It was a pleasure leading my team from concept all the way through to the approval of our x360, PS3, and Wii SKUs, as well as three DLC packages.  Our schedule was very tight.  From day one to alpha we had nine months, with another three to get the game through certification.  In that time, we created one of the biggest and best received console games the studio had ever built.  To achieve this, I developed and administered a new phase based content tracking and approval pipeline.  With this pipeline, we were able to maximize our iterations, improve communication, and massively reduce waste.   

While I’m proud of the pipelines I established, and it was fun working with my leads to smooth out the kinks, getting to work with Luke Skywalker really was the highlight for me!  Over the course of the production I was privileged to be the owner of all the voice over recording sessions.  I collaborated with Charlie Adler, our VO director and voice of Dr. Doom, to get some of the best comedic performances ever captured for a video game. 

Our cast was incredible.  We had Mark Hamill, George Takei, Jane Lynch, Tom Kenny, Charlie Adler, John O’Hurley, Tara Strong, Maurice LaMarche, and Jimmy Cummings, along with the rest of the show’s cast.  I also had the opportunity to make use of my filmmaking skills.  I wrote shot lists, storyboarded, and directed all of the cut scenes in the game.  Fans and reviewers frequently called out the story, and how it was told, as being one of the most memorable and entertaining aspects of the game.

Marvel Super Hero: The Infinity Gauntlet was a dream project.  My team was great, I got to be a panelist at the New York and Sand Diego Comic conventions, and I got to direct gobs of cutscenes!  Though our schedule was short and our crew was small, we shipped an award winning game on three platforms, on time, profitably, and we had fun doing it.

Credit: Producer
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii

On Where the Wild Things Are, I lead the team from pre-alpha through certification.  This title marked the studio’s first foray into the PS3, Wii, and X360.  To deliver on the potential of these new platforms intense effort from the engine and world art teams was required.  If that wasn’t enough, things got really challenging when we learned our publisher had folded.  At the time we were still pre-alpha.  This is when I took over all the production duties for the game. 

We had to get the game into sellable shape fast.  We targeted a sequence of levels and segments that would serve as our demo.  The demo drove our task lists and priorities.  In a matter of weeks we had our demo polished and ready to go on the road.  I toured California demoing the game to publishers, big and small.  All the while we continued closing out bugs and wrapping up outstanding tasks.  During this time we kept the game in a shippable state.  We never knew when a publisher would want to see a live demo or receive a build.  All of our hard work paid off.  The Wild Things finally found a home at WB Games. 

The team and I are proud of the game.  Despite challenging circumstances we created a fun game that kids and adults enjoy.   It captures the unique melancholy and humor of the Spike Jonze film and the Maurice Sendak book.

Credit: Producer
Platform: x360, PS3, wii

Flowplay’s goal for ourWorld.com was to create a safe environment where kids could express themselves and enjoy the most popular casual games on the web. To encourage kids to return to the site, we wrapped all the social interaction and casual games in a browser based, clientless MMO-RPG.

At the heart of the MMO experience is a powerful, highly customizable, patent pending avatar system that I co-invented. With it, players can truly express themselves. A limitless number of custom outfits can be created from the virtual cash and prizes players earn when playing games. When chatting with their friends, players can have their avatars jump with joy, do a dance, or any number of other gestures. Since no heavy download or client is required, all of the functionality is available instantly!

The robust avatar system and RPG gameplay helped Flowplay land a spot in the “Tech Crunch 40 2007″ conference and secure $3.7 million in funding from Intel Capital and Ambient Sound Investments. To date ourWorld has over a million users and is a key partner with casual game leaders like PopCap, Sandlot Games, Playfirst, and Miniclip.

Credits: Creative Director
Platform: Flash based MMO

Images Copyright Flowplay Inc. 2009

• Luxor
• Cake Mania
• 7 Wonders
• Feeding Frenzy
• The Apprentice

Bounce Out Blitz is the sequel to Bounce Out, one of the first download casual hits. As lead artist and UI designer, my primary challenge was to update the look of the game while staying true to the original.

At the time, GameHouse Studio was very leery of using 3d graphics and understandably so. Few games in the space made effective use of the tools, and what had been released so far looked amateurish. Despite the studio’s prejudice, I was convinced 3d could benefit the project. I did a series of test renders and the early results were promising. After a thorough round of shader and lighting tweaks, everyone was sold on the look. The 3d process yielded balls that were reminiscent of those in the original Bounce Out, but with a more tactile screen presence.

