HitPoint Studios

From 2012 to 2014, I worked as a game designer and writer at the independent New England game development studio, HitPoint. I had been working on mobile games for the past five years and was desperate for a change of scenery, so I was fortunate enough to join the HitPoint team right as they were hardening up the first episode of what would eventually shape up to be a rather sizable adventure game series.

Adera (MS Windows App Store)

Episodes 1, 2, & 3: Designer & Writer
Episodes 4 & 5: Lead Designer & Writer

I was initially brought on board at HitPoint Studios to serve as a narrative-focused game designer on their Adera episodic adventure series. A great portion of the lore and backstory was still in flux, coursing through HitPoint, Microsoft, and transmedia leads, but we all ultimately came together to create a compelling tale that stretched across five multi-hour episodes.

For episodes 1, 2, and 3, I assisted in drilling down the beat-by-beat story details, keeping the narrative interesting but still ensuring that it followed the major beats outlined by the narrative leads. Within those beats, I worked on laying out the individual scenes the player would visit per episode, the puzzles they would need to solve, writing initial dialog, and maintaining the design documentation for the internal and external teams.

Starting with episode 4, I was promoted to lead designer on the Adera series. In the last two episodes, I collaborated more directly with the external publishers and narrative team, working to keep the project in scope and also achieve the narrative and gameplay goals set out by the project owners.

As a fan of classic point-and-click adventure games like MYST, Lighthouse, and pretty much everything in the LucasArts/Sierra library, being able to help craft an original IP in the adventure genre was incredibly exciting.

Fablewood

Lead Designer & Writer

While the final episodes of Adera came together, HitPoint was already planning on its next major internal title: something to build off of the casual builder/hidden object-loving they had fostered in their already successful Seaside Hideaway. I was given the opportunity to help build a new IP from the ground-up: something themed around the concept of "twisted fairy tales".

There is a rather large emphasis on story and character-focused activity in Fablewood, with the player getting pulled into the fantasy realm of Fablewood in an intro cutscene (not common in Facebook games), humorous dialog with multiple characters (also not common), and quest-driven context for your hidden object scenes (ridiculously uncommon).

In addition to writing the initial pass on the quests and dialog, I also helped guide the world creation process, the music direction, hidden object scene design, building design, and the various UI/HUD elements.  

I was also the mastermind behind the "Philosopher Cow" you can put in your forest village. It's a fairy tale cow reading through a bunch of thick philosophy books.

And that's pretty hilarious.