Directive 8020 (Upcoming in 2026) – Digital Game
COMMERCIAL RELEASE – My Role: Associate Producer at Supermassive Games
Triple AAA release to multiple platforms. Part of a anthology series of branching cinematic horror games from the studio behind Until Dawn. When the colony ship Cassiopeia crash lands on the planet Tau Ceti F, its crew soon realize they are far from being alone.
My responsibilities:
- Joined development on the project Q3 2023 – Q2 2024 to assist the team progress to release.
- Led multiple teams of Designers (team around 10~) through internal cinematic motion capture andimplementation, as well as Level Design content creation through several development cycles – pre-production/greybox/alpha/beta etc.
- Regularly liaised with and co-project managed every internal discipline through cross functional teams: Art, Animation, VFX, Lighting, Camera, Engineering, & QA.
- Worked closely with external outsource Motion Capture studios (Centroid, Cubic Motion), and art teams (Liquid Crimson). Audited, forecast and managed motion capture data processing across many months of development.
Steam Page
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Off the Grid (2024) – Digital Game
COMMERCIAL RELEASE – My Role: Associate Producer at Gunzilla Games
Get ready to dive into the ultimate Extraction Royale where PvP and PvE collide in an all-out battle for survival! Teardrop Island—once full of promise, now a dystopian warzone—needs a hero. This isn’t just another shooter. This is the next evolution of cyberpunk warfare, imagined by visionary director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium), and it’s about to turn the genre upside down.
My responsibilities:
- Producer of Environment Art, Level Design, Hard Surface, and Concept Art Teams (peak of approx 40 people).
- Co-lead teams through release into Early Access and through weekly hotfixes and major monthly content updates.
- Collaborated closely with multiple stakeholders ensuring iteration was actioned in a timely and efficient manner, whilst also creatively collaborating and strategising to maximise quality of development and velocity on the schedule.
Epic Game Store Page
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The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me (2022) – Digital Game
COMMERCIAL RELEASE – My Role: Associate Producer at Supermassive Games
Triple AAA release to multiple platforms. Part of a series of stand-alone branching cinematic horror games from the studio behind Until Dawn. A group of documentary film makers receive a mysterious call inviting them to a modern-day replica of serial killer H.H. Holmes ‘Murder Castle’.
My responsibilities:
- Led multiple successful submissions to publishers for: monthly milestone deliveries, demos, tradeshows, release, patches, etc.
- Led multiple teams of Designers (team varied from 5-20+ approx.) through cinematic and level design content creation through full development cycles – pre production/alpha/beta/master/bug-fixing/updates etc.
- Regularly liaised with and co-project managed every internal discipline through cross functional teams: Art, Animation, VFX, Lighting, Camera, Engineering, & QA.
- Worked closely with external outsource Motion Capture studios (Centroid, Cubic Motion, Virtuous), and art teams (Liquid Crimson). Audited, forecast and managed motion capture data processing across months/years of development.
Steam Page
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Total War: ROME REMASTERED (2021) – Digital Game
COMMERCIAL RELEASE – My Role: Producer at Feral Interactive
Total War: ROME REMASTERED is an expansive revist to the classic release of the award-winning Total War strategy game series. A 4k Remaster with overhauled visuals as well as refinements to gameplay.
My responsibilities:
- Project management across the entire game: liaising with all departments, creating and maintaining schedules, minute taking, writing documentation/guidance for other staff, providing regular Art/Design feedback, with a high attention to detail on quality assurance of the project, particularly with regards to asset creation.
- Provided regular feedback/direction on the Design, UI functionality, and art direction of the game.
- Additionally led a team of QA technicians testing both ROME and other port releases, setting bi-daily tasks and following up on these issues on JIRA. Led multiple successful deliveries to digital store fronts – Steam, Epic Game Store, & Mac Apple Store.
Steam Page
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The Pauper King of Abalus (2020) – Interactive Fiction (Ink)
GAME JAM – My Role: Solo project
An entry to Inkle’s Campfire Tales call for their game Pendragon. In this campfire story we learn of an aberrant Kingdom, where desperate peasants squared off against the weight of history. The game was added to the official list of entries on itch.io
As requested by the brief, this was a solo project written in ink (a narrative scripting language) to match the game’s in-house style – as showcased by this example.
Play (itch.io)
QA on Ports (2019-2020) – Feral Interactive
FIRST INDUSTRY JOB – My Role: QA Technician
Quality Assurance across a large variety of AAA ports for developer and publisher company. Ports to PC/Mac/Linux/Switch/iOS/Android. Varied from reimagining’s of games for mobile, identical ports from Windows to Mac/Linux, compatibility updates, regular DLC updates, etc.
