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Game Making Grimoire

The internet is wizardry! What better place can there be to archive magical mysteries?

Game Maker - DNA

Subliminal Seer

My eyes snap open, swimming with visions of magic and mystery. The dim grey lights of the predawn paint shadows on the popcorn ceiling. To me, images of castles, spaceships, and countless faces appear up there. I reach for my phone and start writing – because as surely as I sleep – most mornings I awake with fully formed game ideas bursting from my brain.

So many authors say all you need to be a writer is to write each day. I write game ideas every day – sometimes it’s just a few lines about a combination of game mechanics or unique plot ideas. But more often than not, like an epiphany, I get a whole game downloaded directly into my brain. I love it!

To me, game design is not a passion. It is not a choice. It is a vital and automatic process like breathing or the beating of my heart. If you’ve got it in your DNA too, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. If your imagination and your inspiration well up from inside you every day – then you are my people, and I am your man!

I had what many people would consider a very rough childhood – but in my mind – I was a knight of old and nothing could get through my armor! I dreamed of living in a castle. Now I’ve visited castles in a dozen or so different countries.

J. Race

The creative arts are transformative!

A Game Designer, Producer, & Entrepreneur with ownership/stakes in a digital marketing agency, a software company, e-commerce companies, and more.

I am truly blessed in my work and the freedom it has given me. Being creative, connecting with others, and turning ideas into reality is what gives me wings.

This site serves as my creative portfolio for connecting with others in the game industry – be they; designers, developers, programmers, writers, artists, animators, enthusiasts, producers, audio wizards and more.

Interests & Skills

Game Production
Project Management
Communication
Game Design
Sales
Storytelling
Digital Marketing
Business
Photoshop
Web Design
Voice Acting
Pixel Art
Game Programming

My self-evaluations above are a blend of interest level and skill.

Studio Work

Several years back I made the leap of faith and started as a game producer, designer, and storyteller. More recently I’ve been working as a Game Director.

I’ve…

  • Shipped numerous titles including children’s games, F2P Puzzle Games, RPG’s, Autobattlers and more. Several of which were on large international IP’s.
  • Worked on and pitched over two dozen additional titles in a design capacity to companies such as Netflix and Paramount.
  • Created over 100 game design docs covering plot, mechanics, style and more.

Professional Portfolio

My professional examples are gated behind a password. Let me know if you need it. If you have it, just click the button below to check out my demo reels!

Games I've Made

Fire and Forge!

The next several pages are dedicated to my personal work.

I’m like a metal detector in a field of hidden treasures, ideas beeping and surfacing without warning, forcing me to drop everything and dig. I take the inspiration back to the lab, dust it off, put the pieces together and BAM – the next pages are what comes together.

The following are just a small selection of things that are at what I’d consider to be a demonstrable state. Though my studio is FULL of curios constantly getting closer and closer to completion!

Personal Project Portfolio

Exosuit: Exodus (Hobby Project - In Progress)

Exosuit: Exodus (Hobby Project - In Progress) : A sci-fi side-scroller strategy and resource management game. If you’ve played Kingdom New Lands, then you’ve experienced the joy of the minimal mechanics and rewarding exploration. You’ve also experienced the grind and repetitive gameplay. EE builds upon and expands this great concept.

Shifting Sands (Completed)

Shifting Sands (Completed) : Shifting Sands is a desert sci-fi roguelike action RPG with exploring, scrapping, crafting, and trading at its core. Campaign, sandbox (heh), and other modes exist and can be played solo or with friends.

Players must balance improving their characters and equipment with hoarding enough tech or wealth to escape the planet.

Wizard Tower (Completed)

Wizard Tower (Completed) : A “rogue-lite” turn based strategy game where heroes attempt to ascend a tower and defeat an insidious Wizard at the top! It won’t be simple however, it is the Wizard’s tower, and he/she perceives all within it! The wizard will sling down spells and summon monsters as the heroes climb through rooms filled with treasures and traps!

Grim End (Completed)

Grim End (Completed) : Grim End is a horror, survival, strategy game where players attempt to navigate through a foggy and desolate townscape that is plagued by successive earthquakes and mysterious entities called The Grim. Strategy and collaboration will be needed to navigate the crumbling town and avoid a Grim End.

