Content Designer at Trion World Network
San Francisco Bay Area
Content Designer at Trion World Network
San Francisco Bay Area
Josh is a designer and producer of video games. His designs place an emphasis on gameplay that is fun and accessible for players with a broad range of skills and tastes. All he really wants is for you to be happy.
Knowing when it's time to come up with wild new ideas, and when it's time to hunker down and get things done. Also: AI, gameplay, balance, systems, tutorials, audio, sound effects, interface, controls, Nintendo Wii.
(Computer Games industry)
September 2008 — Present (1 year 3 months)
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)
October 2007 — September 2008 (1 year )
Designed, programmed, and tuned enemy AI, creating a broad range of characters to challenge and surprise the player.
Provided feedback and direction to programmers, animators, and artists, helping to maintain the creative vision of the game.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
December 2006 — August 2007 (9 months)
Prototyping gameplay mechanics for unannounced Wii title.
Designing and programming AI.
Providing feedback and direction to programmers and artists to maintain the project's vision.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
December 2005 — October 2006 (11 months)
Designed and tuned AI, creating computer-controlled opponents that can race competitively with a wide range of players.
Designed tutorials that familiarize the player with the Nintendo Wii's innovative controller, as well as with the game's rules and mechanics.
Designed and tuned non-racing game modes to provide additional entertainment value to the player.
Designed sound effects for the game and user interface, immersing the player in the game's world and enhancing the gameplay experience.
(Non-Profit; Online Media industry)
June 2005 — September 2005 (4 months)
Redeveloped web sites for American Public Media's national radio programs, bringing them together under a common site architecture and visual identity.
Designed and developed a dynamic content solution for the Saint Paul Sunday web site.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
February 2004 — May 2004 (4 months)
Created cinematic interludes to preview tracks and events in the game.
Managed placement of virtual cameras for replay of events.
Designed variations on basic events to widen the player's gameplay options.
Tested and tuned gameplay.
(Public Company; Computer Software industry)
1997 — 2002 (5 years )
Assisted in a survey of Retek's applications and development teams to determine needs for usability guidelines; produced an internal website detailing these guidelines; consulted with various development teams on their implementation.
Streamlined development of application interfaces by providing developers with libraries to generate and process XML-encoded messages within Retek's suite of products.
Spearheaded efforts to re-platform various Retek applications by researching and prototyping user interface and application frameworks based on the Java 2 platform.
Reduced time spent by developers on compiling and testing by designing and developing the configuration management system, enabling them to focus more on programming.
Reduced implementation costs for Retek's clients by assisting them with performance profiling and tuning.
Led design and development efforts on the data-movement processes of the Retek Data Warehouse.
BA , Computer Science , 1993 — 1997
IGDA