- First industry role, deeply immersed in balancing several AAA ports of differing types: Testing and logging of bugs on JIRA via a variety of testing methods and platforms.
- Worked closely with Designers and Developers providing feedback and assistance. Utilised problem solving, and a variety of critical thinking skills to find any potential issues/suggestions for features.
- Regularly logging non-obvious design improvements onto JIRA, and facilitating their implementation through further testing.
Feral Interactive Ports
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Abtohka (2019) – Digital Game (Unity)
UNIVERSITY DISSERTATION PROJECT – My Role: Lead Designer for ‘Team Pengala‘ (Four people)
Abtohka is a digital game created as a final dissertation project for an undergraduate degree in Game Design. Swap between four distinct characters as they each carry their own burdens, yet strive to work together, in Abtohka: Kingdoms of Despair, a dark fantasy, 2D action/adventure, puzzle game.
On this project I was the lead designer working with a team of three other students as part of a dissertation project for my Game Design BA course.
Literature Review / Project Plan / Design Document
Play (itch.io)
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Axis Mundi (2019) – Tabletop Board Game
UNIVERSITY DISSERTATION PROJECT – My Role: Solo project
Axis Mundi is a board game created as a final dissertation project for an undergraduate degree in Game Design. In Axis Mundi, 2-4 players compete to bring their personalised fantasy religion to the masses in a fantasy world.
As the solo Designer on this project I built a system where players can assemble their Faith Deck with card deck-building, whilst they gather followers across a changing/modular World Board with area control mechanics. Unique personalised Scriptures are created out of combinations of Subject Cards (e.g. ‘Cats are…’) and Condition Cards (‘…Divine‘ or ‘…Treacherous‘). These Scriptures along with other in-game actions shift the alignments of religions which is tracked on the Creed Alignment Board.
Character Designs made by myself. The Character art was illustrated by Edward Welch.
Literature Review / Design Document / Pitch Video
Download Rules (.pdf)
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Victorian Exorcist (2018) – Design Work
UNIVERSITY COURSEWORK – My Role: Solo Project
University coursework. Created as a series of Design Documents as a faux hypothetical pitch for Failbetter Games.
Victorian Exorcist is a mobile-based, educational, adventure game for young-adults, where the player hunts ghosts across the city of London. Players will need to investigate central London using GPS, research real-world Victorian history through game-based learning, and solve mysteries using Augmented-Reality – to exorcise the vengeful spirits haunting London, casting them back into the shadows of the past once and for all.
Pitch Document / Narrative Design Document
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Solmec: Among Stars (2017) – Digital Game (Clickteam Fusion 2.5)
UNIVERSITY SUMMER PROJECT – My Role: Designer for Octopus 8 (Within an internal team of five people)
Play as the Ankazil , a giant alien creature, collecting different resources to build weapons, turrets and gain new abilities, helping you as you travel across new galaxies and fight against creatures infected by the Rot. With a randomly generated universe, unlockable player characters and upgrades, no play through will be the same in this resource management game.
Made as part of a three-month long summer project programme with Octopus 8, where I worked as a Designer. The middle part of a thematic trilogy (the first part being Solmec: Colony Adrift and third part Solmec: Hollow Planet). Published to Steam!
Steam Page.
Our Dreams, Our Nightmares (2016) – Tabletop Roleplaying Game
UNIVERSITY EXERCISE – My Role: Solo Project
This is a simple, zero-preparation, improvisational, collaborative, one-shot, role-playing system with frequent rotation between who is the player (a phantasm) and the storyteller (dreamer). This game was designed as part of a university exercise.
The game utilises a degree of randomness and dynamic storytelling whereby means all players work together to generate the campaign, taking turns in placing traditional playing cards from their hand or opting to draw them blindly. Each number and suit correspondents to a different development of the dream (story) itself.
Download Game (.pdf)
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Servitude (2015) – Interactive Fiction (Twine)
GAME JAM – My Role: Designer for Team ‘the anon-a-mice’ (Two people)
A short Twine game about failing in your quest and adopting the values of the villain instead. Additionally featuring several randomised story names and events making each playthrough different.
Collaboratively written and designed by myself along with Chris Gilbert for ProcJam 2015.
Title art illustrated by Edward Welch.
Play (itch.io page)
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James Nowlan Games 