My Background

After a liftime spent growing up loving video games, and dreaming to work on them I took a degree in Games Design in 2016. Since graduating from my course with 1st class Hons in the summer of 2019, I have been employed working in the games industry – now for over half a decade. I started initially as a QA Technician on ports, but have primarily worked as a Producer, across multiple major AAA releases.

Professionally I spend my time planning and testing of commercial games, seeking for potential issues, offering specific feedback and suggesting improvements and advocating development strategies. I have worked on small/medium/large projects, with cross-disciplinary teams across all fields of development (Art/Design/Cinematics/QA) etc. Every day presents challenges but incredible opportunities to push for maximum quality.

Some examples of the Credits or Press of games I’ve worked on.

Production Philosophy

These are some of the lessons I have gained from working within production for half a decade:

• No Dogmas – Management Methodologies (e.g. Agile) are most helpful as guidelines and must adapt to suit the right team, project or studio. Where time permits, it is always useful to use critical thinking to challenge and question pipelines and approaches to ensure the best practices are being followed – even if these are non-obvious.
• Good Data Management is the lifeblood of a Strong Schedule – Providing estimates and tracking data can be essential to scheduling a project. But all data tracked on JIRA, spreadsheets or elsewhere should aim to do so for a clear defined goal, in a unified, complete and user-friendly way.
• Communication, Communication, Communication – How-To Guides, Checklists, Documentation, Wiki pages, Bug Reports, Action Plans, etc. All of these require highly comprehensible documentation, that often needs to be rapidly assembled. This is is a key way to ensure standardisation of shared knowledge across a project. Just as important are purposeful meetings/standups, Teams channels, reviews, and other recurring meetings are also essential to keep a good flow of information across individuals and teams, with clearly followable topics, agendas and structures.
• Leadership Means Being a Good Follower – Patience is essential in leadership, and needlessly punching down only weakens and divides teams. Leadership grows by listening actively and attentively to their teams and stakeholders, whilst being proactive about identifying and solving issues, and then building out plans that reflect the reality of development.

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Since graduating at university, in my spare time I still work as an independent game designer. I make unusual, thematic and narratively resonant games across a variety of engines and genres that offer ways of standing out to the player as a memorable experience. Creatively shaping the systems, stories, worlds, peoples and spaces of a video game is as good as it gets, and this keeps me passionate and challenged beyond my professional role.

It’s my belief that Production skills are the best way to shape, action and empower Design. Likewise, my Design skills and experience help me become a better Producer.  Studying Design helps me understand how games are made and how concepts like elegance, friction, or the MVP can empower a game’s experience. But Production keeps all Design work in relation to a feasible structure and schedule. These two disciplines, in my opinion, naturally synergise one another, and go hand in hand.

Playtesting, iterative design and teamwork are core to my work as a Designer

Design Philosophy

As a designer I focus my skills toward:

• Distinct and imaginative narrative/world design – Detailed systematically designed organic secondary worlds. Internal thematic coherence and tonal specificity to make something organic and memorable.
• Interesting and surprising gameplay experiences – Go beyond the obvious mechanics. Capture conceptual delight in the player within seconds. Innovation must stay grounded. The player should feel a creative participant. Theme isn’t fluff.
• Clear, focused project management & team work – Agile methodologies, pipelines, milestones, iterative design, communication and collaboration are all the lifeblood of successful project. Any useful Design work must be made to a high-level of specificity and with the schedule and any technical/commercial limitations in mind.

^ Some examples of the Design teams I’ve worked with throughout my degree 

Other Skills

• Design Documentation: Significant experience in both detailed and concise design documentation that is visually engaging, readable, coherent, layered and imaginative. Examples
• Game Criticism: Ability to write discursively and critically on the design philosophy and academic analysis of video games drawing on inter-disciplinary fields. Examples
• Natural Presenter: Confident speaker having presented countless meetings to all levels of seniority regarding the production and development of key features for AAA games. As a Designer, provided tens of pitches across my Games Design BA degree, concisely demonstrating game elements, mechanics and appeal. All highly successfully received and graded.
• Adaptable applications of management methodologies: Years applying principles and methods of Scrum, Agile, Lean in the AAA games industry.
• Industry project management software: Hundreds of hours of usage of standard industry software in elegant and complex ways. JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Roadmaps, Testrail, G-Suite, Excel, Microsoft Project, Scrumwise, etc.
• Game Engines: Years of experience with day-to-day usage of Unreal, Unity (C#), Godot. Adaptable skills to help locate relevant game data and information for testing, tracking, and assisting developers.
  With personal projects I have made significant usage of every major game engine: Godot, Clickteam Fusion 2.5, Bitsy, ink, Twine 1/2, Inform, Construct 2, Game Maker: Studio, Adventure Maker, RPG Makers, Dreams, Little Big Planet.
• Asset Creation Software: Photoshop, Krita, Illustrator, Gimp, Aseprite, Piskel, Croco-tile.
• Editing Software: Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Audacity.

A designer’s role is to be ever learning. 

Passion

More broadly, I’m a big believer that game development requires an active mind and passion for things both in and outside of games. Some examples:

• Games – Design Philosophy, Interactive Fiction, Indie Games, Retro Games, Game History & Preservation, Game Based Learning
• Critical Theory & Academia – History, Religion, Mythology, Social Justice, Maths, Physics, Ecology, Psychology 
• Art – Cinema, Surrealism, Modernist Art, Outsider Art, Character Design, Stylised Art, Children’s Media, Experimental Music

 

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©© 2026 James Nowlan Games