My interest in videogames began as a kid watching my father play games on his PC: Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Age of Empires, and Quake were my intro to gaming. One Christmas he bought me the Orange Box on Steam and ever since, computers, technology, and videogames have been my focus in life. Long before I even knew I wanted to be a game designer, I took to using Garry's Mod as a medium for building sets, levels, and gameplay, pouring hundreds of hours into creating my own experiences and on occasion, artwork. Outside of my gaming hobby however, originally I followed my father's career path: I pursued film, TV, and video editing in the hope of filming TV and movies. After graduating High School I landed an internship at the Cox Media CBS-47/FOX-30 News Station under my mentor, Tony Sotelo. In my short time there I learned what it was like to work in the media industry, film and edit commercials, and create professional content geared towards public audiences.
Nevertheless, I ultimately came to the realization that between film and games, I wanted more to do with the creation of the medium that inspired me most. Pursuing a Digital Media degree at the University of Central Florida, I discovered my passion for game design, acquiring the skills and experience needed to construct challenging puzzles, engaging levels, and meaningful gameplay for players. During my time there I met talented artists, programmers and designers, working in both Unity and Unreal to develop games for a wide variety of genres and mediums, including VR! Since graduating, my goal is to create high-quality, immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact on players, just like the impact my favorite games have left on me.
Some of my idols include Viktor Antonov, Mark Laidlaw, and Andreas Rönnberg. I aspire to create levels following a 'Valvian' design philosophy, prioritizing form-follows-function, enjoyability for players, and appropriate pacing for maximum satisfaction. I work best on PC and VR focused games, but have experience in cross-platform games. I like all genres in games (As my Steam library would attest!), however my favorite genres in games include: sci-fi, horror, FPS, linear singleplayer experiences, co-op multiplayer, and PVP multiplayer.