Professional Projects
Fortnite Battle Royale
As a key contributor to one of the world's most iconic battle royales, I led balance, event design, and UGC initiatives that drove massive player engagement. From early-season meta tuning to bespoke modes, my work focused on systemic innovation and real-time responsiveness.
Lead Gameplay Designer
- Led Impostors mode (social deduction departure from core gameplay) and MrBeast $1M tournament (UGC gamemode with 12.6M participants over 3 days, zero issues).
- For Impostors, focused on Fortnite "feel" with dynamic level shifts tied to narrative beats.
- For MrBeast tournament, collaborated externally for creative injection while ensuring fairness.
- UGC Tools: Directed initiatives structuring tool development around gamemodes, resulting in multiuse features and tools that are utilized by thousands of creators globally.
Senior Gameplay Designer
- Owned Limited Time Modes (LTMs), releasing data-informed variants like 50v50 that boosted session lengths and retention by 30%.
- Analyzed player behavior trends, prototyped in UE5, and iterated based on feedback - mentoring junior designers to provide feedback
Challenges and Solutions: Scaling events for millions of players. Retention dips addressed with rolling LTMs, emphasizing approachable fun.
Outcomes and Metrics: Impostors increased retention 20%; MrBeast engaged 12.6M with $1M integrity; LTMs 30% retention/20% DAU lift; UGC tools supported 70K creators.
Reflections: These projects taught me the power of player agency and how to translate data into delightful retentive gameplay.
Gameplay Designer
Gameplay Designer: Designed end-of-season events like the Rocket and Unvaulting. For the Unvaulting, I created real-time unvaulting systems syncing 24M global contributions across servers, ensuring worldwide consistency.
Challenges: Maintaining replication for millions; solved with master-server communication protocols, fostering emergent community excitement.
Lead Balance Designer
Lead Balance Designer (Seasons 1-11): Directed a team of 6 designers/analysts in analyzing and tuning gameplay metas. Developed hotfixing systems for quick patches without downtime, enabling industry-leading community response (exploit reductions within minutes!).
Process: Started with data dives (win parity metrics), iterated via blueprints in UE5, and tested with internal playtests; effectively collaborating with engineers for seamless collaboration.
Turbo City Chronicles
CEO and Studio Head
Owned company wide organization and documentation for Turbo City Chronicles (open-world sim with cartoonishly exaggerated physics/AI) ensuring team cohesion as we quickly marched forward. Sourced a strong global talent pool, and managed a scrappy 7-person cross disciplinary team. Networked and spoke with countless investors to establish funding for development. Created and operated our Go to Market strategy for Turbo City Chronicles.
Reflections: Bootstrapped creativity in family-friendly systems with a HUGE learning curve to game marketing and self-promotion. Created a vast network of content creators in hopes of partnering for future release of Turbo City Chronicles
Paragon
Competitive Design Analyst
Analyzed balance for third-person action MOBA, ensuring fairness in character/item systems. Deep dove into character metas and itemization/cards, reporting on build strengths/weaknesses.
Process: Data analysis (win rates, synergies), recommendations for tuning, collaboration with design team for iterations.
Challenges: Balancing diverse builds; solved with tiered strengths/weaknesses, fostering strategic depth.
Outcomes and Metrics: Contributed to competitive parity, supporting playerbase growth before shutdown.
Reflections: This role honed my analytical eye for systemic fairness, influencing my later lead work.
Worlds
Design Manager
Led a remote team through FPS arena shooter and horde mode prototypes (100+ enemy variants, progression unlocks). Built infrastructure for global collaboration, reducing miscommunication.
Reflections: Learned a lot about product market fit for game development and how to incorporate that into design. Gained deep experience with design documentation to ensure cross discipline cohesion as we developed.