HI THERE, I'M MARK

Highguard is a live service Raid Shooter developed by Wildlight Entertainment. I was one of the first members of the design team as we took the project from R&D to production.

For the first few years of development, I worked on design for core gameplay systems. As we solidified the direction of the project, I began working on character design, creating the gameplay kits for 5 of our 8 launch characters, and 6 characters total.

Project Responsibilities

• Took 6 character ability kits (Tactical, Passive, Ultimate) from ideation to prototype and production.
• Worked with concept art and narrative to solidify character gameplay fantasies
• Rapidly prototyped and proved complete character kits in internal playtests to validate them for production
• Analyzed internal and live game feedback to push tuning changes and maintain roster balance
• Collaborated with Animation, Tech Art, Character Art, VFx, and Audio to bring these characters to life
• Partnered with Engineering to make sure shipped characters were network safe and performant
• Shipped Redmane, Condor, Atticus, Mara, and Una at launch
• Shipped Koldo (Episode 3)
• Worked with the game director and design director to prototype core gameplay systems, including system architecture for a UGC modular base building system
• Worked with level designers and artists to create data-driven pipelines for creating modular assets and architected modular sub-systems to support base building

Una is a great example of how bringing each of these characters to life is a collaborative process across multiple discliplines. The genesis for Una's character came from a concept for an engineer character that had little robots from our Lead Character Concept Artist, Cristina. From that moment we knew we wanted to build a character that had little buddies that formed the foundation of her kit (that's actually what they're called in the codebase).

Functionally, her gameplay loop is pretty simple. The goal of a good Una should be to be an element of controlled chaos in a combat environment for the enemy team to deal with. Her spirits aren't meant to have serious damage output, but placing a couple of them around when going into a fight create a nuisance that enemies need to deal with. One or two more targets to shoot means Una and her allies get a valuable extra few seconds to get a first shot advantage, making splitting the enemy's attention extremely valuable.

Her tactical and ultimate have a lot of shared behavior, so this was a clear opportunity to build both abilities on top of the same underlying architecture, and both use a robust state machine that handles scanning for targets, firing behavior, reloading, and even cut functionality like movement. This state machine also had varying target detection behavior for close vs long range targets which we distributed across multiple logic frames for optimization. This was then extended in subclasses for ability-specific behavior.

We wanted Una to be accesible to new players or players that wanted to support their team in ways other than gunplay. Her passive came out of this, and one of her spirits will bring you some loot that they think will help you out. Under the hood this was a special loot table that would dynamically change probability based on what you already had in your inventory. If you had a lot of a specific kind of armor, it would skew to try and give you one that's better. If you didn't have much Vesper or Raid Ammo, it would skew probability towards that, and only give you ammo for the specific weapon types you had.

As her character fantasy evolved around her forest spirits, which we envisioned as a cross somewhere between the Rot in Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Minions in Despicable Me, ideas flooded in from our team to really build the character.

As animation came on board we were able to really bring her fantasy to life. Concept created multiple versions of her spirits and we used each of them for her different abilities. When we were trying to figure out what exploding projectiles her Forest Mother would throw, in a brainstorming meeting someone suggested she would be throwing burning forest spirits, and when she would reload she would plant her arms into the ground and these spirits would appear and clamber up her arms to become her new ammo. You can see all of these details in the final version of the ability in the game and they really help bring her fantasy to life.

Apex Legends is a live service Battle Royale developed by Respawn Entertainment. I joined the team shortly before the launch of Season 2 (Battle Charge) and contributed to updates through Season 12 (Defiance), primarily focusing on game modes for Limited Time Events, as well as contributing some core systems.

Over the course of my time working with the Apex Legends Design team, I grew my responsibilities to prototyping and shipping larger features with significant iterative playtest and minimal guidance from leadership. In my last 6 months with the team I oversaw a pod of designers, producers, and content departments dedicated to producing new game modes.

Project Responsibilities:

• Planned modes with game director and design director for Limited Time Collection and Thematic Events to drive player engagement and retention during keys parts of each season with compelling and novel gameplay dynamics
• Prototyped, pitched, and iterated in production on numerous features within Apex
• Solos, Duos, Armed and Dangerous, Winter Express, Always Be Closing, Battle Armor, Flashpoint, Control
• Crafting System, Trident Vehicles
• Identified modes as an opportunity for testing proposed meta changes in a live environment which resulted in meaningful gameplay changes being integrated into the core game - such as the evolving armor only meta
• Coordinated with content departments to bring modes to shippable quality as the design vision holder for the feature
• Oversaw a pod dedicated to prototyping and producing LTMs and other experimental modes, as well as maintaining recurring seasonal modes and Arenas
• Created a roadmap focused on producing foundational modes with high replayability that could be expanded with additional content in the future
• Worked with a senior producer to balance creation of new modes while also supporting legacy mode content and maintaining a seasonal release cadence
• Identified and targeted mode production for a casual audience that is not currently engaging with the more competitive slate of permanent modes in Apex (Battle Royale and Arenas)
• Guided other designers in prototyping and iterating on new mode concepts
• Coordinated modes content with team directors and other stakeholders

Awarded Mashable's Best of E3 2019 Award

Showcased with Indiecade

"by far the best defense for how VR might still redefine the future of play"

"almost rivals the instinctual simplicity of the iPhone's touch mechanic"

"inspires some of the most visceral embodied sensations I've ever experienced in VR"

- Mashable

"The playing field and mechanics gave me a true sense of immersion, competition and intensity"

- UploadVR

Ascend is a first-person VR arena shooter where you rise to greatness in a crucible of visceral and kinetic aerial combat. Rise above your enemies through intense engagements and leverage the power of VR with our unique lean motion system to tower above your opponents.

The player is given control of a jetpack, which they can fly by throttling the controller and leaning in their direction of flight. This is done by dynamically estimating their lean origin, while still allowing for free movement, all while leveraging leaning to minimize motion sickness.

Ascend is an advanced game project at USC. A large multidisciplinary team is working on the project, targeting a Steam release the Summer of 2019.

Project Responsibilities:

• Directed vision for a multidisciplinary team of 40 engineers, designers, artists, producers, usability, and marketing students.
• Documented player experience goals and presented game demos and vision to large groups of stakeholders.
• Worked with production to increase velocity and parallelize content development pipelines.
• Developed a team culture with a focus on sustainable work hours while hitting production targets.
• Worked closely with Engineering and Design teams to drive vision, implementation, and tuning on four warriors with unique ability sets.

Prototype Responsibilities:

• Iterated on locomotion controls to find a comfortable movement scheme that minimized motion sickness.
• Integrated Photon PUN Networking API for multiplayer
• Designed a level that takes advantage of flying afforded to the player while creating areas requiring skillful maneuvering on the part of the player.