My Journey
How did I get here?
Having officially been in the games industry for ~20 years, my history extends farther than my professional career.
I believe people are not defined by their title, we're the sum of our path and life experiences. Here is my journey in loose chronological order.
Game Jams
Table Flip Simulator
VR Game Jam
At the height of VR hype I joined a local game jam for some VR fun. The team I joined sounded the most unique and ridiculous, Table Flip Simulator.
Ever wanted to flip a table? A pretty simple premise that was a blast to make with an amazing crew. I made most of the custom 3D assets, including the flippers themselves.
Zombie Hurdler
Ludum Dare 33—You are the Monster
Inspired by infinite runners, I wanted to explore the realm of zombie obstacle avoidance. A solo entry, I took this opportunity to learn a bit of C# and experiment with diegetic health states. Your zombie loses a limb for each obstacle collided with.
Studies
Game Design Certificate
University of Washington
Aiding in making the transition from Environment Art to Game Design I enrolled in the acclaimed certificate program at the University of Washington. Working in the industry, some of it was a refresher, but overall it provided a framework for exploration and experimentation in a new role. A highly collaborative environment, I spent many nights jamming with my classmates.
Monolith
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Action-adventure Game
The Nemesis System! Shadow was a game changer. Unfortunately, as our industry is prone to, I was laid off during the course of the project.
This would be the last project I worked on at Monolith as a Artist. I’d be back in the future as a Designer, but for now my primary task was to create mesas that Talion could free-form traverse. They needed to both look good and work with our core traversal metrics. A theme I’d carry over to my role as World Design Lead.
Project Apollo
Unannounced Title—Canceled
What would ultimately form the foundation for Shadow of Mordor, this canceled title was a joy to work on. I was focused on creating several hero props as part of the green light finale sequence.
Guardians of Middle-earth
MOBA
The first project Incorporating zBrush. I worked on designing and laying out single-player levels for the story mode. As the game pivoted to become a MOBA I rolled onto another project at the studio.
Gotham City Impostors
Multiplayer FPS
What if we made TF2 but Batman? This was the project I was most excited to be working on next. Given my love of competitive shooters, I was working on a game I’d always wanted to play.
Being a relatively small team, the Environment Artists were often in charge of building out entire levels.
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
FPS Horror Game
I left Sony Bend to return to my hometown of Seattle. My goal was to work on a next-gen game (Xbox 360), and I landed on F.E.A.R. 2. One of the most fun projects I’ve worked on in my career. Coming off the high of F.E.A.R., the team had big ideas, and a budget to make them happen.
As an Environment Artist, I splattered blood around hallways, propped out spaces, created and textured assets, setup streaming volumes, simulated physics, and occasionally laid out my own levels.
Esports
Starsiege: Tribes & Tribes 2
Multiplayer FPS
At the height of my competitive shooter days, I was a top Tribes player. It was professional esports in all ways, except for funding. I competed in the pro circuit, our highest profile matches being Shoutcast with live commentary. While our team never achieved that number 1 spot, we did consistently place in the top five.
Everyone thinks my online handle, Krypton, is a Superman reference, but in reality, it comes from my Tribes 2 team, eleMental. We named ourselves after the periodic table. Like you do.
My student game, Pool FUN! made it into three volumes of Nintendo Power.
Competitive Analysis
Counter-Strike
Is this a viable career path?
Going back to a time before digital cameras and smart phones, as high school students we used to throw LAN parties at the local library. Competitive Counter-strike was in it’s infancy, and as a teenager I never considered it a viable career path. At the height of our ambition, students threw a 160 person LAN party at a local tech campus, complete with sponsors and prizes.
Monolith
Wonder Woman
Announced Title—Canceled
Pivoting from Legacy to Wonder Woman, I took on the role of Lead. Building a team from scratch, I grew World Design from a team of two to ten.
Working cross-discipline to ensure alignment and buyoff
Empowering my team to explore and providing room for growth
Driving and defining a large-scale open-world environment
Constantly striving for the best possible open world experience
World Design bridged the gap between traditional Design disciplines and Art. My team ensured spaces were metric compliant and constructed in a way that adhered to our aesthetics, narrative, and lore. This took extensive planning, documentation, and many many maps.
Studies
UI/UX Certificate
University of Washington
Always learning, that’s my motto. Curious by nature I like to know what I don’t know. This thirst for knowledge spawned from another well known motto, “Be Prepared”. As an Eagle Scout, “Be Prepared” became a way of life, and a quest for continued learning and growth.
