Portfolio

Scribbletown is a game I designed and originally signed to a publisher in 2017. It was shown at the Essen Spiel game fair in 2019, but rights have reverted back to me and I am working on releasing it via Kickstarter in 2021. I designed all of the systems and am responsible for playtesting and iteration, along with rulebook copy and layout. I have done most of the graphic design. The art for the newest edition was contracted out to illustrator Marlies Barends.

Infinite bidding game published by Indie Board and Cards. Designed initial rules and systems.

Author of game design book that highlights odd and sometimes forgotten game designs.

Created the art and design of a deck of prototyping cards. Successfully marketed them in a Kickstarter campaign. The Deck is a large collection of tarot-sized cards with numerous markings. You can use subsets of the Deck to quickly prototype a large number of card and dice games.

Author of game design textbook that covers a gamut of subjects including user testing, psychology, user experience, design tools, systems design, and simulation.

Seeds is a free card game I released in 2015. I designed the mechanics, did the art and graphic design, playtested it, and released it for free on BoardGameGeek. I'm working on an updated version.

In 2013, I decided I needed to know more about how people learn in systems and enrolled in the University of Central Florida's Modeling & Simulation program where I focused a lot of my study on educational psychology, especially when it intersects with instructional technologies. My project work was in self-teaching systems and metrics generation. The project generated differences in starting conditions within the context of a 2D platformer and measured how these differences affected how a player understood the underlying game systems.

Designed and prototyped various game concepts to extend and exemplify the underlying tech of Sudoku together into a full middleware solution for asynchronous mobile game delivery. Design, technical documentation, tutorial design, and user testing for various concepts including Swipe Together (pictured), Like Together, a redesigned Sudoku Together, and others.

Designed all systems, tutorials, game and menu flow. Ran user testing. Collected and implemented changes based on analytics (Swrve). Designed changes to convert premium game to F2P. Prototyped balance features (Unity3D). Kotaku made it their "Gaming App of the Day" and called it "fresh", "fun", and "well-executed".

Designed all features, along with corresponding technical documentation. Designed and wireframed all tutorials. Ran user testing. Managed analytics (Swrve).

Design and technical documentation for a social fortune cookie app.

From 2011 to 2021, I was department chair in Full Sail University's bachelor of science in Game Design program. Unfortunately, Full Sail wholly owns all that work, so I cannot display any of it here. However, I can discuss highlights: We grew from our first cohort of four students to the largest degree program of its kind in the world. I designed and taught courses in design tools, systems design, human psychology, public speaking and presentation design, design and development analysis, analytics and decision making, and advanced game design. I managed a team of excellent designers, developers, and other instructors from all kinds of backgrounds. We launched new courses every four weeks on numerous topics, often with accompanying technical projects in tools such as Unity, Unreal, Javascript (Perlenspiel), and others. I developed tools and policies for academic honesty that are now employed campus-wide. I conducted a longitudinal study of entering students' skills in order to understand what prerequisite skills signaled better long-term outcomes in order to better design entrance requirements and foundational coursework. I won an award in 2013 for Academic Innovation.

Managed design and production of company's first foray into free-to-play Facebook games. Wildlife Park was in the genre of Frontierville and allowed you to curate a wildlife preserve that was shared with your Facebook friends. Created all design documentation, along with wireframes of user interface and tutorial flows. Created specifications for analytics tools including all gameplay hooks that would be required. Presented features and builds to internal and external stakeholders. Liaised with external teams in Argentina, Chile, and France.

Designed use cases for applying interactive elements to popular coffee-table books. Managed production tasks in development with external teams. Wrote all copy for apps not taken from original work.

For a long time (2007-2012), I ran a blog here at hiwiller.com that got a lot of game designer traffic. One post I made called "If Mario Was Designed in 2010" went viral and was reposted on Kotaku, Kottke, Boing Boing, and made all the aggregators at the time. It was a critique of game design practices in 2010. It was so persuasive that Mark Zuckerberg referenced it (and used an image from it) in his F8 keynote address the following year. It was simply a series of UI snippets I threw together quickly in Photoshop.

Created both paper and digital prototypes, level, and systems design documentation, and production plans for a Pokemon-style card battling game with an NFL theme. Worked with an external studio on design and production tasks for card battling game. Technical/design documentation and throwaway prototyping for Wii and Nintendo DS projects. Designed and managed the production of an innovatively-delivered traditional simulation football game for PC that included asynchronous play.

Lead design on multiple features, including momentum systems and minigames ("Points Pursuit"). Completed production roles for those features, including completion criteria and QA plans. Completed production roles for audio tasks. Scripted (Lua) hundreds of help screens.

Managed production plan for spanish-language assets for Madden en Español 08 to maximize value in recording costs.

Paper and digital prototyping and design. Level and systems design. Technical documentation, including QA plans. Remote production, scheduling and feature definition. Liaison duties between publisher, developer, and licensor.

After a disastrous development cycle for the main SKUs, I was given a small, burnt-out team with a tight development deadline. Together we produced the most well-reviewed SKU in the franchise on time and on budget. Did all game design, UX, and production tasks. Designed in-spec with regard to technical and budget limitations. Presented milestone reviews. Managed external development team. Liaison for publisher, developer, and licensor.

Completed technical documentation including tests for completion and QA requirements. Compiled and edited "chatter" scripts. Designed "titles" system for minigame end screens (see "Crush the Carrier" below). Captured and edited marketing footage.