XFunc_Portfolio > Game

I am actively involved in game design and producing. I can help you develop new game-based projects for learning or entertainment. My main area of expertise here is in business development, producing and functional design. I work with external developers (for programming and art production) as required to see our projects through to completion, on time and budget.

The world of interactive games and game-based products is getting newfound attention. Games are a sector of the entertainment industry now outpacing other major media, such as film and television. They also offer potential as excellent learning tools - so highly effective given the total buy-in any game intrinsically can deliver: When I am a participant, not just a reader or viewer, I learn much faster.

I have been intensively involved in game design and gaming for many years.

My philosophy about games is simple: they deserve to be taken seriously. This isn't to say they should be regarded stuffily - games by and large should be light-hearted, even when, paradoxically, they are about serious subject-matter (though this also depends). It is just to say they deserve attention and dedication. I'm also willing to engage in game design on an experimental basis, in order to pioneer new things.

I have another philosophy about games: Realism does not have to be sacrificed for a game to be fun and engrossing. You may hear other game designers talk about "sacrificing realism for fun". I believe that 90% of the time this is just a rationalization for lazy game design. Realistic, authentic games can be fun - if they are elegantly designed. To paraphrase the editor of Esquire, there are no boring game subjects, only boring game designers.

As game designers I specialize in realistic games: games that depict something in the real world. This makes me well-placed to design learning-based games. Yes, I can design sci-fi and other entertainment titles, but by focusing on the hard work of researching and interpreting the real world through games, I have built functional game design muscles stronger than if I had just settled for doing derivative design work.

In terms of development and production, I work with external game developers who provide programming and art production services on an as-needed basis. This always depends on the product. I am thus not married to any specific game engine, artistic look or technological approach - which frees myself and the client, allowing us to focus on finding the right way to deliver the game (and alleviates the burden of managing programming and art staff - which isn't my specialty anyway). Many tech-oriented game companies are like "wielders of hammers": they see the world as mainly consisting of nails. But sometimes a problem is not a nail. My more generalist, subject-oriented approach means I may recommend one game to use an open-source engine with independent contractors providing art in a distributed environment; another to have an intensive custom-built engine and tool-set with an established team; and a third to be a (deceptively) simple live-action set of rules that works extremely well in, say, a classroom environment. Thus my focus is not on pushing the means to the game, but on serving the game itself - what it is about, and the best way to deliver it.

Frontlines: Fuel of War

Now doing design for Kaos Studios (a THQ Studio in New York) on their upcoming FPS title (XBox 360 / PC / PS3) Frontlines: Fuel of War. My mission is to add military authenticity (whenever it doesn't conflict with fun gameplay) to their weapon design, cinematics, in-game dialogue (including "battlechatter"), write the weapon and vehicle glossary, and related stuff. Also did functional concept design for some of the weapons and drones that went into the game.

Dawn of Fantasy

Currently working with Reverie Entertainment to develop Dawn of Fantasy, a traditional medieval-fantasy real-time strategy (RTS) PC game which has received funding from Telefilm Canada. Doing combat system design and unit balancing, and some coaching on producing issues.

Code Orange

I was employed by BreakAway Games to design Code Orange, a computer 3D real-time strategy serious game to train hospital staff to deal with mass casualty incidents. I gave the project a strong new design structure and overall creative direction that reflected both the core strategic elements and the “feel” of disaster medicine at the hospital level. [more>>>]

Miner: The Boardgame

Ever notice the number of computer and tabletop games out there that have mining in them? And ever notice that nobody's done a game that's actually about mining itself?

Well, I did. Quite some time ago in fact... Miner: The Boardgame is a sophisticated game about the world of mining. [more>>>]

Building The Mine

Building The Mine is a short kiosk-type digital game that has toured Canada as part of The Great Canadian Mine Show exhibit, which was in turn funded by major mining groups and companies, plus Canadian federal and provincial governments. Building The Mine, in particular, was sponsored by the Toronto Stock Exchange, Luscar Ltd, and SGI. [More>>>]

Banks In Action

Banks In Action is a live-action in-classroom roleplaying game, plus a curriculum to integrate this into an existing digital game. The clients were Youthography.com, Junior Achievement Toronto and the Citigroup Foundation. "BIA" teaches junior high school students the fundamentals about banking - but, believe it or not, in a fun way. [More>>>]

Fire Zone

Fire Zone is a roleplaying and tactical tabletop game about the experience of the footsoldier in the modern period. It has been an intensive labour of love for XFunc, under intensive research and development for some years now. It has also been an exercise of experimental game design, and I have leveraged the experience in this project to successfully develop other game design projects. [More>>>]

Tau 4 - Vision Of A New Earth

Tau 4 is a fictional but fairly realistic Earth-like planet I created in the early 1990s as part of a science-fiction roleplaying game I designed called Core Fire. It was also a roleplaying campaign in which a group of us set out to see how humankind might actually colonize a "new Earth" found near our own Solar System. [More>>>]