I was requested to join this project as early as possible due to my strengths as a fast iterator and out-of-the box thinker, and was among the first 15-20 on it for pre-pro, involved heavily in scoping and early gameplay iteration.

I worked directly with the game director on his vision for narrative gameplay features and, because of my scripting competence, many other non-narrative features too. Also worked with my narrative lead in a similar capacity, porting old systems from previous titles and iterating on new ideas.

This was an invaluable time of experimentation and close collaboration, and I’m proud to say we threw away a lot of my work! For me some of the most rewarding work is the stuff we have to do in order to find out it doesn’t work. The more we iterate the better it gets, and the more Lua I get to delete.

A quality I’m constantly trying to work on is speed of iteration. This requires humility and not being precious about work. No easy feat, but worth it if it allows even one more round of feedback or work from other departments.

Since the experimental phase, I have been:

• working intensely on the Narrative Editor tool (consulting on the tool itself and preparing the project to make use of it most effectively)

• creating project-wide guidelines for:

  • engine hierarchy use and organisation

  • folder structures

  • Lua scripting

  • naming conventions (chapters, levels, worlds etc.)

• building systems, prefabs, gyms, documentation and tracking matrices for narrative features:

  • dialogue

  • in-world media (radio and TV)

  • narrative items (mostly typed and handwritten text)

  • dioramas (zoomed in views of key items/places)

• ensuring the project is ready for the rest of the team to roll on and hit the ground running (it has just been my lead and I for over a year)