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The roles and responsibilities of the job stretched far and wide, but the gist was simply this: Ensure 100% uptime of demo experiences while using highly unstable pre-alpha builds. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619083269289-2TA9BWOCB3RAT1FSWCX7/group.jpg Professional Work - Magic Leap - Controlled Chaos We presented Magic Leap demo experiences to VIP guests: CEOs, presidents of companies, princes, etc. nearly every day. On the technical side of things, my role was to prop up servers, troubleshoot mountains of technical issues, and in general be a subject matter expert in all things Magic Leap One. I would prepare demo content for guests, and be in the room as presenters showed off some amazing content, ready to help in an instant if a technical problem occurred. That really only scratches the surface of the position, as demo preparation mainly takes place in the downtime between frantic sprints. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619083355049-AY5LNLUEX8WYQ0OWQFAJ/theroad.jpg Professional Work - Magic Leap https://www.lukegillendesign.org/work/coast-pzfyy monthly 0.5 2021-04-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619050375234-D1BT5L4YZDJR96H0KETE/homescreen.png Professional Work - Electronic Arts - Sports - My Ownership On Madden 21 and 22, my responsibility was to ensure a high quality game was delivered to the players, while keeping their best interests in mind in my respective area of the game: Core UI. The responsibility of an AQD on the day to day is to assess the quality of the game being delivered, and provide that feedback to the design team so we can collaborate on how best to improve the player experience. This also includes competitive analyses of other games in the sports simulation genre, as well as more general comparisons to games considered to be of the highest caliber. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619049674383-BA09OEMBGRO23PIRLCMO/madden-21-next-gen-vs.-current-gen.jpg Professional Work - Electronic Arts - Sports - Data Driven Quality To ensure the vast player base is always engaged with the content they see in a game as large Madden, design decisions have to be driven by solid data. I lead the data driven design charge in one of our new features, Next Gen Stats replays, to ensure that players are always getting the replays they want without taking away too much from the gameplay. We want to celebrate the player’s success without frustrating them with the need to skip through unwanted replays. My role in this was pushing for telemetry to be implemented to capture when players skip replays, which replays they are skipping, when are they skipping them, etc… All with the goal towards designing a more intuitive and enjoyable experience for our players. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619482216578-X9Z6IGS0UM2LT18BGFVH/coverimage.jpeg Professional Work - Electronic Arts - Sports - Navigating the labyrinth Madden is a game of near infinite menu flows, or at least it seems that way. On the daily, I play through the game documenting any clumsy navigation that would hinder user flow-states. My target and goal is to make menu navigation, popup interaction, and any other interface as intuitive as possible. The sheer repetition of how often I play Madden shines light at the pain points in our flows, allowing us to fix them before the end user even knows they existed in the first place. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/work/bohemia-interactive-simulations monthly 0.5 2021-04-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619083929609-M5B6DTQ44DRFEH8SFQ1Z/vbs_blue_ig_logo_512.png Professional Work - Bohemia Interactive Simulations - My First Gig Bohemia Interactive Simulations was my first job, fresh out of college. There, I learned a massive amount about work culture, being productive in a group bigger than five people, and in general how to code in an industry standard production environment. While I worked on a couple of projects here at BISIM, I can’t talk about some, so I’ll jump right into some of what I did at the company instead. All of these responsibilities were done across multiple projects, sometimes simultaneously. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/work/stairs-productions monthly 0.5 2021-04-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619050825872-MK42VZQAXQMBZYCJHIHM/MainLogo.jpg Professional Work - Stairs Productions - Starting a Company Is Tough Stairs Productions was founded by myself and a couple close friends to give our projects, passion, and ideas a platform to stand on in the world. Our founding goal is to produce games from start to finish that impact our players positively, no matter how many we reach. Our flagship game Inside The Mirror was our attempt to reach out to those suffering from mental illness, as well as their friends and family, and break down the walls built by stigma. Everyone on the team had experience with mental illness in one way or another, which made this project very personal. This of course had its good, bad, and ugly sides which I’ll go through below. