At MAXART, my role encompasses a wide range of responsibilities, from game development to creating cutting-edge education and training applications. A major highlight has been my work on Servonauts, where I played a pivotal role in establishing a cohesive design identity for the game. This involved extensive documentation, design exploration, and rapid prototyping of core mechanics. My contributions spanned prototyping, iteration, and implementation of key features such as the fuel flow system, character interaction mechanics, tutorial functionalities, and overall UX design. Additionally, I designed, developed, and refined the game’s 16 unique levels, ensuring a progression from simple gameplay to more complex experiences. I also supported platform-specific requirements, including performance optimisation and compliance testing for Nintendo Switch, as well as integrating Steamworks features like Cloud Saves, Achievements, and Remote Play.
Beyond game development, I contribute to MAXART’s portfolio of education and training simulations tailored for B2B clients. These projects leverage AR, VR, and XR technologies developed primarily in Unity, but also utilising Unreal Engine and PlayCanvas, with programming in C#, C++, and JavaScript/TypeScript. Our simulations often require strict adherence to domain-specific expertise, such as electrical wiring regulations, fire safety protocols, and product-specific features. I work closely with artists to create high-fidelity simulated experiences for educational and marketing purposes and develop mixed-reality interaction systems compatible with controllers, hand-tracking, touch-screens, and even forklift hardware. Operating in an Agile Scrum environment, I collaborate with clients through weekly updates to ensure our solutions meet their needs. This diverse role has honed my ability to balance creative design with technical precision in delivering innovative interactive experiences.
At Ardacious, I worked on many refactors and improvements to Ardent Roleplay, their breakthrough AR Dungeons and Dragons experience:
- Completely re-engineered their UI and associated workflows to make the editing experience more reliable
- Optimise performance by reducing the number of batches during runtime
- Create an automatic “Help” menu system that would highlight sections of the UI with a mask and label that would reliable fit all aspect ratios and screen types and minimise developer intervention
- Implemented a notarisation workflow for MacOS builds that ensured GateKeeper support for future MacOS versions
- Managed iOS and MacOS builds and App Store/Testflight submissions
At District Technologies, it was my responsibility to develop and maintain all of V2’s interfaces, including developing and maintaining Unity UI according to third-party designs and brand guidelines. I also designed some of Districts features, including the app’s Discover screen, the entire user account creation process, the Urban Race Check-In and Holding Page screens, and the Live Mode tutorial popups throughout the app.
Designing UI involved a rigorous and continuous process of iteration, involving designs created using Adobe Experience Design, and made into an interactive web-based presentation using Marvel’s Prototyping on Paper. These would be walked through with the app’s major stakeholders at several stages, each time iterating on their feedback. After the feedback had settled, I developed the feature in Unity.
My secondary duties involved the optimisation of the UI for use on mid-low range phones. Unity’s UI system is infamous for its poor optimisation, so I was challenged with making the most of a bad situation, involving:
- Writing custom tweening and navbar systems so that UI elements didn’t use Animators where possible
- Creating a process for sprite compression to reduce the app size without sacrificing image quality
- Using third-party plugins to enable object pooling inside of scroll rects (important for user feed functionaliy)
- Optimising the batching of canvases for performance
- Investigating workarounds for Unity UI limitations, such as data pulled into sprites and text fields having layout problems
Tools Used:
- Unity Plugins: Enhanced Scroller, Advanced Input Field, Rory Dungan’s Unity Weld
- Unity’s animation systems for in-app animation
- Adobe Experience Design for design work
- Prototyping on Paper for prototyping and demonstration work
- Firebase for database interaction
- AWS for S3 storage and its Content Delivery Network
- C#6 and Unity 2018