HOMEWORLD 3
As a Game Director, my technical skills, focus on iteration and product vision enable me to lead and inspire teams to create innovative games. With almost 15 years of experience in the industry and 6 years in leadership roles, I’ve developed a uniquely experience focused perspective on gameplay mechanics and player experiences.
From designing level layouts to implementing and refining combat systems to starting conversations about process or workflow, to discussing intentions across disciplines to personally finding avenues for every member of my team to grow, I’m hands-on with every aspect of the games I direct. I believe that team cohesion is critical to success, and I prioritize mentorship, open communication and leading by example to establish an environment where everyone feels empowered and motivated to perform their best.
ROLE
GAME DIRECTOR
GENRE
REAL TIME STRATEGY
CAMPAIGN
MULTIPLAYER
COOP
ROGUELITE
PLATFORM
PC
Iteration
As a leader I prioritize in build iteration. I make a point of staying in touch with all stages and vectors of development and of modeling a hands on, iteration focused culture and encouraging this approach across the team by regularly working in engine to prototype, develop and polish content.
I established frequent cross discipline, studio level stakeholder and publisher reviews of in build progress and set a precedent for rapid experimentation and implementation of feedback across all areas and content pipelines.
Leadership
Communication
I believe cohesion across disciplines is key to a successful project. I drove a culture of communication by implementing regular cross discipline leadership syncs. I also fostered alignment within design through regular syncs with all members of the team and facilitated group discussions around project direction and pivots.
Team Building and Mentorship
I ensured the design team on Homeworld 3 reflected the product goals as much as possible by building a team of both franchise veterans and talented new perspectives. I also focused on growing the team’s skills and responsibilities through personal mentorship of each team member.
By empowering the team to experiment, make informed decisions that aligned with game pillars and iterate quickly I ensured the game was constantly improving and adapting as the direction evolved.
From a product perspective, two important development pillars were modernization and maintaining the Homeworld legacy. The traditional RTS audience is a dedicated but relatively small one and it was important to grow the fan base for this beloved franchise while honoring the conventions its longtime supporters value.
In order to deliver a compelling experience for both groups of players, I prioritized preserving the macro focused gameplay and epic single player campaign experience the Homeworld franchise is known for while introducing new, more tactical controls, mechanics and game modes that new fans would recognize from more modern titles as a way to expand on and support the cinematic, macro style that is a Homeworld signature.
Game Direction: Modernizing a Classic
The Homeworld franchise revolutionized RTS gameplay by putting it in massive scale, cinematic 3D space. In Homeworld 3 I felt the next step for the franchise was to evolve this unique feature in a way that created more tactical gameplay, more cinematic moments, and more dynamic strategies. Whereas previous Homeworld games leaned on hard unit counters playing out in wide open spaces, Homeworld 3 softens unit relationships and, instead, relies on tactical use of terrain to out maneuver enemy fleets. This encourages players to experiment and supports dynamic, replayable experiences where players can succeed with a wide variety of builds.
I established this vision with design, art and technical leadership, championed terrain as a core content pillar across all areas of the game, encouraged experts in all areas including level design, environment art, UI and unit design among many others to experiment with how to creatively highlight tactical terrain gameplay and curated the most outstanding examples as cinematic set pieces central to key campaign and coop mode moments.
Using terrain as a core mechanic put some additional pressure on the control scheme and unit behaviors, however, I prioritized adding an alternative set of controls adapted from more widely familiar FPS controls, adapting unit behaviors to be more intuitive and reworking Homeworld’s existing directional damage system to create a cohesive and satisfying experience around terrain. The adapted control scheme and intuitive unit behaviors relieved pressure on players’ micro skills and preserved classic Homeworld’s macro focused gameplay. Emphasizing the conventional directional damage system from previous Homeworld installments and prioritizing communicating this system through improved UI and FX also made use of terrain more rewarding for players.
Overall terrain and its supporting systems were a highlight of many players’ experiences and featured heavily in positive reviews of the game from players and critics alike.
Design Direction:
Terrain and Ships
In order to improve replayability, capitalize on the trend towards cooperative gameplay and create a more approachable way for new players to engage with RTS mechanics, I conceptualized, prototyped and oversaw development of a new cooperative, roguelite game mode for Homeworld 3 called War Games.
The War Games mode was featured in multiple public demos prior to Homeworld 3’s launch and succeeded in generating considerable positive press attention as well as user excitement and wishlists on Steam. The mode was frequently called out extremely positively in user and critic reviews post launch as well.
Cooperative Roguelite Game Mode
