Senior advisory in game design direction, systems architecture, and loop design — for AAA projects in pre-production, vertical slice, and live operations.
GSC Game World
Directing design across open-world survival systems, progression architecture, and DLC content strategy for one of the most anticipated PC/console releases of the generation.
Flying Wild Hog
Scaled the Warsaw design team 3× while establishing loop architecture and design-craft standards for a AAA action production through vertical slice and into full production.
Soulforge Games
Original IP. Built full loop architecture from a blank page for a dark sci-fi action horror FPS. Defined the player promise, combat systems, progression hierarchy, and production pipeline as founding creative director.
Gameloft Barcelona
Core gameplay and live-service design for the mobile racing franchise that reached 400M+ players. Apple Game of the Year, 2014 and 2015.
Embedded creative leadership for studios in pre-production. Defining the player promise, locking design pillars, and resolving the structural questions that determine what the team builds first and why.
Diagnosing core, meta, and outer loop failures before they ship. Rebuilding the loop hierarchy so systems compose instead of competing — and survive contact with production at scale.
Milestone audits, team-scaling strategy, and design-debt triage. Identifying the structural calls that prevent costly pivots mid-production — before the team discovers the problem in alpha.
Recurring strategic counsel for studio heads, executive producers, and design directors. Design reviews, hiring guidance, and the difficult creative calls that benefit from a senior voice without internal politics.
Most game design problems at scale are not creative problems. They are structural problems wearing creative clothing.
Every system serves a single experiential claim. The mechanics that don't, leave the build.
Features ship and break. Systems compose, scale, and survive contact with production.
Pre-production exists to retire risk, not to build content. Prototype the questions whose answers would change the project.
Core, meta, and outer loops fail when they serve identical goals at different rates. Diagnose cannibalization before it ships and becomes unfixable in live ops.
A design document earns its existence by changing a decision. Otherwise it is overhead the team will quietly stop reading.
The most expensive design decision is the one the team discovers was wrong after content production has started. Define constraints early. Let the team build with confidence.
If you are scaling a design team, locking loops before vertical slice, navigating a critical production decision, or looking for senior design counsel — start here.