I work with game authors and game publishers, providing specialist creative services tailored to the game and puzzle industry, helping individuals and companies develop their ideas and refine their products.
“We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” So wrote Benjamin Franklin. He recognised that games are not only a universal experience, but also an entirely necessary one. Good games deserve good design; great games demand something more: they demand design that is both challenging yet respectful, familiar yet new, practical, playful, elegant, witty and — if possible — beautiful.
Specialist design & editorial services
My passion for games and puzzles of all types, especially modern board and card games, combined with my professional design and editorial experience allows me to deliver a personal, thoughtful, creative and tailored service to game authors, game publishers and others.
Rules editing: Finding the perfect sentence
Writing and editing rulesets is a specialism that requires both a deep understanding of games and how they are played, and a detailed, practical and inventive command of the langauge. Rules are a crucial part of any game, and are at the core of the experience for new players, and, along with a playful, wise and pragmatic approach to their structure, langauge and tone, I will always seek to ensure that the ‘Five C’s of Good Rule Writing are carefully and creatively applied.
Games and puzzles: Concept to product
I can help you develop new game and puzzle concepts, enhance existing ideas and products, and analyse the value and design of prototypes and production models.
Game design: Creative analysis
I can take an active part in an holistic design process that analyses and identifies problems and then seeks out the best solutions. Game designers and publishers can benefit from new thinking and informed, well-considered answers to their questions.
iOS apps: Making the complex simple
All applications, especially apps designed for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, require interfaces that engage and entertain users while at the same time educating them about the functions and flow of the app. Interface design, then, is a form of game design, and requires the same ability to create an appropriate language, in words and pictures, that allows and invites users to become active players.
Contact me
If you are a game author, a game publisher or work within any part of the game and puzzle industry, and think you have a project that I can help you with, please contact me to begin a conversation.
I work with individuals and companies of all sizes and treat all work with confidentially and professionalism; however, I am happy to sign an NDA, if requested.
Selected work & projects
Since 2008 I have worked on a variety of personal and professional game- and puzzle-related projects.
LEGO Games — Launched in 2009 and available globally from 2010, LEGO Games is an innovative and wildly successful line of new ‘buildable’ family board games. I have worked closely with the design team at LEGO to write and develop all the English rulesets for the complete line of current and forthcoming titles, and additionally provide insight and advice as part of the team’s iterative development of forthcoming games.
Bloom, Trope & Air — Created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers, and described by Eno as a ‘music box for the 21st Century’, Bloom is one of the most popular and influential music apps ever released for iOS devices. I designed the app’s menus, control interfaces and icons, along with those of the iPad-specific Bloom HD, and its sister music apps Trope and Air.
LEGO Ninjago — Ninjago is a new global play theme launched by LEGO in 2011. Central to the theme is the ‘Ninjago Spinners’ game, a physical battle game that incorporates a collectible card game element. I have worked closely with the in-house team to develop and refine the game language, rulesets, iconography and card texts, and also advise on the continuing development and expansion of the game system.
Serpentiles — I designed this original tile-based puzzle concept and its set of 40 challenges for Thinkfun, a world-leading game and puzzle company. Using a simple set of colourful path tiles, Serpentiles challenges players to create increasingly difficulty closed loops using specific combinations of the tiles. Following its release in 2008, the puzzle won a prestigious Parents’ Choice Gold Award.
Digital board games — Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch and iPad have fuelled the creation of an entirely new breed of digital board games. Small World for iPad and Carcassonne for the iPhone and iPad are exemplars of the transition of existing physical board games to these new devices. But there is a greater opportunity for genuine innovation, and in collaboration with developer and fellow game enthusiast Peter Chilvers I am designing a series of new board games specifically for the iPad.
Biography
No one grows up wanting to be a designer. You either are or are not one by nature, even if it takes you a while to realise it. And it’s only later still that you comprehend how everything you ever learnt has prepared you.
I am young enough for Twitter, slightly too old for Facebook, and can well remember when digital watches and the Rubik’s Cube were huge.
I have an MA in Materials Science and Metallurgy from Cambridge University. I have been Editorial and Design Manager for the Further Education division of publisher Pearson Education, and Technical Design Manager for online retailer Play.com.
I have had a life-long passion for games and puzzles. I wear sandals and really like cottage pie and ice cream, although not in the same dish, obviously.
![I [meeple] board games](img/avatar.png){kind=avatar}