When Blitz debuted, it smashed all the release week sales records at Gamehouse.com. It went on to be one of the best selling titles of the year.

Credit: Lead Artist and Interaction Design
Platform: PC

Images Copyright RealNetworks 2006

Super Pool is a friendly, accessible simulation with realistic physics and six game modes. Simplicity was the guiding principle behind the design.

As lead artist and UI designer my goal was to minimize the number of clicks between the opening menu and the breaking shot. We achieved this by compressing the game play options to a single well organized screen and by carefully selecting the default settings. If you want to play single player 8 ball, you can be in the game in a single click!

Super Pool’s steamlined design and realtime 3d graphics set it apart from other casual pool games. It also served as the foundation for POGO.com’s own Hammer Head Pool.

Credits: Lead Artist and Interaction Design
Platform: PC

Images Copyright RealNetworks 2006

Luxor is a huge hit on platforms.  The mobile version I designed and produced hit the top ten on Verizon, and was a best seller worldwide.  Building Luxor for two hundred mobile handsets was a challenged that required a complete reconceptualization of many of the game’s fundamental systems.

Levels in the pc version are based on fixed full screen illustrations.  This approach was too memory intensive for mobile.  Using the fixed aspect ratio layouts was also problematic, as they would not work on the complete range of handsets we had to hit.  We adopted a memory efficient tile based system for illustrating the levels and introduced horizontal scrolling to get around aspect ratio issues.  Scrolling also added some depth and tension to Luxor’s already solid gameplay.  Together, the scrolling and tile system insured that the gameplay would remain consistent across hundreds of devices.

Credit: Producer, Designer
Platform: Mobile J2ME and Brew

Cake Mania is one of the biggest hits ever in the PC casual games market. It was an honor to bring such a well loved game to mobile. Cake Mania is an art heavy, mouse driven game. As such, every element required careful consideration as I redesigned it for mobile.

The controls were the single biggest risk. Several control schemes were tried, but we selected the initial “dumb grid” design. In this scheme, the cursor simply moves from cell to cell. There is no notion of jumping from hot spot to hot spot. It was intuitive, and with the inclusion of wrap around navigation, it scaled with the user as their skill level increased. In light of the new controls, necessary changes had to be made to game pacing and level balance. The bakery upgrading interface also had plenty of room for improvement. For the mobile version we found ways to streamline the interactions.

Cake Mania Mobile works well on the best and worst of handsets. The attention to detail and respect for the license paid off. Cake Mania has enjoyed great sales and reviews alike.

Credit: Producer, Designer
Platform: Mobile J2ME and Brew

Sprout Games’ Feeding Frenzy was amongst the first wave of hit PC casual games. Feeding Frenzy featured large pre-rendered 3d graphics, fluid screen motion, humorous sound design, and delicately balanced mouse controls. When the Real Networks mobile team scored the mobile rights it was quite a coup.

Preserving all the great art, sounds, and the signature feel of the controls was a challenge. It was these elements help the game to standout and were key to its success on PC. Alas, it was these very elements that were toughest to transition to mobile. File size restrictions limit graphic size. Playback delays and sound chip bugs hamper the aural experience. Poor industrial design and key latency hamstring game controls.

To cope, we were forced to do some extremely targeted editing. A few fish were cut from the roster to save on file size. The range in size a given fish could grow was reduced. We were able to keep the signature burps and gurgle sounds. Unfortunately only the top end handsets of the day could actually play them. After many rounds of iteration in close collaboration with Sprout Games we arrived at the variables needed to tune the controls and capture the unique feel of the PC version.

Credit: Producer, Designer
Platform: Mobile J2ME and Brew

A PC hit, 7 Wonders is a classic match three game polished to a high sheen. As we adapted the game for mobile we focused on preserving the game’s epic feel. To achieve this we re-imagined the graphics, accelerated the level progression, and invented new presentation elements.

Much of the file size of the PC game was devoted to renderings of the Wonders. We couldn’t cut the Wonders, but we could change the way they were shown. Backgrounds were simplified and replaced with code drawn elements to reduce file size. In the case of the levels, I designed all new layouts for the smaller grid. We also reduced the number and length of the levels to match the shorter play sessions of the mobile gamer. New to the presentation elements was the “scroll”, a transitional device that added a cinematic seamlessness to the experience.

Critics have said our treatment of 7 Wonders “…offers a master class in how to make an engaging, addictive and polished mobile puzzle game.”

Credit: Producer, Designer
Platform: Mobile J2ME and Brew