About Me

I am a game designer who began creating as a member of the mod community. Later, I completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees at DePaul University where I studied Technical Art and Game Design. I also love to create games and teach students about interactive media, user experience, user interactions, animation, game design, environment art, and programming.

These projects showcase my technical and artistic skills and some examples of work I use to teach. Thanks for visiting.

Good Bear (Unity)

Good Bear is a game I created independently for PC as part of my graduate thesis at DePaul. Later, I continued working on the game and released it on PC and Mobile platforms. This required porting a game designed for a keyboard and mouse to use touch screen hardware. I created new scripts, UI elements, menus, and a responsive codebase that automatically adapts the game's features to the system specifications (so I don't have to maintain multiple builds of the same game and can deploy updates more quickly). I created everything for this game, from menus, to buttons, to graphics, sounds, music, code, everything. I did get some valuable help from testers and incorporated this feedback into the game. The game was also submitted to IndieCade 2023. It took several years and is probably the most complete example of the skills in design that I have amassed over the years.

Download on Steam

Streets

itch.io page

Streets is the product of several years of work and the inspiration of a game jam hosted at DePaul. While I worked independently creating the game and publishing it, I worked closely with a DePaul student named Zachary Fintel, a student with Asperger's, to develop the dialog for the game. It was such a pleasure to work with Zach and I found later that Zach's dialog lent perhaps the most interesting dimension to the game by showcasing his unique perspective of trying to communicate with others and coexist in social system that is not perfectly adapted to his needs.

I created the models, art, menus, music, and all other aspects of the game apart from the engine and dialog system it utilizes. The game is playable and available for download below. The game showcases a system of cause and effect that changes aspects of the environment based on player choices. Player choices influence the course of events in the game and utilize different methods of communicating with the player in an indirect way, such as by changing media directed at the player or adjustment advertising messages in the game world. This game used the full set of art, coding, and design skills in my arsenal and was a pleasure to work on.

Famine Harvest

Famine Harvest os a game I helped create during my undergraduate degree in Animation. I worked as artist and animator for the games environments, character models, and other assets. I worked with a team of 5 DePaul students and served as producer in addition to my art role. The concept art and screenshots below showcase some of my work on the game. This game was a more traditional game experience, and I had less involvement with the coding and game design aspects.

Itch.io page

VR Experience

During graduate school, I worked on a team of 5 people to create an interactive VR demo. I created much of the concept art, most of the environment and animated elements for the game and also implemented them in Unity.

I also wrote some of the scripts for the in-game events and some of the code for controlling the character movements and incorporating the inverse kinematics. This game is more open-ended and is intended to utilize the HTC Vive to take advantage of the sensorial and immersive affordances the platform provides. I was heavily involved in the design and creation of this game but relied on a programmer co-lead for much of the game interactions and player motivating feedback.

itch.io page

HALLOWED MOD

Before studying at DePaul, I worked for many years as a level designer in the game modding community and this project is an opportunity to showcase that work while also taking advantage of skills I learned at DePaul in scripting and design that helped make the experiences more intuitive, engaging, and cinematic.

MODDB Page

Source 2

These game environments are include those which I have created with Source 2, Call of Duty, and Unity. For the Coutnerstrike and COD projects, I wanted to develop my skills creating game environments for a more structured and established game types. I have been releasing the Counterstrike maps for two years now which combine available assets, assets of my own creation, and original level layouts that harken back to CS 1.6 essentialism whereever possible.

Dalen

This map was my first CounterStrike map. It uses noteworthy landmarks, discernable themes and distinctive features to help orient the player and present interesting gameplay. I tried to incorporate things that I felt were not being utitlized in CS maps, such as moving and interactive elements and unexpected connection points through the map.

LakeHouse Environment

Lakehouse is a level design project I created to get familiar with the Call of Duty mod tools many years ago. I have also used it a couple times in level design classes to learn other editors (Unreal, Unity, etc.) and I have produced different variants for it for the Steam Workshop for Call of Duty Black Ops 3 and Counterstrike 2.

LAKEHOUSE - BO3 MAP

For the COD BO3 incarnation, player(s) defend a modernist home from waves of invading zombies. It utilizes assets provided in the game while incorporating some simple scripts that adjust player movement and AI behavior to navigate a changing game environment. I created the level over several years, initially developing it in an older version of the Call of Duty engine and porting it to the new editor.

STEAM COMMUNITY PAGE

LAKEHOUSE - CS2 MAP

This is a workshop map for CS2 that supports Wingman and Defuse Modes.

I created some custom deflatable pool floaties and also some basic minimalist furniture.

STEAM COMMUNITY PAGE

Temple

This video shows some gameplay of a hostage map I made for Counter-Strike 2.

The design originated from a multiplayer map layout for Doom 3. I later changed the map around into a single player map.

Years later, I used the layout for game environment demo I made in Unity for a level design class. This involved converting the exported BSP map data, remodeling it in Blender, and making it into a spooky temple/dungeon complete with skeletons and blended sand textures.

The more recent CS2 hostage rescue map opts for a brighter and more Quake 3 arena-esque aesthetic and uses materials from the Dust2 and Anubis.

STEAM COMMUNITY PAGE

Trailer Park

Counterstrike 2 map set in a post-apocalyptic enclave or doomsday cult. A series of interconnected trailers are meant to evoke an old west vibe and enable close quarters combat. I want the smaller SMG's and shotguns to feel powerful on this map, so there are tight chokepoints and small interiors.

Steam Workshop Page

Free Party

Counterstrike 2 map set in a French farm that is under construction. It is inspired by the free party scene and uses clear visual language, interesting engagement scenarios, and easy map rotations.

Steam Workshop Page

Greenwald

Counterstrike multiplayer map designed around several distinct points of interest to create a sense of place and scale while also providing good replayability.

Steam Workshop Page

An environment made in Unity using a combination of environmental assets and basic layout to create a small village environment. I created many of the models and materials shown, as well as the layout, lighting, camerawork, textures, models, and particles seen in this video. Other assets, such as barrels, signs, fences, foliage, and some of the textures in the terrain were repurposed from Unity asset packs.

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