About me:
In preparation in writing this 'about me' section, I thought It would be interesting to ask those around me how they would describe me. If you ask my friends, family and co-workers who I am they would describe me as: tenacious, creative, flexible, easy to talk to, determined, confident, positive, hardworking, passionate. My brother said, "I think your ability to get things done rests on you not being afraid to mess up, reassess, and continue to work towards the objective despite any set backs." It is always interesting to take an objective look at yourself and try to describe who you really are. If I had to tell you one thing about me I would say tell you that I try to live my life with "Aloha". To me, this means I try to live with passion, compassion, and try to help everyone(including me) have a good time along the way.
Now for a brief intro on my personal/professional history:
I grew up in Hawaii and I attended BYU - Hawaii and earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science with an additional emphasis in TESOL(Teaching English). After graduating, I had the great opportunity of working in Japan both as an English teacher and as an independent game maker. My independent games were fun, but I had a strong desire to learn more about the gaming industry and make games that reach larger audiences. That led me to apply for a Masters Degree at the University of Utah (Ranked #1 in the world for graduate game design programs). At grad school, I enjoyed a hands on approach to learning all about the Video Game Industry which culminated in publishing a major game on steam (Maui) and getting a job in the gaming industry.
In January 2016, I started working at Electronic Arts in Salt Lake City. I started as a level designer on The Secret Life of Pets: Unleashed and made over 100 levels. From there I started to work on feature design and game documentation focusing on systems design and defining processes for the design team. This lead to me becoming the Lead Designer just in time for the release of the Orange Throne Update which is a major recurring limited time event.
In addition to my work on Pets Unleashed, I worked the Lead Designer of an unannounced title. This title included the creation of the game vision, the general rules creation, paper prototyping, documenting and work allocation to engineering and art, and massive amounts of iteration to find the fun.
Unfortunately, due to reorganization within EA mobile, EA - Salt Lake City announced that it was closing in march of 2017. I thought for a bit about my next move. I had loved my time at EA and it was a real shock that the studio was closing. After consulting with my wife we thought it might be fun to try to find something closer to her home in Japan. I applied to a few places and ended up accepting a position at Rakuten Games.
Moving to Tokyo and starting at Rakuten Games was a wild adventure. Rakuten Games went through many changes in leadership and direction. I covered many different roles that could be best summaraized as the Producer/Game Designer/Director role. I developed my systems design skills and made multiple games from start to finish. I learned agile process management by leading my team in establishing agile processes. Rakuten Games focused on HTML5 games including the RGames.jp platform and Facebook Instant games.
In preparation in writing this 'about me' section, I thought It would be interesting to ask those around me how they would describe me. If you ask my friends, family and co-workers who I am they would describe me as: tenacious, creative, flexible, easy to talk to, determined, confident, positive, hardworking, passionate. My brother said, "I think your ability to get things done rests on you not being afraid to mess up, reassess, and continue to work towards the objective despite any set backs." It is always interesting to take an objective look at yourself and try to describe who you really are. If I had to tell you one thing about me I would say tell you that I try to live my life with "Aloha". To me, this means I try to live with passion, compassion, and try to help everyone(including me) have a good time along the way.
Now for a brief intro on my personal/professional history:
I grew up in Hawaii and I attended BYU - Hawaii and earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science with an additional emphasis in TESOL(Teaching English). After graduating, I had the great opportunity of working in Japan both as an English teacher and as an independent game maker. My independent games were fun, but I had a strong desire to learn more about the gaming industry and make games that reach larger audiences. That led me to apply for a Masters Degree at the University of Utah (Ranked #1 in the world for graduate game design programs). At grad school, I enjoyed a hands on approach to learning all about the Video Game Industry which culminated in publishing a major game on steam (Maui) and getting a job in the gaming industry.
In January 2016, I started working at Electronic Arts in Salt Lake City. I started as a level designer on The Secret Life of Pets: Unleashed and made over 100 levels. From there I started to work on feature design and game documentation focusing on systems design and defining processes for the design team. This lead to me becoming the Lead Designer just in time for the release of the Orange Throne Update which is a major recurring limited time event.
In addition to my work on Pets Unleashed, I worked the Lead Designer of an unannounced title. This title included the creation of the game vision, the general rules creation, paper prototyping, documenting and work allocation to engineering and art, and massive amounts of iteration to find the fun.
Unfortunately, due to reorganization within EA mobile, EA - Salt Lake City announced that it was closing in march of 2017. I thought for a bit about my next move. I had loved my time at EA and it was a real shock that the studio was closing. After consulting with my wife we thought it might be fun to try to find something closer to her home in Japan. I applied to a few places and ended up accepting a position at Rakuten Games.
Moving to Tokyo and starting at Rakuten Games was a wild adventure. Rakuten Games went through many changes in leadership and direction. I covered many different roles that could be best summaraized as the Producer/Game Designer/Director role. I developed my systems design skills and made multiple games from start to finish. I learned agile process management by leading my team in establishing agile processes. Rakuten Games focused on HTML5 games including the RGames.jp platform and Facebook Instant games.