A game designer needs to create games. Here are some of the videogames that I've worked on.

City of Heroes - Designer
At Paragon Studios, I worked on City of Heroes. I built new mission maps using new and existing assets, and helped guide the art team in creating new modular pieces for maps. I did design for the world zones, integrating new gameplay into old zones, such as adding in the Architect buildings, setting up Day Job volumes, creating and placing NPCs and encounters for Praetoria, designing, scripting, and building new zone events, and much much more. I tutored new recruits on the tools and was a constant resource for other designers on how the tools and systems worked.

The zone map I did for City of Heroes that got me hired.

Igor: The Game - Lead Designer
At Santa Cruz Games, I wrote the Game Design Document for Igor and did level design, asset list creation, interfaced with several external groups, worked with and built a small team, pitched the game to publishers and the owners of the IP, and kept this project within budget and under a strict deadline (5 months plus two weeks to write the GDD). Even when the release of the movie was changed to a month earlier, I was able to quickly excise parts of the game and still keep the core fun and functionality of the game. Oh, and we shipped on time.

Golden Axe (Xbox 360) - Level Designer, Design Specialist
On Golden Axe, I drafted level designs using Word, Maya, and paper. I got onto Golden Axe during an early development stage and was able to define many of the game systems. I came up with many of the subtle world interactions that would make Golden Axe a next-generation game. Early in the project I mentored and trained entry-level designers on tools and design fundamentals. Later in the project, I transitioned into a tools design and support role. I designed a GUI interface for level management in Maya and a plain-english scripting language called GLEE, which they used to ship the game.

Master Of Elements (PC UT2004 Mod) - Lead Designer
This started as a project for school. In Master Of Elements, each player starts as a elementless Cypher and collects elements to grow to a massive Elemental. The player can be one of eight different elementals each with differing abilities. The object of the game is to be the first player to build a Monolith and become a god.

Beta Demo (113MB, requires Unreal Tournament 2004)

Chronicles of Annor: Quest for the Crystal Shards (PC, Pocket PC, Linux) - Lead Designer
This is a personal project of mine. I have been leading a small team, doing most of the design work for it as well as all the art myself. It's a 2D game that borrows from the days of 16 bit action adventure games, but designed with touch screen interfaces in mind. That said, it controls unlike any action adventure game before it.

Demo Video:

Sarge's War (Gamecube) - Game Designer (3DO)
I was on this game for the early design work and level layout. While on it, I scripted and designed all three Helicopter Boss battles as well as the final boss battle. I also did general scripting and object placement for those levels. Here are some screenshots of sections I worked on and some video.

Trailer: Gameplay:

Portal Runner (PS2) - Game Designer (3DO)
On this game, I was in charge of designing and building all the multiplayer levels and built a few test level meshes. I also did the scripting and design work for a few single player levels as well. Near the end of the project, I was doing extensive game testing and bug regression. Here are some pictures and video of the sections I designed and worked on.

Level walkthrough:

Game Maps - Level Designer
These are a few level design maps I've created for various projects. The first is a Siberian Missile Silo for a survival horror team-based assault game. The second is a massive canyon city in ruins for the game Master of Elements. The third is a sample map I did in Photoshop as a concept for City of Heroes. The last one is a Spanish castle for the above-mentioned survival horror assault game.

One-man Projects - Artist/Designer/Programmer... everything but the audio
I love to make games. Not sure if that's been made clear, though. Here are some prototypes I made for fun.

Elemental is a falling sand platformer game I built in Python. The graphics are simple, but the underlying systems use physics and interactions between 64 elements to create dynamic gameplay. Click on the icons to check out the demo video. If you have a Pandora, you can download the game from the Pandora App Store.
Games Galore is a collection of various classic board games designed for a touch screen device with Shockwave. I spent three weeks designing, programming and animating it. I put lots of effort into the visual style here.
Jedi Duel is a 2 player Jedi fighting game prototype I designed, scripted and animated in Flash. I spent about seven days programming and animating it. This game is for two players on one fullsized keyboard.
Speeder is a one player arcade-style '3D' game loosely based on the speeder bike sequences in Return of the Jedi. This was my first program in QBasic, and took one and a half days to create. I wrote it in 1995.

A sample level design document: Ancient Treachery (PDF)

Here is some more level design I did in UT2004.

Telven of the Falls is a deathmatch level in a castle on a waterfall that I designed and laid out. I did all the modeling and texturing except for the Abbadon rock and Abbadon rock texture (those stony hills in the background). Why reinvent the wheel?

Here is a level I made in the Starcraft editor. Each player has a party of characters they use to fight through the indigenous monsters looking for the crystals scattered across the map. Each crystal grants the player carrying it unique additional powers. Individual party members will regenerate over time if destroyed. The first player to get all the crystals to the center area wins the game. Standard Starcraft or Broodwars.

