Senior Engineer / Indie
Hi I'm Elliot!
A passionate Game Developer who loves innovative indie games and unique storytelling methods.
I've been in game development for over 12 years working as an Indie Game Developer, Educator, and Engineer. Three years ago I moved back to Japan with my family, looking for opportunities to help make fantastic games and work together with like minded passionate developers. My experiences range from engineering, design, to procedural content and art/animations.
I have been a Senior Engineer at Infinity Vector for the last year and a half working on 3D mobile games. I have led the development of the shared project packages. Worked as project architect for a yet unannounced project. Mentored the junior engineer and prototyped new game ideas.
Previously I was the Game Design Pathway Leader in the Bachelor of Digital Design at AUT. During my time there I completely rewrote the game design pathway curriculum, putting an emphasis on making games and prototypes to gain practical knowledge. My favourite assignment was game-a-week, a gruelling period of 6 weeks rapid prototyping. A large part of the degree involved working together with the other pathway leaders to align all the course content, while managing a small teaching team for game design.
While teaching I did my Master of Design. This was a great chance to explore rapid prototyping and storytelling in games. Taking what I learnt back to my practice I'm better able to design systems and mechanics that work hand in hand with the story. I also had the amazing opportunity to make a more artistic work with Philosobees.
I started out my Indie Development Journey by forming InkBit Collective with the successful kickstarter for 'desolate'. I was lucky enough to work with several different friends and artists during this time. Releasing Get Beached VR in 2018. I closed InkBit in 2020 when the pandemic started to focus on family and work at AUT. During the move back to Japan I started a new company Howling Man Games and made the prototype and pitch for Kabuki Pinball. I was not able to secure funding for the game so decided to move more into industry to gain more experience along the way.
My time off is spent exploring Japan with my wife and three kids.
I've always felt games have the ability to convey and express experience unlike anything seen before.
That's why for my masters thesis I focused on
'The Narrative Potential of Video Games: How Designing Mechanics Impacts Storytelling
That's why for my masters thesis I focused on
'The Narrative Potential of Video Games: How Designing Mechanics Impacts Storytelling
Soft Skills
Leadership & planning
Conflict Resolution
Task Management
Independent Remote Work
Problem Solving & Debugging
Mentoring & Teaching
Hard Skills
C# Programming
Visual Scripting & Blueprints
Project Architecture
Package Development
Game Design and Planning
Level & Systems Design
2D and 3D pipeline comprehension
Shader Graph
Game Design
Rapid Prototyping and Iteration
Narrative Design
Level Design
Puzzle Design
Combat & Encounter Design
Procedural System Design
Adaptive Music & Audio
Tools
Unity
Unreal
Version Control (Git Solutions)
Rider
Visual Studios
Playfab
Jira & Confluence
Adobe suite
Microsoft suite & Teams
Spine
Maya
Substance Painter & Designer
Houdini
FMod
Languages
English (fluent)
Japanese (conversational)