Every month for the year 2013 I will be posting a new implemented gameplay mechanic. Some of these mechanics are in their own dedicated game, some will be built upon to make more complex games. The goal behind this project is to encourage diverse thinking and to practice implementation. Go to the gameplay mechanic a month project page to see all of the mechanics or simply select one of the gameplay mechanics shown below.

Real World Baking in "The Cookie Baking Game" Bake with friends! Compete for ingredients! Create new flavour combinations! Eat delicious (horrible?) cookies! Try to avoid doing the dishes!	Moving In Sync in "Together in Love" Two players must navigate a world using their own set of controls. However, players can only take action in the game if their player icons are close together. That is, players need to cooperate to decide which direction to go next so they can move in sync.	Observation in "The Tree Mysteries Part One: Marie's Mr Right" Solve the mystery by reading one line at a time in the story and choosing whether the line should be "remembered" or "forgotten".

I worked as game designer/associate producer for Media Saints on a game called Knowledge Quest in association with Jacaranda publishing. The game is targeted at teaching English to Australian high-school students in Years 7 and 8 (12-14 year olds). The game features innovative mechanics that link platforming gameplay directly to learning educational concepts. The promo video below demonstrates the main features of the game.

I was part of the design team at Team Bondi in Sydney. While I was there I worked on the game L.A. Noire, which is now available on XBox 360 and PS3 from Rockstar. Watch the embedded gameplay trailer for an idea of the type of work I was doing and go to the L.A. Noire website for more details about the game. I was most heavily involved in the Patrol Desk - the tutorial levels that you play at the start of the game. The game has been getting good reviews, as can be seen from its metacritic rating.

A game created for the 2012 Global Game Jam based on the ouroboros (a symbol representing the cycle of life, death and rebirth). Search for your soul mate, breed with them, create a child, then find your child's soul mate. There are two play modes: reality and denial. In reality, you have a biological clock that is ticking. So you only have a limited amount of time to find your soul mate. In denial, you have all the time in the world: the cycle never finishes and the game ends when you choose to end it.

Created by Team Mate: Pouya Aflatoun (art and design), Clinton Shepherd (code and design), Michael Theiler (audio and design) and myself (design and production).

Read more...

Lucifer Disastrous, aka Lucie, is an evil vet trying to live up to the expectations of her infamous father, Dr Dr Disastrous. Unfortunately, most of Lucie's actions end end up as good deeds. Join Lucie in this classic point-and-click adventure game as she explores the sides of good and evil in the small town of Darklight.

Created in Adventure Game Studio with the assistance of Saul Alexander, the demo can be downloaded from the Vet Lucie Disastrous home page.

Fashion Police: The Game is about correctly identifying outfits as "hot" or "not". It's also a community where you can send in your own outfits and use your opinion to change what's set as "hot" or "not". Try to get a high score by getting as many points as possible (annihilation game) or clearing waves of outfits from the room as quickly as possible (time trial game). This game was created entirely by me using Lua, LuaSocket (voting data) and the LÖVE 2D engine. This game is an adapted mini-game from the Style Rules for You game idea that was developed (see below).

This mini game was built with Microsoft XNA (XNA Creators club). In the game you need to clear the snowflakes at the bottom of the screen by matching to a snowflake at the top. Matching is initially based on colour, after some matches, the matching method switches and becomes based on shape. The matching method continues to switch throughout the game, creating a challenge to remember which method to use within the time limit allowed. Although the rules of the game are simple to learn, matching based on shape and changing match methods can be quite challenging, leading to an engaging game. Read more...

Every week for a year, between October 2009 and October 2010, I posted a new game idea. Some of these game ideas have gone on to get implemented, others will be implemented in the future. The goal behind the project was to encourage creativity and quick thinking. Go to the idea project page to see all of the ideas or select one of the showcase game ideas shown below.

Final idea: Week 52 The Seven Games of Evil Edgar Evil Edgar is a game designer who has created 7 games from 7 genres to capture the souls of innocent players. You must explore the game worlds to find and free the 7 people trapped inside his 7 games.
Vet Lucie Disastrous A humorous adventure game about an evil vet, Lucifer Disastrous, aka Lucie, who wants to continue in her family's evil traditions, but keeps doing good instead. A demo game has been released, see Vet Lucie Disastrous home page	The Curious Case of the Tree in the Living Room A comedic mystery about what happened last night with a strange dog on the bed, a tree in the living room, half a tattoo and a note to meet "Mr Right" with no address.	The Black Death A FPS style game where you hunt down victims to mark them for death during the Plague years in Europe.	Leisure Suit Larissa An adaptation of the classic adventure game, Leisure Suit Larry. Help Larissa Laffer find a husband who meets her childhood checklist, before her biological clock stops ticking. This game won the Game Career Guide Gender Swap Design Challenge.
Battle for Night Supremacy An RPG where you can play as either a vampire, werewolf, magician or human in a fight to determine who rules the night.	Eternal Dream A story-heavy game where you play a character who is stuck in a lab that sucks your dreams out.	Sun God Chariots Become a Sun God on a chariot and race Sun Gods from other cultures. Control the sun and use special powers to attack others.	Cocktail Challenge Make cocktails with the Wii-remote and battle against your friends.
Rock Band World Tour Manager Gain popularity and money as you manage a rock band and decide where they go on tour.	Alpha Lion Play a lion cub to hunt and fight your way to the alpha position in your pride.	Dance Competition A dancing game on the Wii where you can upload your own dance moves to share with the community.	Gardens of Versailles A platformer game based around exploring world famous castles and their gardens.

Look and feel better, without a diet, by discovering which clothes suit you. This project is a sample pitch document including an overview, business and marketing plan and a preliminary design document. The game helps women learn which clothes suit their body shape by using mini-games with characters that look like the players. Feedback is given so that women can learn and improve their clothing choices. The mini-games ask the player to pick a style disaster from style success; finish off an outfit; find out what's wrong with an outfit; or work out what body shape an outfit is best for. The Fashion Police mini-game has been implemented and is available for download (including source code), see the Fashion Police Home Page for more details. Read more on Style Rules for You...

In this print 'n' play card game YOU are a world leader. How will you be remembered? Build your Legacy with Banks, Monuments and Parades. Build the same type of Legacy for extra points. Watch out, other people can destroy your Legacy!

This simple to learn game involves collecting resources, destroying your friends' Legacies and trying to build a consistent Legacy to be remembered by. I handcrafted the entire game from the game rules to the card designs. Read more...

In 2009 I completed a Masters Thesis (by Research) at RMIT University in artificial intelligence (AI) for game characters. The title was "Using Adaptation and Goal Context to Automatically Generate Individual Personalities for Virtual Characters". The work focused on using simple techniques inspired by psychological theories of how we make decisions to automatically develop different characters from the same starting personality template. My thesis page gives an overview of the entire project which included building a game and testing the theory within this game.

The other creative outlets page contains work that I have created that may not directly link into any specific game project, but influences my game design process. There are textiles and crafts that have been inspired by games and photography.