Hi! I am a Technical Game Designer at Bungie. You can see some of my work below, or learn more by contacting me via the following links:
Other interests include digital humanities, graphic design, music (I'm an oboist), and dueling sabre.
Projects
Digital CCG
From the minds behind Magic: The Gathering comes Spellslingers, an explosive strategic card battler packed with heroes as unique as you. Play with fire! Command a kraken! Fight from the shadows! Choose a Planeswalker who fits your playstyle and personality.
I work as a technical designer on this project!
See it on the Play Store
I had the pleasure of working on the Pipeworks Madden team for this incredible franchise. My duties were those of a UI scripter.
Educational MMO
I worked as an Associate Designer for the metagame on Adventure Academy. General duties included quest/item authoring and implementation, bug fixing, and pitching quests and design ideas.
Trailer
Design Details
Quest: Smithson’s Riddles
The goal for the metagame quests was not only to entertain the player, but also to draw them towards certain educational activities and points of interest. I pitched a series of quests given by the math professor — they would have to solve a riddle, whose solution would be a location within the world. This would work to:
Engage the player’s mind with riddles
Show the player interesting locations/objects around the map
Quests: Racing
I implemented a number of “racing”-style quests, where the player had to pass through some number of gates. I designed the routes and gate/item placement so that:
the race could be run in either direction
the next objective was obviously visible from the previous objective
there was, when possible, more than one route to take
there would be a potential tradeoff for picking up speed boosts
the player would pass points of interest they might be inclined to revisit after ocmpleting the race
Documentation
walkthroughs on content creation
walkthroughs on data authoring
tools & custom plugins
Items
authored items
made sure data was consistent
fixed bugs in item data
handled release and branching of items/item data
Technical Details
Quests: Implementation Systems:
set standards for implementing complex quests and cinematics using the tools available.
Tools: Custom Plugins:
coded plugins for our data authoring tool in C# to speed up designer workflow and export game data.
Debugging:
programming knowledge allowed for more in-depth debugging and troubleshooting
Fixed a few bugs in the code
Ludum Dare 45
You are an adorable (and hungry) little ghost in this Halloween world! Eat things smaller than you to absorb their powers, but watch out! Creatures larger than you may be eyeing you in the same hungry way…
This was my first Ludum Dare! I was the vision holder and programmer.
Theme: Start With Nothing
I had, for some reason, thought Ludum Dare was 48 hours instead of 72. So I wanted something that we could reasonably get playable in 2 days. Since it was October, we wanted to do something Halloween-themed. I proposed a modified “eat-n-grow” game.
Modifications:
In addition to size, the player would have other “stats”
What the player consumed would change their stats
Players would gain abilities and ability modifications from certain enemies
Theme relation:
The player starts quite small with nothing special, but over time gains size, power, and abilities until they are quite the unstoppable ghost.
Global Game Jam 2019
You are an interior designer/realtor tasked with designing a suitable home for your clients. Based on their needs, can you create a thematic and coherent living space that fulfills their dreams?
Third Time’s the Charm was made during January 2019’s Global Game Jam! This was my first game jam as an official participant and it was an amazing experience. I served as a programmer and the vision holder. I jammed at a site that was organized by the local game development community here in Oregon.
Small Web Game
When I was younger, I used to watch a lot of game shows. Lingo was a favorite of mine, and I wanted to incorporate a Lingo-like game into my language learning website project as well, so I made a little demo in English.
Play it here or load the pen below
You are given the first letter of a five-letter word.
You have five tries to guess the word.
With each try, if a letter is in the correct spot, it turns green.
If the letter is in the word and has not been correctly placed, it lights up yellow (ex. if the word is “truth” and “twist” is guessed, the second t will light up yellow because it is in the wrong spot).
See the Pen
Lingo Game by KS (@KSayrs)
on CodePen.
Educational Visual Novel
For the Cornell Summer Research Institute, I designed and developed a game demo on the story of Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion by Chretien de Troyes. This demo was the beginning part to a much bigger idea – a website to help (primarily higher ed) students learn & retain foreign language knowledge primarily through the use of online games. As both I and the faculty member I worked with are French speakers, we started out developing for French language learners. This project was presented at Cornell College’s Student Symposium in April 2017.
Watch the video about the research & development of the game
Play the demo
Read the research reflections
Interactive Fiction
As a Digital Humanities exercise, we created digital adaptations of written works from The Husk — Cornell College’s literary magazine from the 1920s to the 1960s. I chose a piece called “The Scarf” to adapt into an interactive fiction format.
Interactive Fiction
During a course on Magic, Myths, and Legends, my partner and I created an interactive fiction piece based off of the story of Peter Schlemiel. This project was completed start to finish in about two weeks.
Responsive Blog Theme
I used to have a tumblr blog, and was always annoyed at how thin they were (max 700 pixels — in this day and age???). I wanted a theme that allowed for wider posts, so I checked out what support they had for making custom themes and gave it a go.
The result is a theme ideal for photography blogs.
It allows customization of:
Colors
Fonts
Header Height
Background
Nav Bar
Content Width
It also has a search bar than can be hidden, and allows hiding of like and reblog buttons for those aiming for a portfolio look.
