Senior Level Designer

• Conceptual, system and level design. 

• Owned “Shipping and Receiving” and part of “The Repo Man” missions.

• Narrative and written content, environmental storytelling.

• Managed all the NPCs, living and dead, aboard Talos. 

• Mentored and developed new hires.

WRITING SAMPLE FROM PREY

A book about the construction of the moon base mining facility, recounted by a lunar miner.

Memoir of Lunar Miner

Nat Taylor

Project Axiom in the 1980s.  It was a time when a legion of astronauts captured the hearts of the world, flashing gleaming smiles before closing the cockpit hatch and thundering into space. Dozens of rockets a day turned every face on Earth skyward, but no one could see what was in the dark cargo compartments below. My fellow miners and I were strapped to benches, surrounded by our rattling equipment that we would use to stab at the heart of the moon.  There was no celebrity for us, just dirty, difficult and exceedingly dangerous work. 

In those early days there was no pressurized dome.  We tunneled in space suits, aware that even a minor accident would result in certain death.  The pressure cracked many of the guys.  At night I could hear them crying in the dark, and the smell of bootleg liquor would circulate through our barracks. But by day we were hard as nails, and for every miner that died we would hit back at the moon that killed them, cutting deeper and deeper into it with a vengeance.

The astronauts got all the glory, but it was they guys like us, working and dying in the most remote tombs ever, that made Project Axiom happen.

A book recounting the conversion of a mining base into the Pytheas research facility as told from an engineer on the project.

Refitting the old Axiom facility presented significant challenges. The original tenants were not concerned with research or, for that matter, safety. This was exclusively an industrial operation, where workers labored and slept amid hazardous equipment and materials. The miners were a hardy lot, and showed great ingenuity at keeping the place habitable. Unorthodox shielding, air scrubbing and pressurization systems kept them functional, but no more. Lunar regolith is so abrasive that it will destroy equipment, and, given enough time, will penetrate any barrier. Dust in the 10 micron range is equivalent to powdered glass, nullifying equipment lubrication while creating a catastrophic breathing hazard.

The sweatshop environment did not feature the necessities and comforts that we at TranStar value so highly. Our first objective in the refit was a major upgrade of life support systems, converting the only surface structure into our current crew living quarters. That provided us with a base from which we could build the lab from the ground up. we determined that placing a dome over the crater would be much simpler than tunneling out a cavernous testing ground.

Then we began upgrading spaces with the style and comfort that would attract and retain world-class talent.

WRITING SAMPLE FROM PREY

Survivor’s Account of "The Evacuation"

(A survivor recounts the events of the great Evacuation. The survivor is being interviewed and speaking in a stream of consciousness kind-of way)

DAY 1: I had dropped off my dog at the groomer. Her name was Aleeza. It means Joy. Aleeza usually had fun at the groomer and today was no different. She trotted to her favorite stylist Kaelah. I said goodbye and walked a few blocks to get some café botz near the park. Some jets flew over, very low, and the sound was so loud it made me jump. I don’t know where they were from but they were bristling with bombs and rockets. Everyone was looking up and the sound of the jets was echoing off the buildings but we could not see them. The sky was clear and there was pink smoke rising from the direction of the stadium. It was pretty and twisting in the wind and I thought there must be some kind of celebration there. But then the sirens started. I had not heard them since my childhood, the sirens that went off when rockets were incoming. Some people stood transfixed, but my instinct told me to run. Run away from the stadium. Run away from Aleeza. Some people were running with me, but we did not know where to go. I saw a policeman directing as many people as he could into a basement restaurant. I think it was an old bomb shelter. I looked up again and saw an airliner on approach to the airport, gleaming in the sun. It was not military, I was certain. While I watched it turned into glitter without a sound. It was a jet full of people one instant, and the next it was a sparkling swirl of nothing. A man near me began to curse. I fell down and hit my head on the street. Everything faded out.

DAY 2: I woke up, still in the street. An M35 was stopped near me and the driver was yelling at me to get on. There were several people in it already. Four or five soldiers and about a dozen civilians including some children. I got on the truck and someone gave me a bottle of water. I asked what was happening and a solder just shrugged. I told him I had driven the M35 during my service. People in the truck were crying and I looked back. The pink smoke was now mixed with gray and swirled high into the sky. There was so much of it and it consumed almost the entire city. We kept picking up people until the truck was full. Before we got to the highway we heard shooting. Small arms fire. The soldiers climbed down and readied their weapons. The commander told me to drive the truck as far as possible to the west, then they ran toward the shooting. We got on the highway and stopped for a few people here and there. 

DAY 3: We had driven so far and the fuel was finally exhausted. More jets flew over, headed toward the city and one circled around and made a pass at us but it did not shoot. A steady, unflagging wind was blowing out of the west as the sun set. That night in the desert we sat by the empty truck and listened to the booming of artillery in the distance. Flashes of bombs and lightning illuminated the horizons. In the morning our city was lost in what appeared to be shimmering heat waves. High overhead were brilliant flashes of light. Some said it was an atomic bomb, and others said it was God’s wrath. Today I know it was just an accident. Scientists that thought they knew everything. But they did not. There were so many people lost that day. So many that I could barely comprehend it. Many souls I had known ceased to exist. But it was Aleeza that hurt my heart. I know she was just a dog and I am ashamed of my feelings. But she did not make this world we live in. She was mine to protect and I failed.