What I do
I’m a game systems, narrative and technical designer with an emphasis on implementation and development. I have AAA experience in engineering and design in Unreal Engine, Unity, and the proprietary game engines used to create the Call of Duty, Halo, Mafia, World of Tanks, and Driver games. I have worked in the industry since 2008 and have contributed to projects and pitches for Lucasarts, Sony, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Activision, Nintendo, 2K, Wargaming, Disney, and EA.
I currently work as Principal Technical Designer: Narrative at Bit Reactor.
How I started
After getting into online multiplayer text games in my early teens, I first learnt to program on a MUCK/MUD game I ran on a home server. This hooked me on world creation, scripting, and ultimately game development. I learned programming languages based on LISP and Forth, and over several years I build a player base of 2300 players while writing 18,000 lines of code.
In my late teens, I taught myself web development with the LAMP stack via online tutorials. At 20 I founded a boutique web development company, eventually developing a Content Management System in PHP for the Member of Parliament for Cambridge while I attended the university. I learned C++ using C++ How To Program by Deitel & Deitel, in order to figure out how to start making games using the open-source OGRE3D rendering engine. After college, I joined Free Radical Design as a Designer on the cutscenes team.
Career
- Free Radical Design – Game Designer for Cutscenes on Star Wars: Battlefront III
- Ubisoft – Narrative Designer on Driver: San Francisco
- Chillingo – Freelance Writer for their mobile marketing, including games like Angry Birds and Predators
- Zindagi Games / Sony – Writer for Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest (PS3)
- Rotor Games – Narrative Designer and Writer for Final Run (iOS)
- AppNormals – Game Design Consultant for Super Barista (iOS)
- Murka Games – Lead Writer for a prototype mobile title
- Zindagi Games – Lead Writer on an AAA prototype and for game pitches to a major publisher
- Certain Affinity– Technical Design roles on projects including Halo 4, Halo 4: Bullseye Pack DLC (Ricochet Game Mode), Age of Booty: Tactics, Halo: Master Chief Collection, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Mafia III, World of Tanks, Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare Remastered, and several Unannounced prototypes and projects using the Unreal Engine
- Respawn Entertainment – Lead Narrative Technical Designer on the Star Wars team that released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. I led a team of technically-minded Narrative Designers who owned and developed narrative-related game systems and content. I also developed and maintained a technical portfolio of narrative-related pipelines, tools, and game systems across Blueprint, C++, Python, and web languages.
Current Position
- Bit Reactor – Principal Technical Designer: Narrative on an unannounced project.
Interests
My non-work interests include running, surfing, cooking, poker, my cats, and making music.
Links
I very occasionally tweet at Dave_Midgley. I’m on LinkedIn: David Midgley.