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619054462882-C15ITT4L4EKNU6D4SJ04/ParentFight_Audio_Showoff.PNG Professional Work - Stairs Productions - Excellent Technical Infrastructure Our programming team I mentioned above performed some miracles during the production phase of the project. One of which was completely rewriting the audio engine of the Fungus Unity plugin, which at the time was used as the new mainline for the engine overall. This allowed us to do some very intricate audio tuning and layering, as well as manipulate each audio track separately. That work made for my favorite scene in the entire game, in which the parents are arguing intensely while a passionate violin and piano duet plays in the background. I was able to edit the sound tracks to have the violin play much more loudly with the piano playing more softly when the mother speaks, and vice versa for the father. The intent was to create a sense of back and forth conflict, through the narrative, art sprites, and music. The result was (in my opinion) our best scene of the game. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619057268307-YGCQQ7UWARMEFT3XGJHA/steampage.PNG Professional Work - Stairs Productions - The Practical Side Luckily on this project, we already had a large audience due to our lead artist, Pluvias, having a sizable social media presence. This allowed us to get our kickstarter off the ground successfully, as well as have an audience eager to get their hands on our game. While there was a lack of a massive boom of purchases following the release, we still received almost entirely positive reviews across the four platforms we released for: PC, Android, IOS, and Mac. In the end, despite not achieving the return on investment we would have liked to see, we were content that nearly everyone experiencing our story left with positive feelings, which proved we could provide value through our ideas and hard work. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/killing-floor-2 daily 0.75 2021-02-16 https://www.lukegillendesign.org/killing-floor-2/tutorial-map monthly 0.5 2021-02-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1613461683909-XBGBWF93DVJX8JGONLLH/TutorialLevel_Splash.png Killing Floor 2 - Tutorial Map - This map was created with the sole intent of getting better at the KF2 SDK tool. This map was a proof of concept vertical slice to showcase that maps can be made from scratch, and then played inside of the Killing Floor 2 production client environment. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work daily 0.75 2024-06-13 https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/fall-safe monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619593315364-RC7N79TWFUQLYSV0YYYU/Cover.png Personal Work - Fall Safe Fallsafe was developed during the Mega Health Jam held in Orlando, and was my first game made to tackle a serious topic, and provide more than simply player engagement. The topic that my team (Stairs Production) chose to tackle was falling in the elderly community, and how to prevent injuries from falling. We changed our vision fairly early on to provide a more realistic experience for players. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619593358813-GCL1DXQVRFX8CFUSXLFD/2.png Personal Work - Fall Safe My responsibilities during this game jam involved creating documentation and references for our artists and audio members so they knew very clearly what we needed, and when we needed them by. In addition, I worked with our programmer to ensure that a cohesive vision was being followed, from game pitch to final presentation that weekend. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619593428645-I1CQTBBVJK0BQ6S5UP1Z/3.png Personal Work - Fall Safe In engine, I was one of two designers creating a room for the player to experience, which involved getting real world references to make the scale of the rooms feel correct. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/fethod-the-ray-and-the-decaying-bay monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619592334812-H7MV00DQPBFZETTAHIZB/2.png Personal Work - Fethod The Ray and The Decaying Bay This game was developed by myself, as well as several other developers and artists during the Game Maker's Tool Kit July of 2017. The theme for the jam was to bind several mechanics, such as moving and shooting, to the same button(s). In order to meet this goal, our team decided to combine a health system, movement, as well as shooting to the same buttons. In order to change directions and progress through our level, players needed to shoot bubbles. However because the bay that Fethod(our main character) lives in is decaying, each bubble that he shoots destroys part of the level. When enough of the level is destroyed, the player loses, effectively tying health, movement, and shooting into the same button. You can play the game here: https://lukegillen.itch.io/fethod-the-ray-and-the-decaying-bay- https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619592414484-5EF3NK6Q6OVRNVWGJKBM/1.png Personal Work - Fethod The Ray and The Decaying Bay I became the production and design lead largely due to my experience with prior game jams, whereas my teammates had little or no jam experience. My chief task was to keep our vision intact from start to finish, with my secondary task being to contribute through my design / implementation work. While I was one of the level designers that worked on the project, I also helped with our enemy design and development to ensure that we had a working prototype to test and balance well before the 48 hour deadline. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/slam-heroes monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619591969852-N2D0XXGA8ER8GZZ3KWO2/Apocolypse.png Personal Work - Slam Heroes Slam Heroes was the first project that Stairs Productions finalized as a test run to gauge our workflow and technical capabilities. In Slam Heroes, players use momentum to their advantage to crash down from extreme heights on enemies. To further reward big drops into enemies, players build up a charge meter for their massive ultimate ability. These mechanics make for a fast paced experience that is extremely satisfying and rewarding for players that decide to simply slam enemies from great heights. As a studio, this project allowed us to truly gauge how much work we can get done given a split between school and outside projects. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619592059275-0VMDFBGIR910018E0SCI/Cover.png Personal Work - Slam Heroes I was one of the first people to begin working on this project, so I had written much of the prototype code for the mechanics such as jumping and walljumping, as well as the wall sliding. I also designed the original tutorial that we used to gather playtesting data and refine our mechanics from. As we began bringing on more people, I shifted into a leadership position to help guide others through my work, and keep the original creative vision for the game intact. While much of my original work was not included, or highly modified in the final version of the game, I helped provide the initial stepping stone to get the state of the game where it is now currently. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/galaga-remake monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619591370203-6B9HZJY5HF55NL6KCVFR/2.png Personal Work - Galaga Remake Galaga was intended to be a project that we could really flex our design skills on. Our task was to form a group of six or so, and then spend a month duplicating a well known game. Our instructor threw a curveball at us halfway through the month, and told us to design and implement new mechanics that would put a Our group decided to run several games of Galaga side by side, and have the player take portals to move from one game to another. While the player was away from a game, it would run at half speed, ensuring that players could get out of sticky situations and let them pass if need be. To further stress this portal system, whenever the player had achieved a set number of points in any given area by killing enemies, an event would occur that would force the player out of the area on threat of either death, or extremely increased risk of death. One event would also encourage players to stay in the area when it occurred, adding some gameplay variance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619591668523-KX04SKPMNQ73TWB4Y2D1/3.png Personal Work - Galaga Remake Week-to-week I had varying tasks that spanned a great deal of the project as a whole. For the first week, I was in charge of the transforming enemies that would spawn from the regular enemies. This included making three different enemy types, as well as creating instantiable spawners to easily create them during runtime. For the second week, I set up our portal system, smooth camera transitions using Cinemachine, as well as creating more nav paths for my enemies to take. Lastly, I created some HUD elements on the side of the screen to alert players of the intensity of the other games on the sides of them. The third and final week I created another event to force players out of areas, set up the pause menu, and squashed bugs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619591681646-TGFIV3ZNV7U5HB3OGMNT/4.png Personal Work - Galaga Remake One of my tasks was setting up the frequency at which the dangerous events would occur, and ensure that the overall gameplay would keep players in flow state, without letting boredom or frustration take over. I took the point values for each enemy, as well as how often these enemies would die to the average player, to have the event play at a specific time within each area. In addition, I made sure that these events would never last so long that the player could not move through different areas without eventually becoming stuck between a literal rock and a hard place. https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/scraps monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/project-two-lkgnx monthly 0.5 2021-04-22 https://www.lukegillendesign.org/personal-work/project-one-b8gnx monthly 0.5 2021-04-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619659517212-E0MAKDHS4MVC4HNVABDB/HereticHoldout1.PNG Personal Work - Killing Floor Level Designs Heretic Holdout is a proof of concept environment where I experimented with a little bit of everything that Killing Floor 2 maps have to offer: Tight choke points, kite zones, high ground for class diversity, and of course a good holdout area. I had a certain aesthetic in mind for the map, but as I progressed honestly I found myself caring much more about the flows of the level, and much less about the story. While obviously both are important for an effective level, I wanted to really focus on making the level enjoyable to play in, and then coming up with the story afterwards. One example of getting the flows more finely tuned is the mob spawning. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6028a6ddfa7b4d7d140a768e/1619659963864-UMAYJO452WKDXNQ5JA1P/HH2.PNG Personal Work - Killing Floor Level Designs For instance, borrowing a bit from official KF maps, the holdout location of this map has an enemy spawner directly above it, which causes players to constantly reprioritize and shift focus. This spawner will not instantiate high tier enemies, but rather some of the more annoying, but less dangerous smaller enemies. In a team environment, the goal of having enemies spawn directly in the holdout room is to increase the replayability of the map through increased variability as the rounds begin to get tougher. In addition, it encourages more role based enemy management, which strikes at the core of the Killing Floor game loop.