Brandon B
- Research Program Mentor
MA at Carnegie Mellon University
Expertise
Game Design/Development, learning the process of creating a game from start to finish, analyzing and creating games that have a transformational impact on the player
Bio
Hi! My name is Brandon Badger, and I am a Game Designer. I have an undergraduate background in Computer Science, with additional experience in sound design, 2D/3D Art, and Production. I have experience working on several small experiences that use the video game medium in interesting ways, along with some level design experience at a AAA game studio. Currently, I am a game designer at Simcoach Games, making transformational games using Mobile, AR, VR, and PC. For my personal interests, I like to dissect primarily indie titles to figure out how their game mechanics influence the experience that they are trying to elicit in the player. I do have a preference for RPGs, but I am love to play around with any game that uses the medium in interesting ways! I also like to make small projects in Unity/Godot that take existing mechanics from my favorite titles, and try to put my own "spin" on them. My interest in mentoring comes from a desire to teach motivated people how to best approach making a game. Games are hard enough just from looking at hard skills needed (coding, art, sound design, etc.), so having to try to figure out how to approach doing all of these things to have a cohesive product is even more difficult. This is even more true if working on a team to build a game. As someone who has been through the ringer in graduate school and in my career, I would love to be able to give my perspective to individuals who aren't sure where to start in order to get the ball rolling in game development!Project ideas
Genre "Rehash"
Take an existing game/genre, analyze its mechanics/emotional experience, and try to recreate it. This could be a straight one-to-one recreation as practice for your own benefit, or it could be attempting to put a unique "spin" on the genre to make your own game! This is a great way to begin a game dev career as you have an existing "end goal" to work towards, and you will be able to learn how the game's developers decided to build the game by making it yourself.
Game Pre-Production
Working with a small team to begin a multi-month/multi-year game project? Not sure how to best structure the development cycle or how to organize a team? Not sure even how to even start? As I spent my graduate career and this past year post graduation building several small games in small teams, I can help to structure your team to work most efficiently, and keep every member feeling happy with the project. Of course, during this process we would also analyze your team's game from a design perspective throughout the project to try to make it as engaging and unique as possible!