I’ve always been interested in UI and visual interface design. I like to know how things work, and I like creating the most efficient and elegant methods for interaction. Accessibility is the foundation of a good user interface. Video games are getting there, but we still have a ways to go.
Project Legacy
Unannounced Title—Canceled
My return to Monolith! I joined the World Design team after traveling and exploring the real-world. World Design was the perfect confluence of Environment Art and Game Design. Building on my real-life experiences, I utilized my learnings to help craft a world that fit our gameplay and metrics, while incorporating the more fantastical elements in a realistic way.
As part of a small team, I aimed for high reusability, which led to modular construction practices. Designing modular kits that could be re-combined into numerous unique, yet high quality, spaces.
Personal Projects
Accidentally Interesting
Blog / Memoir
One of the largest undertakings I’ve attempted, an entire year of daily blog posts. Having missed only a single day—partially on purpose to challenge my completionist tendencies—I turned the experience into a book.
Never fully intended as anything other than a personal challenge, I’ve taken the blog down, it’s purpose served.
Game Prose
Event and Esports Photography
I left my job in Game Design at Valkyrie to travel the world for a year as an event and esports photographer. It was an amazing, and life changing, experience. New cultures, new friendships, and a new me.
I’ve always had an interest in photography and composition, this year gave me the opportunity to look at the world through a new lens, both figuratively and literally.
I loved getting a backstage look at how esports have evolved and grown from my days completing in Tribes 2.
Rost Design
Logos and Visual Design
Design is in my blood. I love a good design. Be it visual or systemic. I’m always chasing clean design in my personal projects and my career. Here are a few designs I made for myself and others.
Valkyrie
GUNS UP!
F2P Side-scrolling Strategy Game
My first project after making the transition fully to Game Design. I was the only Designer placed on the project, a big responsibility considering I was designing:
All units, their stats, and perks
Card drop rates, costs, and basic economy
Progression and leveling curve
All copy, strings, and the localization database
All static levels, challenges, and endless mode
For an initial player base of 3 million+
An amazing experience, I’m so thankful Valkyrie believed in me.
Forza Motorsport 5
Racing Game
As a fan of racing games, I was thrilled to be working on Forza, both on real-world tracks and a fictional airfield test track.
Modelling race track details based on point cloud data for Bathurst and Silverstone.
Creating and modeling test track assets like the water tower, shipping containers, parking garage, and optimizing the 747 jet.
Batman: Arkham Origins
Action-adventure Game
I wasn’t on this project very long, joining Valkyrie near the tail end. I focused on modeling and texturing vehicle assets. As my introduction to the art outsourcing world, I enjoyed the variety of high-profile games we worked on.
Personal Project
Restaurabo
Board Game Prototype
Combining two of my favorite things, cooking, and the board game Agricola, I designed Restaurabo—a worker placement restaurant sim. At the time there were few to no restaurant board games. I saw this as an opportunity to create something that I wanted to play, and maybe others would too. Designing at a coffee shop in the morning and playtesting at night, my prototype came together.
I gave myself a deadline, I had appointments to pitch Restaurabo at Spiel in Essen, Germany. After a few long nights cutting thousands of cards, I finished my prototypes hours before my flight.
Sony Bend
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
Third-person Shooter
My first job in the games industry. I was on my way to Bend, Oregon to work on the Syphon Filter franchise. As a budding Environment Artist I had a lot to learn, school can only do so much to prepare you for the real world.
I started on small props, but quickly worked my way up to blocking out entire environments.
DigiPen
3D Computer Animation
Associate of Applied Arts Degree
Once I realized that I was more of an artist, and always had been, I switched degrees. I’m sure I would’ve been a fine programmer, but art was my passion.
Real-Time Interactive Simulation
Studies
You can make games for a living! The thought entered my head watching DigiPen student’s projects in my high school home room. I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before this moment.
Growing up in Seattle I was lucky enough to be a short drive away from Redmond and DigiPen. It was the only college I applied to, good thing I got in!
I started with Real-Time Interactive Simulation, as I believed at the time to make games you needed to be a programmer first.
I’m on the left with my back to the camera. One of the few remaining records of these events.
Early Designs
Bartman Meets Sonic
Paper Designs
My very first game design! I think I was onto something here.
P.S. I’m better at spelling today.