Andrew Gowans - Games Portfolio
Employment History
I-play / Oberon Media (2009-2011)
Designer
I-play / Oberon Media (2006-2009)
Design Support / QA Project Lead / QA Tester
Role included:
- Leading projects as sole or most senior designer
- Working with and managing colleagues abroad
- Owning design from pre-production to release
- Writing detailed design documents
- Level & mission design
- Overseeing implementation
- Creating briefs for sound designers
- Writers & artists
- Designing and using CMS
- Writing metrics and eVars for Omniture analytics recording
- Competitive analysis
- Pitching concepts
- Training new staff
- Reviewing others' work
- Giving presentations and chairing conference calls
Software used:
- Subversion (Tortoise SVN client)
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Adobe Photoshop
- The Gimp
- Mapper
- WinSCP
- Test Track Pro.
- Sharepoint
- Cool Edit Pro.
- Sony Vegas
- Camtasia
- Jira & Greenhopper
- Knowledge Tree
- Various in-house CMS & design tools
Below is a list of all the published iOS games I have worked on as a designer while working at I-play / Oberon Media. My final ten months as a designer were spent working on a large multiplayer Facebook sim which is currently unreleased. As a result I have a detailed knowledge of all aspects of designing for a social platform.
Pigeon Squadron
Pigeon Squadron - App Store Link
Pigeon Squadron (Free Lite Ver.)- App Store Link
A game I took from concept to post-Alpha that I am most proud of. Inspired by the original GTA, Pigeon Squadron gives the player the chance to fly over three cities pooping on pedestrians and vehicles in a bid to cause as much chaos and damage as possible.
Artist Colony
Artist Colony - App Store Link
Artist Colony (Free Lite Ver.)- App Store Link
Originally a successful PC title that plays like 'The Sims' meets 'Harvest Moon', I was tasked with redesigning the game to be ported to iOS. This involved an extensive overhaul of the UI and controls to make use of the iPod & iPhone's touch screen and smaller display. The iPod's memory restrictions made this an exercise in how to scale back the game without reducing the user's experience. I am very happy with the final game which plays well, has intuitive UI and controls, while remaining as fun as the original PC version.
Fear Factor: Bug Blender
Designed a game based on an external pitch to create a Fear Factor game on an incredibly small budget and short time frame. Based around a simple, yet addictive, gameplay mechanism of squashing bugs as they cross the screen with your finger before the timer runs out. After level is over user mixes up a bug cocktail and is able to post their unique cocktail created to Facebook.
Fast & Furious: Adrenaline
Took ownership of the five language Master Text File when the project went into crush. Due to the poor quality of the dialogue and dull track names I also rewrote much of the game's text. As a result many tracks are named after 80s electro songs, something I make no apology for.
Also assisted in the balancing of tracks, so they were fun and completable.
Due to the rights to the franchise having changed hands the game is no longer available to purchase on the app store or for any other mobile devices.
Mobile Games
Prior to becoming a design I held a QA position and worked in Design Support role. I designed and balanced game levels, wrote in-game text strings, reviewed, edited and wrote design documents, provided detailed competitive analysis reports, created screenshots and video clips for presentations.
Below is a list of the J2ME and BREW mobile titles I worked on as Design Support.