Co-Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog
Greater Los Angeles Area
- Current
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- Co-Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog, Inc.
- Past
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- Game Director at Naughty Dog, Inc.
- Lead Game Designer at Naughty Dog, Inc.
- Senior/Lead Game Designer at Crystal Dynamics
- Game Designer at MicroProse Ltd.
- Education
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- Oxford University
- Recommended
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5 people have recommended Richard - Connections
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370
connections
- Industry
- Computer Games
- Websites
Richard Lemarchand’s Summary
Lead Game Designer with substantial hands-on video game design and production experience. Strong focus on structured production pipeline and team-oriented methodologies. Loves video games as a powerful medium with great untapped potential.
Richard Lemarchand’s Specialties:
Character Action game design; video game production; vision-keeping; mechanics, layout and story origination; communication facilitation; tools pipeline development; concentric development.
Richard Lemarchand’s Experience
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Co-Lead Game Designer
Naughty Dog, Inc.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)
January 2008 — Present (10 months)
To make the organizational structure of the studio clearer I've adopted the job title of Co-Lead Game Designer, and am excited to be leading the design of Naughty Dog's latest, currently unannounced project, alongside my friend and colleague Neil Druckmann.
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Game Director
Naughty Dog, Inc.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)
September 2005 — December 2007 (2 years 4 months)
For this interval I used the job title of Game Director at Naughty Dog, and took the functional role of Lead Game Designer for Naughty Dog's first PlayStation 3 project, 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune'. In its first five months 'Uncharted' sold 1.4 million copies, and was a standout commercial and critical success. We were very pleased by the warm reception that the game received.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - 2007 -
Lead Game Designer
Naughty Dog, Inc.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)
June 2004 — September 2005 (1 year 4 months)
Naughty Dog, Inc. is a world-famous game development studio, renowned for its multi-million-selling titles 'Crash Bandicoot' and 'Jak and Daxter'. My role at NDI includes design origination, production coordination, gameplay tuning and implementation. I am deeply delighted and excited to be working with such a dynamic group of world-class games development talent, including many old friends. Naughty Dog, Inc. has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment America since 2001.
In October 2005 we shipped 'Jak X: Combat Racing', a turbo-charged, ballistic motor sport game set in the world of 'Jak and Daxter'. The game features 11 event types, 31 venues, an Adventure Mode with over 40 minutes of movie-quality animation and an Exhibition Mode with Naughty Dog's first online gameplay.
Jak X: Combat Racing (PlayStation 2) - 2005
Jak 3 (PlayStation 2) - 2004 -
Senior/Lead Game Designer
Crystal Dynamics
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)
January 1995 — June 2004 (9 years 6 months)
I worked for almost a decade at Crystal Dynamics, joining the studio soon after it was founded. I worked on a string of ground-breaking games alongside amazing people, and I gained a lot of experience as a hands-on, production-oriented designer. At Crystal Dynamics I developed my interests in innovative action-adventure gameplay, interactive storytelling, team leadership and tools pipeline development, learning an uncountable number of valuable lessons along the way.
It was during this time that I was introduced to the idea of 'concentric development' - the process of rapidly building out a game's asset footprint in order to better iterate the game design and make the production schedule clearer and more predictable.
Legacy of Kain: Defiance (PlayStation 2) - 2003
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 (PlayStation 2) - 2001
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (PlayStation) - 1999
Gex: Enter the Gecko (PlayStation) - 1998
Pandemonium (PlayStation) - 1996
Gex (3DO) - 1995 -
Game Designer
MicroProse Ltd.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Computer Games industry)
November 1991 — December 1994 (3 years 2 months)
I got my start in the games industry working at the UK division of legendary American developer MicroProse. I learned a tremendous amount from the experienced games-makers I worked alongside, and look back at this time in my career very fondly! I was the sole game designer on two published projects for the division's fledgling videogame development arm: Tinhead, a frenetic side-scrolling platform game/shoot-'em-up hybrid, and F-15 Strike Eagle II, the second-ever real-time 3D game for the Sega Genesis.
Tinhead (Sega Genesis) - 1993
F-15 Strike Eagle II (Sega Genesis) - 1993
Richard Lemarchand’s Education
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Oxford University
B.A. Hons, Physics and Philosophy, October 1987 — June 1990
Additional Information
Richard Lemarchand’s Websites:
Richard Lemarchand’s Groups:
International Game Developers Association
University of Southern California Interactive Media MFA - External Thesis Advisor
Richard Lemarchand’s Honors:
Game Developer Magazine article, February 2006 - "From Smart to Finish: Jak X: Combat Racing and the Naughty Dog Production Method"
Game Developer Magazine article, April 2008 - "Postmortem – Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" (with Neil Druckmann)
Game Developers Conference 2008 - Production Track Speaker - "Amazing Feats of Daring: An Uncharted Post-Mortem"
Develop 2008 - Production Keynote - "Working Hard and Having Fun - How Naughty Dog Made Uncharted"
Richard Lemarchand’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- new ventures
- job inquiries
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
