Extra Credits
Here's a list of work-related side projects
A Zynga + Coolgames collaboration, I contributed Game Design feedback for this Facebook Instant game. Charming! Play the game on Facebook!
Jumped into the wild world of Web3 and Blockchain gaming for a few months. Contributed to early Game Design pitches, systems, and documentation
Distinguished Game Designer (2021)
It's no monocle, but a pocket watch is a nice token to accompany the highest title for an individual contributor Game Designer at Zynga.
Daily Word Wheel (2020)
Contributed Design direction and feedback for this voice-controlled, touchscreen game on Google Nest Hub.
Plane Around (2019)
Just a little iOS side project our small team of 4 put together. The single tap control reverses the direction of your Plane.
I delivered this short presentation over Zoom to a group of USC students.
I gave this short presentation in a Capstone class at the University of Texas - Games and Mobile Media Applications as a representative from Zynga
Boggle With Developers - Personalized Boggle Puzzles (2018)
As a kind of parting farewell for the Boggle With Friends team, I created 24 personalized Daily Challenge puzzles for some of the developers who worked on the project (using the awesome Reverse Boggle Solver of course)
The proposed wording of the Challenge for this puzzle is:
😮*Definition* 😮 Find the *defined word* or score *300 points* - adjective, 4 letters: completely fascinated by what one is seeing or hearing. 🙀
The example puzzle at left also contains my first and last name, though being proper nouns makes them invalid. The table of all the puzzles is below, the link to the Personalized Puzzle Google Sheet is here.
Reverse Boggle Solver (2016)
In order to swiftly and efficiently create unique puzzles for the Daily Challenge in Boggle With Friends, I enlisted the help of Cody Sivek, a programmer on the team.
Together, we created a script that would accept keywords as input and output a 16-letter grid.
The project took some tuning, and still has limitations, but it made the job of creating over 500 Daily Challenge puzzles much easier and more fun!
Skill-based Gambling - Nevada Gaming Control Board (2015)
Pushing the skill-based gambling agenda meant talking with all sorts of groups of people in the casino industry: gamblers, dealers, operators, developers, manufacturers, compliance officers, and finally, legislators in the Nevada Gaming Control Board. I attended a few public hearings, representing both NanoTech Gaming Labs, and videogame Players.
The Las Vegas Review Journal covered these hearings at the NGCB and snapped two super-weird photos of me making super-weird hand gestures like, "If someone sneaks up behind you, pretend you're a tiger," and, "...even if you're the best videogame player on the planet, you still only have a tiny sliver of a chance to win."
Seriously though, it took a few emails from the lawmakers, monthly meetings with the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM), and public testimony like mine at hearings to help craft the language in Regulation 14 of the gambling statues.
It still bugs me that folks in that industry use the word 'gaming' in place of 'gambling'.
NanoTech Gaming Cards (2014)
I learned that rotational symmetry in playing cards is important in a gambling setting. This card back was created in Adobe Illustrator.
Boom Blox: Bash Party at Shine Week (2010)
I led three primary school groups in this hands-on presentation and workshop as a part of Britain's focus on children and creativity.
Visit the vimeo site for the article that accompanies the video.
Boom Blox Bash Party Online Database Search.pptx
Boom Blox: Bash Party - Capstone Project - Level Database Interface (2010)
It was serendipitous that my final computer science courses at California Lutheran University were a kind of overlap with the technology we were developing on Boom Blox: Bash Party.
There was a natural overlap between the game's online database of user-created levels, and the Database Management and Capstone Projects for the college.
I worked closely with my professor as well as the technology director at Electronic Arts and created three webpages and a simple set of queries into the SQL database whereby a user could search for levels based on upload date, number of downloads, or star rating.
A user could also search for Users based on their username, their uploaded levels, their average level rating, and total level plays.
STV_BBBP.mp4
Boom Blox: Bash Party - Pixel Art Portraits (2009)
Pixel art was one of the most popular sub-genres of user-generated content for Boom Blox and Boom Blox: Bash Party, and the development team did not want to miss the opportunity.
I created and uploaded destructible portraits of many team members and uploaded them to the online Level Database - Lou, Amir, and Elie - but I could only find video footage of my first Pixel Art level of my own face.
Boom Blox Employee Survey - Behavior in Organizations (2008)
At California Lutheran University, I was part of a small team that presented the results of an employee climate survey that was given to the Boom Blox team at Electronic Arts.
Read the entire Boom Blox Employee Climate Survey.
CLUSpeech.pptCalifornia Lutheran University - Game Design Presentation (2007)
To be honest, I had very little experience creating PowerPoint presentations, but I guess it was enough for the head of the Computer Science department.
MODTeamBlack.ppt
Medal Of Honor: Unreal 3 BlackMOD (2006)
Over the course of Memorial Day weekend in 2006, I lead the charge into the Unreal Editor with a small 9-member portion of the Medal Of Honor: Airborne team. Many members of our small team (including me) had no previous experience in the editor. The purpose of the weekend was to jump into the Unreal engine and bolster team morale at the same time.
When I joined the Airborne team, the game had been built upon the RenderWare Engine and technology, but the Engineering team was adamant that using Unreal technology was the better solution, that the game was doomed to fail otherwise.
A handful of ad-hoc teams were formed - mainly around Game Design leaders - and after the dust settled, our team had won the popular vote! We presented a post-mortem for the entire team; check it out here.
The simple explanation for the game was to make Missile Command with the Airborne assets. The C-47s and paratroopers were the targets, and the Player could switch between the 3 AA Gun sites by pressing a controller button.
We also learned that cleaner more readable Kismet was easier to follow than our initial spaghetti logic.
Special thanks for gameplay feedback in this first of its kind multiplayer Arcade shooter
Rush The Rock - Industry Flyer (1997)
Just a little marketing flyer I threw together for Rush The Rock
