JOSH LEE

Game Design and Development

joshleejosh.com/portfolio
josh@floor.is
San Francisco, CA

GAME DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE

Sifteo Inc., Mar. 2010 to May 2012: Creative Director

  • Worked with founders to establish Sifteo's internal game development studio.
  • Managed Sifteo's portfolio of games, maintaining a balance of titles for entertainment, learning, and general weirdness.
  • Provided direction and support to staff developers and external contractors, including artists and composers.
  • Researched and established game design and interaction design patterns for Sifteo's unique platform.
  • Designed and developed numerous games for Sifteo cubes, including Chroma Shuffle, Mount Brainiac, No Evil Monkeys, and more.

Trion Worlds, Oct. 2008 to Mar. 2010: Content Designer, Rift: Planes of Telara

  • Planned and implemented the population of NPCs throughout the game's world.
  • Wrote and implemented quests to facilitate solo exploration and leveling.
  • Planned and scripted dungeons and boss battles, to provide groups of players with challenging and dramatic PvE encounters.
  • Designed and implemented tutorials to familiarize the player with the game's mechanics and lore.

Secret Level, Oct. 2007 to Sep. 2008: Designer, Golden Axe: Beast Rider

  • Designed, programmed, and tuned enemy AI, creating a broad range of characters to challenge and surprise the player.
  • Collaborated with animators, riggers, and engineers to integrate and tune character animations.
  • Designed and scripted levels for the game's challenge mode, forming intense gauntlets to test the player's skill.
  • Implemented a library of visualization tools, allowing designers to see what the AI were thinking and diagnose problems in real time.

Monster Games Inc., Dec. 2006 to Aug. 2007: Game Designer, unannounced prototype.

  • Prototyped gameplay mechanics for unannounced Wii title.
  • Designed and programmed AI.
  • Provided feedback and direction to engineers and artists to maintain the project's vision.

Monster Games Inc., Dec. 2005 to Oct. 2006: Game Designer, Excite Truck.

  • Designed and tuned AI, creating computer-controlled opponents that can race competitively with a wide range of players.
  • Designed tutorials that familiarize the player with the Nintendo Wii's innovative controller, as well as with the game's rules and mechanics.
  • Designed and tuned non-racing game modes to provide additional entertainment value to the player.
  • Designed and implemented sound effects for the game and user interface, immersing the player in the game's world and enhancing the gameplay experience.

Monster Games Inc., Feb. to May 2004: Assistant Producer, Test Drive: Eve of Destruction.

  • Created cinematic interludes to preview tracks and events in the game.
  • Managed placement of virtual cameras for replay of events.
  • Designed variations on basic events to widen the player's gameplay options.
  • Tested and tuned gameplay.

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE

Freelance Writer, Nov. 2004 to May 2006

  • Reviewed World of Warcraft for City Pages.
  • Reviewed video games and online media for PopMatters, including NBA Street V3, Diner Dash, Rocketboom, and others.
  • Wrote entries for "The Bleacher Bums", Minnesota Public Radio's baseball web log.

HomebrewerSupply.com, July to Aug. 2005: Contract Web Developer

  • Redeveloped the HomebrewerSupply.com web site, providing a standards-compliant implementation of a conceptual design to improve usability, accessibility, and SEO.

Minnesota Public Radio, June to Sep. 2005: Web Developer

  • Redeveloped web sites for American Public Media's national radio programs, bringing them together under a common site architecture and visual identity.
  • Designed and developed a dynamic content solution for the Saint Paul Sunday web site.

Valuative Software, June to Aug. 2003: Contract UI Developer

  • Developed all the user interface components for a financial analysis product.
  • Developed a flexible and reusable user interface framework based on Java Swing.

Retek Inc., Sep. 1997 to Feb. 2003: Software Engineer

  • Assisted in a survey of Retek's applications and development teams to determine needs for usability guidelines; produced an internal website detailing these guidelines; consulted with various development teams on their implementation.
  • Researched and prototyped user interface and application frameworks.
  • Consulted with clients on performance profiling and tuning.
  • Designed and developed high-performance data movement systems.
  • Developed and delivered training curricula for new and inexperienced programmers.

SKILLS

Programming Languages:

Python, Lua, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Flash/Actionscript, HTML, CSS, XML, PHP, Perl, Java, C, C++, Unix shell scripting, Windows/DOS batch file scripting.

Software Tools:

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash, Adobe Audition/Soundbooth, Havok Behavior, Wordpress, Movable Type, Ant, Make, Google Apps, Microsoft Office.

EDUCATION

Carleton College, Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, 1997.

Courses Taken: Data Structures, Programming Languages, Computer Algorithms, Organization/Systems, Discrete Mathematics, Theory of Computation, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Graphics.

University of Minnesota, College of Continuing Education, 2004-2005.

Courses Taken: Sexuality and Culture, On Television, Critical Debates in the Study of Cinema and Mass Culture.

REFERENCES

Available upon request.