Ninja Theory
April 2008 - December 2010
Enslaved
Enslaved, which will always be known to me by its working title: Monkey, has a really special place in my heart. Not only was it the first game I worked on, but the small, ambitious team really let us younger designers take ownership and responsibility for our work; a philosophy that I have championed and carried with me ever since. People do their best work when they are passionate and energized by what they are making, and this starts with ownership and responsibility. Give people the freedom and space to make mistakes and they will probably make less of them because they will try harder!
DmC
I was only on DmC for a short time but during that time we built a huge number of prototypes, one of which, I found out years later, made it into the game almost un-altered. It was a chase sequence I built where the city streets were trying to catch and crush you. It was based on a piece of concept art that showed the tops of buildings crumbling to pieces and the rubble gentry hanging in mid-air. My idea was to take this inspiring image and make it playable. To make this ethereal, peaceful destruction part of the play space. To my delight, that prototype sparked a lot more inspiration in the studio and whole levels in the final game followed that concept.
