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Inspired by the unconventional, I design games that keep even the most experienced players guessing and grinning.
Inspired by the unconventional, I design games that keep even the most experienced players guessing and grinning.
Conked Out
Conked Out
2024 - present
2024 - present
Wandless wizards must duel with conkers! Cerebral and reactionary gameplay collide as you swing through a spoof fantasy world of absurd characters and ridiculous horse chestnut puns. A comedic physics-based roguelike deck-builder twist on the British playground classic.
Role and contributions:
Role and contributions:
Lead Designer - designed and balanced core concept, mechanics, and gameplay
Lead team meetings and manage the task-board as scrum master, ensuring agile workflow practices
Responsible for research and documentation, including both living lean and bible-format GDDs
Provide direction and hands-on support for art, narrative, and programming tasks
Key learning:
Key learning:
Balancing gameplay to appeal to different 'player types' whilst maintaining the design spark that makes a game special requires constant player feedback and a willingness to kill your darlings.
Conked Out: additional information
Conked Out: additional information
Conked Out artists who have authorised their work to be used on this website:Â
Conked Out artists who have authorised their work to be used on this website:Â
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Development of Conked Out is supported by the Falmouth University Incubator / Launchpad scheme which provides space and resources for our small indie studio of 5 to work in a professional environment. There is no contracted obligation for my involvement, but I thoroughly enjoy working on the project as part of a likeminded team. We are currently finalising our MVP before pitching to publishers and discussing sponsorship agreements with the National Trust and Historic England.
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I pride myself on a T-shaped approach to game design. Having a background in both the arts and sciences, I can appreciate the workflow and requirements of programmers, writers, and artists. This cross-disciplinary insight allows me to aid and communicate effectively with any team member and make design decisions closely informed by scope.
Screenshot of Conked Out's task board - managed with sprints, card priority, and scoped via planning poker
Screenshot of Conked Out's task board - managed with sprints, card priority, and scoped via planning poker
Split Polarity
Split Polarity
2022 - 2023
2022 - 2023
Blending the ball-navigated maze toys of childhood with a legally dangerous dose of shoddy science, two players compete by manipulating quantumly questionable mazes to guide atoms into various temporal anomalies... For science! A 2-player party game.
Bohemian Brilliance Award - Games Academy Expo 2023
Bohemian Brilliance Award - Games Academy Expo 2023
'Experimental, innovative design and masterful mechanics.'
Role and contributions:
Role and contributions:
Lead Designer - designed and balanced core concept, mechanics, and gameplay
Led team meetings and managed the task-board as scrum master, ensuring agile workflow practices
Responsible for research and documentation, including both living lean and bible-format GDDs
Licencing agreements and publisher communication
Key learning:
Key learning:
Engagement can be quickly attained through designing around a simple, familiar concept like a ubiquitous toy and then maintained by subverting expectations with a fresh mechanical twist to challenge prerequisite knowledge.
Game Design - Theory
Game Design - Theory
My work exploring the psychology of game design; origins, impacts, and opportunities
My work exploring the psychology of game design; origins, impacts, and opportunities
Balution - The uplifting problem management solution
Balution - The uplifting problem management solution
I created an interactive visual tool to aid problem management in commercial settings.
'Balution' is informed by contextual research into gamification and problem management as well as first-hand experiences with the shortcomings of agile teamwork.
I learned how gamification is a valuable asset for project managers tackling problem management in a commercial setting and produced a product that I could take forward to the management software market.
Visuospatial processing and biological sex - inclusive game design
Visuospatial processing and biological sex - inclusive game design
I explored the possibility of biological differences impacting performance in video games as visuospatial tasks
My research uncovered that longstanding cultural stigmas are likely to blame, and designing inclusive games requires a larger responsibility to address them alongside existing differences
I uncovered a key indicator for how a diverse workforce improves game design.
How Kingdom: New Lands depicts humanity's struggle against mortality - a case study on subtle design
How Kingdom: New Lands depicts humanity's struggle against mortality - a case study on subtle design
I explored how mechanical and audio-visual elements of game design establish themes and narrative.
Art style, sound design, control schemes, and routines all contribute towards the semantic field of a game.
I learned that input schemes, task length, and mechanical complexity can be closely intertwined with explicit narrative and environmental storytelling and should be considered when creating emotive experiences.
Additional projects
Additional projects
Exploit flashes of truth to bend reality as you Don the armour of Quixote, stumbling down a buried world of forgotten fantastical folly. A project I helped concept and design.
Exploit flashes of truth to bend reality as you Don the armour of Quixote, stumbling down a buried world of forgotten fantastical folly. A project I helped concept and design.
I created an example GDD Bible to outline and represent a development aid for an original videogame IP.
I created an example GDD Bible to outline and represent a development aid for an original videogame IP.
Some of my earlier work, Vigil is a short narrative game set in a future where pockets of spacefaring societies rely on mysterious planets made entirely of yolk.
Some of my earlier work, Vigil is a short narrative game set in a future where pockets of spacefaring societies rely on mysterious planets made entirely of yolk.
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