I am a game designer, programmer, and accessibility advocate,
passionate about making things fun for everyone.
My work
Professional work
Contributed to Accessibility efforts at Naughty Dog and Riot Games as a QA Engineer, establishing quality standards and advising on accessible design.
Personal projects
Worked on longer-term projects in Unreal Engine and Unity, primarily as a co-director, game designer, and programmer.
Micro-games
Worked on bite-sized games in Unity and pure Java; some for game jams, and others for prototyping or just practice.
Spotlight: THORB
What happens when 14 members of Naughty Dog’s QA, Audio, and Technical Art departments spend their free time collaborating on a Doom-inspired FPS with Undertale-inspired minigame elements set in a Half Life-inspired mountainous science facility?
Apparently, THORB!
I contributed as a co-director, designer, and programmer, and handled general project management. Some of my specific contributions to the game included:
Player combat and upgrades
Game management and level loading/streaming
UI and audio implementation
Spotlight: Hack and Splash
My newest project, Hack and Splash, is a third-person action game I’m solo-developing in Unreal Engine 5. It features a human with aquatic superpowers, like running on water and using sea animals as combat companions.
With this project, I am trying to stretch my mission design and technical design skills; I have designed an intro/tutorial mission and started prototyping the systems I need to make it!
My latest addition is these ocean water tiles, which use magical shader illusions to make it look like the player is running up and down waves while they are really on a flat plane.
Spotlight: accessibility work
At Naughty Dog and Riot Games, I have had the privilege to learn from industry leaders in Accessible design. I’ve worked closely with the award-winning team behind The Last of Us Part II, attended Game Accessibility Conference and regular meetings with the SIE Accessibility Group, worked with leading accessibility consultants, and completed the Xbox Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals course on the side.
On The Last of Us Part I, I helped to adapt a large suite of features from the series’ previous entry for this new PS5 title (and helped develop several new ones!). I have also researched and pitched new accessibility features for several multiplayer titles at Riot, and helped to centralize our accessibility resources.
In October 2022, I gave a 25-minute presentation to the SIE Accessibility Group about the work that Naughty Dog’s Accessibility QA team did on The Last of Us Part I. More recently, in August 2023, I presented to Riot developers about Naughty Dog’s unique approach to accessible game design.
A little bit about me
Hi there! I am a passionate, self-taught game designer and programmer with a background in music and education. Currently based in Los Angeles and working at Riot Games as their first Accessibility QA Engineer.
I wish to see games continue to become a more thoughtful, inclusive, and forward-thinking medium, and my goal is to spend my career making art that pushes the industry in that direction.
Skills and education
Softwares/Tools
Game Engines: Unity Engine, Unreal Engine 4 and 5
Editors: Maya, Blender, Substance Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Visual Studio, Eclipse, Sublime
Source Control: Git/GitHub, Perforce, TortoiseSVN, GitHub Desktop, Sourcetree
Project Management: Jira, Confluence, Miro, Milanote, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel
Skills
Languages: C/C++, C#, Unreal Engine Blueprints, Python, Java, JavaScript
Roles: technical design, systems design, programming, scripting, directing, project management
Completed Xbox Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals course (2022)
Education
Certificate in Software Development and Programming, University of California, Berkeley (2020-2021)
Bachelor of Music Performance, University of Maryland (2014-2018)