Alexander McVeigh
Game Designer and Developer
Hello and welcome to my portfolio !
My name is Alexander and I'm a Game Designer with experience working in small studios, making innovative games with new technologies. I hold a Bachelors and Masters degree in Game Design and am currently looking for any work in Game Design as a Freelancer or with a long-term contract. Below you will find the different projects I have worked on and my contribution to them.
Experience
"The world's first HD Haptics Gaming Cushion. Powered by Razer Sensa HD Haptics, Project Esther is the next advancement in haptic technology that blurs the boundaries between the physical and virtual. Take your seat at the forefront of gaming immersion and dive into a whole new world of full-body, high-definition positional haptics."
I Lead a team of 3 developers to produce a short game experience to showcase Razer's new product : Project Razer. Our Demo was presented at CES Las Vegas in 2024 and received many wonderful reviews.
Roles and Responsibilities
Game Design
- Designed the Rail Shooter gameplay and mechanics
- Defined the flow and timing of player experience (vertical slices, Gameplay storyboards)
Sound & Haptic Design
- Designed all 56 haptic effects of the mod using Interhaptics' "Haptic Composer"
- Integrated all haptic effects into Unreal Engine 4
- Designed and integrated Sound effects linked to unique events that occur during game experience
Project Management & Client Relations
- Organized team of developers with sprints every week using Scrum method
- Communicated and presented advances with client (in this case Interhaptics based in Lille, and Razer based in Singapore)
"Because we need time, resources and an external view to push a game towards its best version, our experts combine their industry knowledge with cognitive science to offer developers a unique services adapted to all types of video game production at any stage of development."
Play In Lab is a company that provides Game Testing and Quality Assurance services to studios to assure that the wanted game experience is up to standard for the industry. I worked freelance for them over 5 months as a Game Designer Consultant, writing to studios how they can improve the design of their project, based on the game testing sessions organised by Play In Lab.
Roles and Responsibilities
Game Design
- Proposed Game Design tweaks based on playtest results for Jusant, Void Crew and other unannounced games
- Communicated these Game Design propositions to Game Developers of the client studios
Game Testing sessions mediation & management
- Mediated playtest sessions with up to 12 participants in Paris
- Organised and planned the different questions that participants would answer to get the data sought out by studios and Play in Lab
Northern Lights Entertainment - Nebulae
"Nebulae is a massively multiplayer online strategy game, where you – our players collectively control nations in a threatened galaxy. You will combine governance, economics, diplomacy and instances of 3D combat to ensure your nations’ dominance and attempt to survive the deathly expansion of a nebula."
Nebulae is still in development to this day, but promises to be a very innovative game that I'm sure will captivate players. My work here is limited to a 6 month internship where I worked on one of the seven political factions.
Roles and Responsibilities
Game Design
- Designed the political hierarchal system of a "Enlightened Monarchy" faction (this includes the different roles of the hierarchy, their responsibilities and how they can achieve that position)
- Balanced the entities that generate resources on a player's world
QA Testing
- Designed and organised a boardgame-version of one gameplay pillar of Nebulae in order to verify our design of the "Enlightened Monarchy" faction
- Mediated playtests of planet resource management
A 2D local multiplayer fighting game where players must launch their opponents out of the screen's bounds. Each player controls a square-shaped avatar that has the ability to throw a punch from each of its 4 sides. Players must carefully take into account their rotation and opponents positions amidst the chaos in order the be the last one standing and claim the rightful place as the main exposition piece.
This project was made in 3 months with a team of 6 students on Unity. The game is played using controllers on PC.
We were very honored to be asked to present this project for Game Made in France where very famous french youtubers got to enjoy our project (as you can see on the video on the left).
Roles and Responsibilities
Game Design
- Designed the main mechanic of the game (avatar controls)
- Designed fighting game mechanics in order to influence player behaviour (priority system and frame checks)
Level Design
- Designed two levels out of ten in the project that focus more on competition
Game Development
- Programmed the avatar controls in Unity and all mechanics linked with the avatar
- Programmed tools that allowed level designers to easily create levels
- Managed Git merges
Sound Design
- Designed and integrated all sound effects in the game
- Recorded voices of 5 different voice actors for each of the characters (exception for the horse character where I used prerecorded horse noises)
- Implemented all mechanics involving sound through FMod and Unity Scripting (song transitions, sound fades, priority systems...)
A first person parkour game, where the player has the ability to change the direction of gravity 90° to the right or to the left. The player's objective is to reach a certain speed and a portal located somewhere in game space. The faster the avatar goes the more the game space and music intensifies.
This project was made in 3 months with a team of 4 students. The game is for PC and is played using a mouse and keyboard.
Roles and Responsibilities
Game Design
- Designed the main mechanics of the avatar controls (movement, gravity switch and acceleration hop)
- Designed the changes in environment based on the speed of the player
Game Development
- Programmed the main movement mechanics of the avatar
- Programmed a function that changed visuals based on the music being played
Sound Design
- Composed and implemented all the music in the game
- Designed and integrated all sound effects
Music
Outside of work, I spend a lot of my time working on music. I've been playing the piano for 16 years now and started learning recently how to play the drums. I also play in 2 different bands : a classic rock cover band and a funk band. During live sets, I mostly perform as a pianist, but I do play the drums depending on the songs and situation the band is in. During off hours, I work as a piano teacher for students of various ages (5 to 46 years old). I utilize my music and composition skills when making my personal game projects by creating original soundtracks (some that you can see here).
Créez votre propre site internet avec Webador