Riot’s tag-team fighting game set in the world of League of Legends.
As a core combat designer, then Lead Champion Designer, I got very good at some difficult things:
Building characters that players fall in love with, by designing every facet toward a sharp player fantasy.
Designing mechanical puzzle pieces that players can assemble in expressive ways.
Adapting and elevating an IP without directly copying mechanics.
Crafting explosive combat with amazing game feel and tuning levers for balance.
Developing design frameworks that accelerate progress and maintain cohesion.
Training and leading a team of designers with enthusiasm and compassion.
Designing and tuning novel core combat systems for depth and competitive integrity.
Designing Ekko, I love him. (Nominated for ‘Best Character’ at the EVO awards!)
Speaking to players authentically while building connection, excitement, and a clear narrative.
Identifying the actual value of a game in its audience’s life, and designing to that.
2XKO
Cursed Problems in Game Design
Explains a core form of tension in the product vision and design of many games, causing them to inevitably fail. Teaches methods for identifying this tension, and resolving it through necessary compromises.
People love this one! It’s one of the most cited and lauded game design talks of all time. 🥰 Top 10 GDC talk, with 850k+ views.
Design Consulting & Analysis
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Combat design and roguelike structure consultant on HeartLoop Games’ roguelike single-player fighting game,
Poly Fighter.
Here’s
a testimonial
"I don't know how to express in words how valuable the time we've spent with Alex has been. He is a fountain of design knowledge who can is an expert on high level game structure as well as moment-to-moment gameplay, and literally everything in between. In just hours he solved problems for us that we had been struggling to solve for nearly our entire production. I'm not exaggerating by saying that in the 2 short contracts we've been fortunate enough to have with him he's leveled up our game and our team measurably, and saved us months of development time and iteration. I would recommend Alex as a consultant for your game projects without reservation.”
- Osama Dorias, Creative Director of Poly Fighter from Poly Fighter's Creative Director, Osama Dorias. -
Combat design consultant on Double Fine’s creation-and-destruction multiplayer clay pot brawler,
Kiln.
Here’s
a testimonial
"Alex brought a wealth of design knowledge and a great collaborative mindset to the time he spent working as a consultant on our game, Kiln. In just one week, Alex was able to make material improvements to the game by using an effective mix of empathetic curiosity and firm opinions to get a sense for the state of the game, make concrete suggestions complete with risk and scope considerations, and even jump into an engine he hadn't used before to make changes to the game itself. The result was a combat and game feel experience that was improved for his contributions, even in so short a time. I highly recommend Alex if you need a designer who can join your project and make concrete positive contributions to both your project and your team."
- Lauren Scott, Lead Designer of Kiln from Kiln's Lead Designer, Lauren Scott. - Progression design consultant on God of War (2018). Visited Sony Santa Monica to meet with designers, evaluate existing progression systems, and guide towards improvement opportunities, as well as a balancing framework.
- Progression design consultant on Radiant Entertainment’s Rising Thunder. Designed robust end-to-end progression systems. Included a novel (yet untested!) system to achieve much of the motivation of a pay-to-win system without impacting competitive integrity.
- In-house designer for Kongregate’s mobile publishing division. Provided design consultation and evaluation for 10+ published games (emphasizing systems and progression), as well as deep data analysis.
Alphabear & Alphabear 2
Spry Fox’s cute gacha word game sensation.
On Alphabear, I did balancing, data analysis, and systems design. On Alphabear 2, I was lead designer for all of prototyping & preproduction
The heart of my work was to thread a difficult needle: harness the retention and monetization features of classic gacha games, while maintaining the coziness and values of Spry Fox. I researched and broke down the genre to understand the non-negotiable economic principles, then rebuilt a player-friendly progression & monetization loop on those foundations. I tuned this system using deep data analysis, and designed & built a robust progression simulator to assist.
Presents a new way of thinking about asymmetric balance in competitive games.
Turns out tier lists don’t make much sense, since the effectiveness of a character/class/etc. is dependent on the popularity of their bad matchups in the meta. Using game theory, I found a more holistic way of expressing character power, by measuring their potential popularity in a stable meta. This talk explains this method, how to use it, and actually runs it on PlayStation All-Stars to show its predictiveness.
Several developers have actually implemented this and used it to predict the meta of their PvP game. Nice!
Metagame Balance
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale
During my PhD, I interned then consulted on PSABR as a Technical Game Designer.
My role focused on analyzing granular player data to support game balancing. I developed novel visualizations for making sense of key gameplay moments, and skill-partitioning for finding balance signal in the noise. I worked directly with the game director post-launch to find unsurfaced balance issues, and dive deep into player concerns. Some of this work can be seen in my PhD thesis.
On the side, I designed the game’s competitive ranking system!
PhD in Computational Game Balancing
A PhD dissertation at the University of Washington’s Computer Science & Engineering program.
I started in theoretical computer science, which is just math. I am a great mathematician for a game designer, but not a great mathematician for a mathematician, so I eventually transitioned to research on game design.
My dissertation formulates a rigorous theory of what game balance actually is, explores that, and shows various ways of measuring it (data analysis, simulation, game theory, etc.), to help designers better understand their games.
I also did a bit of research in a bunch of areas: computational biology, computational media, complexity theory, distributed systems, computer architecture, educational games, and game balancing, before I found my forever home as a practicing designer.
Roguelike Development: Road Not Taken & Steambirds Alliance
Spry Fox’s roguelite adventure puzzle game, and roguelite mmo bullethell shooter.
Roguelikes make my heart flutter. At Spry Fox I got to do a mix of programming and design on two wonderful hybrid roguelites.
On Road Not Taken, I worked on the procedural level generation system, and got to design some encounters, such as the Baba Yaga boss level seen here! (This game is mystical and I still adore it.)
On Steambirds Alliance, I did a great deal of engineering: core combat, tools, network stack, UI, again the procgen system. I also helped with core combat design, enemy design, and metagame systems.