Astropather (Prototype)

Astropather (Prototype) : Astropather is a top down sci-fi roleplaying space opera centered around a small ship and missions within asteroid belts. It includes a rich story world full of moral decisions that have ingame consequences. 3D vertical movement in a top down 2D game make for a twist on top of tried and true mechanics.

The Delve (In Progress)

The Delve (In Progress) : Dive into a dangerous dwarven delve in this simple choose your own adventure style game. Balance the resources of morale, supplies, treasure, and Dwarves to reach the depths of the delve and uncover it’s secrets. Branching narrative, special encounters, and your choices will uncover treasures, ignite battles, and reveal mysteries on each play-through!

Heroes Get Hurt (Designed)

Heroes Get Hurt (Designed) : A genre-blending mobile-focused medieval fantasy parody game that makes fun of hit points and other video game and RPG tropes. (like inventory management/collateral damage/quick travel). The game combines a fighting game, a tiny tower esque building game, and a few small mini-games.

Game Design is Magic

Biggity Boggity

Us gamemakers and players never put our inner child to bed! I love creating games for children. The scope and simplicity has to be scaled back in a way that the game can be picked up intuitively and it forces clean design and mechanical choices.

Here is just a small selection of games I’ve designed for kiddos.

Children's Games

Dragon's Hoard (Completed)

Dragon's Hoard (Completed) : A simple matching and guessing children’s game where players compete to sneak through traps and steal the dragon’s treasure. Be careful though, if you wake the dragon you’ll have an epic fight on your hands!

Cretaceous Creatures (Testing)

Cretaceous Creatures (Testing) : A survival sim strategy game where players design their own dino and then face the dangers of the cretaceous era! Ever wondered how a hard shelled, long necked, spike tailed dino would look? It’s goofy… but effective! Search for food, make a nest, lay eggs, or just try to outlive the competition to win.

Philospher's Cake (In Progress)

Philospher's Cake (In Progress) : A spin on classic tower defense games like Plants vs Zombies on a hexagonal grid where enemies have different movement patterns. Gather ingredients from your fallen foes, save them for the cake or use them to bake more defenses and tasty minions in a race against the clock.

Take The Cake (Completed)

Take The Cake (Completed) : Another simple matching and guessing game where players compete to get the cake in the middle. Guess correctly and clear sweets on the path towards victory. Make a mistake and you have to eat other sweets that aren’t cake!

Not So Short Stories

Game making is story telling

Most of my writing is for game mechanics, plot development, world-building, story trees, and dialogue. Occasionally, characters or problems grow into something bigger or not specifically suited to a game and they come out as pretty long “short stories” or novelettes.

I’ve also run many different tabletop roleplaying game campaigns throughout my life – some of which have spanned 5+ years with the same characters. Keeping people engaged in 1 story for that long is a fun feat.

Writing Samples

Echoes From The End

Echoes From The End : ~1600 Words — 6 minute read — I’m leading with this story/screenplay because it is actually short. It’s about two men in a nuclear missile silo who suddenly lose communication with missile command.

VanValkenburg's Last Generation

VanValkenburg's Last Generation : ~9,500 Words — 30 minute read — A light sci-fi story for the YA audience. Three children in a “behavioral therapy” ward attempt to escape but encounter more than they planned for.

Fire, Fortune, and Freedom

Fire, Fortune, and Freedom : ~7500 Words — 25 minute read — This story follows Dante, a tortured criminal, and a squad of convicts sentenced to serve as genetic guinea pigs strapped into space armor. They drop-pod onto planets on suicidal missions all to further science and serve their sentences.

Human Resources

Human Resources : ~9,000 Words – 30 minute read — Charles Linely is the only employee with the stamina and brilliance to debug the massive Starlight databases that support Americorp’s operations. He’s overtired, overworked, and it’s time for a vacation. But something insidious is going on at Americorp, and a sun soaked escape won’t fill the itching void in Charles’ soul.

Food For Thought

Feed The Beast

Credit: Me

My main hobbies are playing Roblox and mobile games with my kids, trawling through the PS Plus roster and watching/analyzing gameplay trailers, watching GDC talks, playing games, and watching Indie Game reviews on Youtube (Splattercat, Raptor and  more). I also make time to read GD books.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

Pixel Art

Talking Heads

World Building

Motion Study

Make Games With Me

Joining others who are passionate about making games is what I was made for.