Instructinator

Jeff Mundee

OBJECTIVE: Game Designer

To join a game development team where my broad experience in media production, and genuine passion for games will help to create a fun, polished and successful product.

HIGHLIGHTS OF QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ yrs as Level Design Instructor at The Art Institute of Vancouver (AI) -Teaching; Documentation, Design Fundamentals, Level Design using Unreal, Board Game Design, and Post Production.
• 3 yrs game experience as Motion Capture Specialist at Electronic Arts (EA) - Scripting many tools and producing animation for almost every EA franchise including games like Fight Night, NHL, Godfather, and Dead Space.
• Experience working in virtually every form of electronic media – print, web, audio, film, TV and interactive games (Education and Casual).
• Strong technical knowledge – Scripting in Java, Python, Lingo, Action Script, Unreal Script, and EA’s proprietary tools scripting languages.
• Level building expertise – Unreal 3, Unreal 2004, Source, Aurora, and TES.

EXPERIENCE

Game Design Instructor 2007-Present

The Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby

• Developing curriculum and instructing: Post Production for Games, Game Design 1, Game Design 2, Level Design Foundations, and Advanced Level Design
• Instructing 2-4 courses per term
• Helping students troubleshoot and polish work to a portfolio presentation level

Motion Capture Specialist 2 2005-2008

Electronic Arts Canada, World Wide Motion Capture Studio

• Producing motions for nearly every EA Sport title released from 2006-2009, and many other top selling EA Games titles
• Assisting in U-Cap pioneering (ie, PS3 Tiger Woods demo at E3 2006)
• Scripting many tools to accelerate and measure the data pipeline

Designer & Environment Modeler 2003-2004

Soccer Skillz for Factory 1 Games, 3D Sports Game for PS2

• Working with the lead designer to flesh out better systems for gameplay & more attractive easy-to-understand documentation
• Collaborating with modeling team members to complete all asset creation tasks weeks ahead of schedule

EDUCATION

Game Art & Design Diploma 2002-2004

The Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby

• 2 year program focusing on Game Design, Game Production, Project Management, Interface Design, Level Design, Game History, Advanced 3D Lighting, Texturing, Modeling, and Animation.

Digital Communications Diploma with Honors 1999-2000

New Brunswick Community College, Fredericton campus

• Intensive course in multimedia authoring for web and CD-Rom with emphasis on interactivity, 3D animation, video compositing, and graphic design.

Faculty of Arts, Multimedia Major 1997-2001

University of New Brunswick, Fredericton campus

• Excelled in classes dealing with Java Programming, Interactive Design Theory, Typography, Photography, Advanced Color and Compositional Theory, Computer Logic, and Object-Oriented Programming Theory.

NOTABLE GAME PROJECTS

• Programmed 3 games in Qbasic in a team of 3, 1995 – 1997
• Authored Norland and RPG for Palm Pilot, 1998
• Created DC Invasion on-line Shockwave game done in a single frame, 1999
• Programmed Triple Triad. A card game for PC including multi-player modes, 2000
• Midwifery in Early Modern Europe, Educational Software for University of NB, 2001
• Authored a Virtual Tour of UNB’s Multimedia building using the Half-life engine, 2001
• Game Designer for X2 an epic 2D side scroller with a team of 10 students, 2003
• Lead Designer for Zero|One an RPG project in association with Bioware and Nvidia using the Aurora Engine, 2004
• Director of Neosaka a total conversion using Unreal Tournament 2004 leading a team of 12 over a 9 month period. The project was a finalist in the Make Something Unreal 2004 competition, 2004

REFERENCES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Jeff Mundee – Game Designer – Vancouver, BC

This is about pulling the player around a level, whether it is a single player level or a multiplayer environment the basics remain the same. There are 3 main ways to lead a player through a map. Light, geometry, and pickups.

With Pickups:

Leading the player with Pickups (pac-man method) involves placing pickups in a way that draws the player towards where they should go using their greed or need impulses. Value of these pickups is only an issue when there are more than one pickup in view. Usually you can place anything obtainable by the player in their view, and they will go out of their way to obtain it, even if they don’t need it.
Mario coins, Sonic Rings, Health Vials, are all examples that spring to mind.

An example that might not spring to mind, is using an enemy or group of enemies to pull in the same way. The player wants action, or to harvest drops off the enemies. So you can treat enemies as Mario coins in this way.

With Light:

Using light or absence of light to show the way is a subtle almost subconscious way to guide a player through an environment.

In that example from The Darkness the player is lead left to the light source even though his powers demand he stay out of the light.

The path in Gears of War is almost always lead with light.

Players will gravitate to doorways which are well lit and often ignore darkly lit or under lit paths and doors.

With Geometry:

Geometry can be used in a lot of ways to lead the player but there are some basics that should always be considered.

One way is the management of the main resource in shooting, Line of Sight. A player given the choice between two exits, one with more and one with less line of sight, they will associate the larger path with the “way they are supposed to go”.

In the example above you can see how a simple edit can drastically alter a decision point in a level. By increasing line of light by opening up the angle to the left I can draw the player toward that choice.

With a Combination:

These principals can come together to create an intuitive flow to a level, where the player natualy makes decisions that lead him allong the right path. This can avoid allot of the complaints players sometimes have about getting lost or backtracking to find the exit to a dungeon.

In the above image they are using all 3 types of pull; Light on the left, Pickups with the enemies, and the geometry is far more open to the left which opens up line of sight. Plus the ground tilts left inviting the player to turn left. The choice between these two paths to any player is clear.

Games can be broken down in many ways, you could divide the level design and the core design, when describing the application of challenge. You could further divide that core into UI, mechanics, and couple them with the level design and talk about gameplay. But before you have any of that, during the conceptual phase it is important to look at the game in lager sense.

The Hook:
The hook is the fun new thing in the game that makes it stand out from others in the genre. This is usually a primary feature of the game.

The Core:
The core mechanics, including but not limited to; perspective, genre, UI standards, and primary mechanics.

The Fantasy:
The fantasy aspect in a game refers to the intended level and focus for the suspension of disbelief. It’s the illusion that you are not sitting in a chair, that you are controlling an avatar doing something else somewhere else.

Example: Gears of War: Hook: Cover focused “stop and pop” gameplay. and Co-operative gameplay like the contra of old. Core: 3rd person shooting with some vehicle levels. Linear progression with a focus on story exposition in gameplay. Fantasy: Humanity’s last stand against an alien race called the Locust. You play as an ex soldier of the COG, forced to fight in a final desperate attempt against seemingly im possible odds.

Its a quick way of describing a game and hitting the high points. A good tool for elevator pitches, marketing speak, and to identify the pillars of the game during the conceptual phase.

This method can be applied loosely to other forms of new media. Film will sometimes have a hook, a core and obviously the big one in film the fantasy aspect.