer empowerment.
Beamdog
I worked on MythForce project as a Technical Designer starting on March 15th, 2021. There were a series of Release Candidate milestones leading up to the games’ Early Access release on April 20th on the Epic Game Store. In May…
Playing a Support role on the Design Team
Project: MythForce Engine: Unreal Editor 4 Timeline: Leading up to September 2021 Release Candidate I joined the team in mid-production, a bit over 6 months before this release candidate build.My initial task was to audit project workflows & architecture. Our goal…