Matt Glanville - Game Developer
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  • 🏠 Home
  • 📁 My Work
    • 🎮 My Games >
      • 👻 Ghost Grab 3000
      • 🎯 Singled Out
      • 💀 Dungeon Deathball
      • 👾 Switch 'N' Shoot
      • 🐸 Luminesca
      • 🏰 Legion Saga
    • 💼 Portfolio
    • 🔨 Prototypes
    • 🎨 Pixel Art
  • ℹ About
  • 📮 Mailing List
  • ✉ Contact
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Portfolio

A list of my experience and credited titles in professional game development studio roles.

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty

  • Full remake of the original 1997 PlayStation classic Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
  • Sole Game Designer at Just Add Water
  • Released July 2014 on PS4 and later on PS3, Windows, Mac, Linux and Xbox One.
I was (for the most part) solely responsible for redesigning and implementing almost every aspect of the game's design using the original Abe’s Oddysee as a foundation.

I worked closely with all members of the development team, including working directly with series co-creator Lorne Lanning.

My responsibilities included:
  • Level design
  • Camera design
  • Character behaviour and animation tuning
  • Writing and managing in-game text and dialogue, including localisation
  • Difficulty tuning
  • Scripting gameplay logic
  • Front End and UI design
  • Meta-game and save system design
  • Trophies
  • Particle effects
  • Optimisation and redesign for ports to other platforms

Alf's Escape (DLC for Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty)

I also worked with a small team of artists to design and create the Alf’s Escape DLC levels.
Unlike the main game, this was an all-new chapter and not a remake of existing levels. It built on many new ideas we had during development of New 'n' Tasty's, focusing on a hardcore challenge for long-time fans of the series.

​We had minimal programmer support during this time, so a lot of its new features were developed with creative use of existing functionality and assets.

Oddworld: Soulstorm

I contributed to the level design and game design of Oddworld: Soulstorm (the sequel to New 'n' Tasty) from June 2016 to April 2018.

​The game is still in development and as such the details of my work are under NDA, but more details are available on the official website.
However, I can share a talk I gave at EGX 2016, which covers the design changes we made in Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty and the direction we were taking the series in Oddworld: Soulstorm. This 30 minute talk was to a room of about 500 people.

Smart As...

  • Brain training game with social connectivity
  • Game Designer at Climax Studios (14 months)
  • Released 23rd October 2012 
  • PlayStation Vita exclusive
  • Designed and iterated on a collection of 20 mini-games and parts of the overall game structure.
  • Wrote design documents on the project’s wiki, then worked closely with programmers and artists to see each mini-game through to alpha quality for monthly milestones.
  • Communicated design direction throughout the team in the lead designer’s absence.
  • Chiefly responsible for all the game’s audio implementation (sound effects, music and voice-over). This involved liaising with an outsourcing audio company, managing assets and cueing sound up to animations and gameplay events in Kismet.
  • Played a key role in managing, writing and implementing the game’s message prompt system (over 400 voice-over clips and text strings).
  • Various polish work on the interface flow, tutorials, camera transitions, object behaviours/animations, etc.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

  • Third-person cover shooter based on the film license
  • Level Designer at EA Bright Light (4 months)
  • Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 / Wii / PC
  • Released 12th July 2011
Picture
  • Initially worked on the Wii port. I was tasked with finding ways to adapt the game to the technical constraints of the hardware. For example, using scripted enemy AI behaviours to give the impression of a battle that was larger than it really was.
  • I was later responsible for taking early designs for two of the game’s boss battles (Amycus & Alecto, and the final duel against Voldemort) and implementing them using in-house tools.
  • During this stage I had the opportunity to propose my own changes to the structure and flow of the battles. These changes were approved and I worked closely with the engineering team to implement and balance them.

Create

  • 'Rube Goldberg machine' physics puzzle game
  • Level designer at EA Bright Light (4 months)
  • Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 / Wii / PC
  • Released 12th November 2010
Create is a physics-based puzzle game in the same vein as The Incredible Machine, with an additional layer of creative world-decoration.

Puzzles have a simple objective such as "pop 10 balloons" or "get the basketball into the goal", and the player is given a lot of freedom in how they solve it.

​The physics simulation is paused at the start, but at any time the player can press Play to watch how the physics objects interact in a kind of 'Rube Goldberg machine' scenario. The player can then reset the simulation, modify their setup, and press Play again to see if it worked.

My responsibilities included:
  • Design and implementation of physics challenges.
  • Blocking out level shapes to support a wide variety of challenges, including user-created content.
  • Setting up a library of objects with physics properties and creating 2D collision meshes in Maya.
  • Setting up camera stings for level overviews and challenge introductions.
  • Thoroughly play-testing and supporting QA for alpha, beta and final deadlines.
  • Creating video content for promotional material.

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