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When I first interviewed at The Amazing Society, it was called "Aristo Digital" and housed all of its employees in one room. Two and a half years later, our team of almost 100 people released a MMO that was built basically from scratch. My duties on SHSO started with designing combat missions, but soon became "whatever needed doing". I designed entire systems, wrote hero-themed comic books, gave press interviews, and yes, designed the hell out of those missions. Yes, it's a game targeted at kids, but I play it every day and still have a blast. By the time we released in April 2011, I was leading the 13-person missions team. Since then, I have taken over the entire Live Content Team, which numbers 24 people and is producing characters, missions, objects, and locations that are, well, amazing. Luckily, I've still found time to write all the dialogue for the game -- the voiceover for over 100 characters will go live in the next few weeks. |
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Technically, I was laid off (along with quite a few others) before Space Siege actually shipped. However, since I was responsible for creating the characters, back story, missions, dialogue, and pretty much everything else about the game's world, I'm putting it on this list. The bad news is that GPG re-wrote and re-recorded everything after I left. It's kind of a long story. The good news? I've still got the complete script and entire game's worth of VO for my portfolio -- along with the most satisfying and exhilarating experience of my life. |
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After shipping two role-playing games in a year, the level design team on the Dungeon Siege series took a break to help out on a real-time strategy title for a while. During these months, I had to learn a lot of Lua in a short period of time -- which I put to use by focusing on one single-player mission from start to finish. RTS games aren't really my thing (as you'd see in a hurry if you ever watched me play Starcraft), but this one was a lot of fun to work on and test. |
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The sequel to what a lot of people were calling "the Diablo killer", until it was released and was "merely" a great loot-grabbing RPG. Dungeon Siege II improved on the original in every way, but didn't get nearly as much press. This was another project that I joined near the end, but I seized every opportunity I could lay my hands on: scenario scripting, cutscene editing, and much more. |
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After Legend Entertainment was shut down in early 2004, I moved to Leaping Lizard. I joined the company towards the end of development on one the first casino games for Xbox Live, but in my short time on the project, I learned a lot about a wide range of issues, from UI design to console certification. Unfortunately, a publishing deal never materialized for a sequel, and the company disintegrated a few months later. Fortunately, this triggered my long-awaited leap from the crumbling ladder of production to the healthy vine of design. |
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While the real sequel to Unreal was often mistaken for its multiplayer cousin, it is a distinctly different game from Unreal Tournament. And while other games were taking the first-person action genre in new directions, Unreal II was designed to be a pure FPS, with a little story thrown in for good measure. In addition to writing assorted dialogue, cutting up and post-processing all the VO, and many other duties, I provided the voice of one of the main characters. This was enough to get me onto the Internet Movie Database as "Grant Roberts (I)". |
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A first-person shooter based on Robert Jordan's hugely popular fantasy books. I was only on the project for a few months before it shipped, but that was enough time to see some amazing people doing some amazing work. The environments still hold up today as some of the most gorgeous ever made in a first-person shooter, and the gameplay (especially in multiplayer) is still a breath of fresh air. That's probably why GameSpy named it #10 on their list of the most twenty-five underrated games of all time. |
Close, but not quite:
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After I left Gas Powered Games, I went south to Issaquah and joined the team working on this teen-targeted MMO. From the get-go, I was in charge of the world again: back story, culture, factions, and more. But this time, the scope was much larger. CHO was going to be a full-fledged MMO, with fifteen combat zones at launch -- each of which would contain dozens of quests. I was able to rewrite the game's entire fiction and completely flesh out half of those combat zones before the Activision-Vivendi merger was finalized in the middle of 2008, resulting in my third studio closure in four years. |