Tabletop games are games where concept and gameplay is paramount. Here we have no fancy physics engines, no HDR lighting, only what you can fit on a page, in a box, or on a card.

Stone Tablet Games is an independent small games label I use to create and sell my own projects. I find it very helpful as a way to continuously improve my design skills. Following are several games I created or worked on for Stone Tablet Games.
Aspect - Lead Designer/Director/Artist (Stone Tablet Games) Aspect is the culmination of years of pen and paper design. A completely classless balanced game system (you define your combat roles by your stats, building a character is all about role/stat balancing) designed from the ground up to have limitless options for character tweaking and still be easy for players to pick up using character templates. Aspect has an easy to learn combat system that uses the same basic mechanics for physical, mental, and social combat - allowing you to play as a diplomat, sage, warrior, or anything you can dream of, and still contribute to the adventure in exciting ways. I wrote the 256 page core rulebook, which includes 16 player races, nearly 1000 unique powers, over 300 unique talents (used to define your 'class') and over 100 rituals, as well as 70 monsters, an indepth skill system, etc. Pick up a copy and join in on the open beta at Stone Tablet Games.
Aspect Starter Adventure - Lead Designer/Director/Artist (Stone Tablet Games) The Derriston Fire is an adventure for players new to Aspect. I designed the adventure, the 8 premade characters, drew art for the 33 standees included with the game, drew the maps for the adventure, designed the cover, and coordinated with the printing company to get it printed up nicely. The adventure showcases the flexibility of the Aspect system with both physical and social encounters, multiple paths, skill challenges, companion creatures, and a bevy of foes of the same race that all play a bit differently. The adventure teaches the GM running it how to run Aspect as they play through the game, includes one page of quick start rules for the players to use as reference, and has special rules that the specific characters care about included on their character sheets. I coordinated playtests for the adventure and gathered feedback that helped make the adventure really shine.
Dungeon Escape! - Lead Designer/Lead Artist/Director (Stone Tablet Games) Dungeon Escape! is the first game I created for Stone Tablet Games. The game idea came up as I was conceptualizing a way to create content procedurally for a 2D action adventure game. In Dungeon Escape!, the players create the dungeon as they play the game. It is an excellent casual boardgame for 2 to 6 players.
Dungeon Escape! Infest! - Lead Designer/Lead Artist/Director (Stone Tablet Games) Dungeon Escape!Infest! is the first expansion pack for Dungeon Escape!, nearly doubling the number of room tiles, adding a few new mechanics, and expanding the scenarios to include more flavor and add several new gameplay styles. Both the expansion and the original have been Stone Tablet Games' biggest sellers.
Acceptable Losses - Lead Designer/Lead Artist/Director (Stone Tablet Games) Acceptable Losses is a strategy board game of very intense strategic choices for 2 players. The game explores the concept of escalation in combat. If one player uses the massive Big Boy bomb on his opponent's pieces, it means that the opponent will have access to similarly gigantic attacks. The game explores the idea of what is an acceptable loss. If you take out 9 of your opponent's pieces and 3 of yours, is that acceptable? What about 2 of your opponent's pieces and 1 of yours?
The Ten Condiments - Lead Designer/Lead Artist/Director (Stone Tablet Games) The Ten Condiments is a card game about balancing your resources in hand (condiments) to maximize the amount of points you get for playing them on meals. The game has a unique card comboing mechanic and card drawing mechanic that makes you really think about your options, and allows you to plan ahead when it is not your turn (though you might be foiled when someone takes the meal you were planning to use!).
Monkey Business - Producer/Design Consultant (Stone Tablet Games) Monkey Business is a card game about developing products with monkeys. I ended up managing the production details for this one and consulting on design details to ensure a fun game every time.

The following projects are modifications of existing games, made for personal use, not for the purpose of selling for profit.

Swami: The Gathering - Lead Designer/Director (Personal Project)
There are 300 different cards I designed for Swami: The Gathering, a spoof of Magic: The Gathering. I did the graphics for all the icons and graphic design elements on all 300 cards, as well as the majority of the card art themselves. This is a sampling of some of my favorites. This never went on sale, but is a fun Christmats gift for friends and family. Who doesn't want to see their picture on an awesome Magic card?

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Game Design
Since I was a little kid, I have been a Dungeon Master for various incarnations of the D&D system. I have always been a fan of making my own character classes and game content, so here's some of the content I've created for my players. This stuff is now all outdated, we use Aspect exclusively for our gaming. The important concepts introduced here were all rolled into Aspect's Core Rulebook.