Professional Experience
Stoic Studio
Towerborne – July 2022-March 2025
Lead Combat Designer
- Lead, managed, and mentored a team of combat designers of varying levels of seniority
- Responsible for Live Team design endeavors, which includes Limited Time Events, Modes, and Activities
- Established and maintained combat design best practices and standards that were used across the entire team
- Designed and maintained all online-oriented combat systems with an eye towards game feel under latency; prioritizing compelling designs that feature low barriers to entry while allowing for highly skilled play
- Owned end-to-end combat systems including player classes, enemies, bosses, class progression, and challenge modes
- Collaborated closely with producers, designers, animators, engineers, VFX, and SFX artists to oversee production of all player and enemy designs
- Facilitated daily playtests across multiple disciplines that lead to action items for the entire team
- Defined team ownership boundaries and review standards
- Conducted performance reviews and growth plans for combat and live designers
- Led and contributed to the designer hiring process, which included reviewing resumes, crafting tests, and conducting screenings and interviews
Iron Galaxy Studios
Rumbleverse – 2018-2022
Lead Combat Designer
- Designed combat philosophy for 40 player melee-based Battle Royale, balancing readability, latency tolerance, and skill expression to support competitive play at scale
- Designed flexible, custom-made tools to facilitate faster development and iteration, as well as easier prototyping
- Led team of animators, engineers, VFX, and SFX artists to create all in-game player actions (including combat, traversal methods, and emotes)
- Designed and implemented combat interactions and mechanics
Extinction – 2017-2018
Combat Designer
- Joined mid-development; redesigned game’s combat, collaborating with Engineering, Animation, AI
- Designed character upgrades for progression
Killer Instinct Season 3 – 2015-2017
Combat Designer
- Designed AI with an eye towards replicating organic player behaviors
- Designed stage progression for all S3 maps, creating evolving narratives through player interaction
- Designed core Shadow Lords systems, including mode-specific combat mechanics, difficulty-based AI, player progression, new missions, microtransactions)
Killer Instinct Season 2 – 2013-2015
Combat Designer / Quality Assurance Project Lead
- Designed AI for all Season 2 characters
- Wrote in-game command list for KI Season 2
- Managed QA team of 6-8 across multiple locations (IG Chicago, IG Orlando, External)
- Created test plans based on extensive knowledge of fighting games; participated in daily triages
- Worked closely with Production, Engineering, and Design
- QA’d various titles such as Borderlands 2 Vita, Divekick, Batman Arkham Origins
NetherRealm Studios
Injustice: Gods Among Us – 2012-2013
Quality Assurance
- Tested issues with a focus on competitive gameplay and design, communicated with core design team
- Developed comprehensive and efficient test cases
- Choreographed gameplay videos for Injustice: Battle Arena YouTube series
- Wrote special move descriptions for in-game move list