With over a decade of games industry experience (including senior and lead design credits on a number of highly acclaimed AAA titles such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and 2010 Game of the Year Red Dead Redemption), I have built up a design skill set that can benefit your company in a number of ways.

To discuss any of these further, or if you’d like to talk about your project, email me at anthony.gowland@mainlyaboutgames.co.uk

Game Design, From the Ground Up

Do you have an intellectual property, would like to explore the possibilities offered by the game space, but want to know more before you commit resources?

Do you have an idea for a game that you would like to see fleshed out, but can’t spare any of your team from their existing projects?

Does your company require a game for their website, but your Flash programmers have no experience in creating this kind of entertainment?

Would you like to explore an entirely fresh approach to your existing game intellectual property, and are worried that in-house teams may be too weighed down by their pre-conceptions to deliver the originality you’re looking for?

Whether you just need a short document explaining the top level of how the game will look, feel, play, and stand out from the competition, or you want a comprehensive design that shows the game in its entirety.

Working within your specification of intended audience, platform, cost, team size – whatever boundaries you feel comfortable with – I am able to take a project from the original idea (be that a product, concept, or theme) and build it into a game design.

Perhaps you’re not sure what boundaries would best suit your organisation and your audience. Don’t worry! We can work out the specification together using your knowledge of your customers, and my knowledge of the game creation process.

If that initial design is all you ever need, then that’s great. My documentation will be sufficient for other existing teams to create a game you can be proud of.

From Design to Completion

Game creation is rarely as simple as being able to work straight from a document to having an engaging final product, though. Often new requirements will arise when a project is already underway. If you’d like someone to oversee your game’s design until completion, you’ve come to the right place.

And not just my own designs – perhaps your team has started work on a game designed by another contractor or employee who’s no longer available to you. That’s not a problem, I’m able to quickly get up to speed on a project.

My wealth of experience in game creation has also given me the knowledge and instincts that many teams lack – to be able to look ahead in to the future of a production, spot where potential issues lie, and pre-empt them, avoiding hold-ups in productivity and saving you time and money.

Design Trouble-Shooting

Have you ever played your latest game and felt something was missing, but not been able to put your finger on what it is?

Has a rival changed the playing field, and you need to make your game’s design competitive again?

Have your in-house team become blind to any issues in their game, because of their proximity to it?

In 2010 only fifteen games reviewed at an average score of 90% or more. More than twice that number scored 85%+. That’s a lot of very good games, which should have been great.

Sometimes a fresh pair of experienced eyes really helps, and can quickly spot issues that have been staring everyone in the face. I will help you in identifying which features in your game aren’t working, and where your game is lacking the level of content and polish modern gamers expect from a AAA title.

Then I’ll present you with options on how best to fix these problem spots, within the time-scales and costs that you specify, to turn your Metacritic 80+ into a 90+.