Nickname: Goldabar on the net, I have used that for years, I made it up randomly first time I went on Battlenet.

Irrational Title: Junior Level Designer

Qualifications: Since about the age of 14 I have worked in the mod community for Unreal. I worked on mods for Unreal and Unreal Tournament, about 10 all up. I did some contract work later for a game called Tactical Ops, then after that I left school and came here [Irrational Games].

Previous games worked on: Mod wise I worked on a conversion of the Goldeneye64 maps to Unreal and I worked on a mod called Strike First, which is a realistic shooter. I also did work for a mod called Neo Pyro for Unreal Tournament, which was an action Sci-Fi mod. I worked on Tactical Ops - counter strike for UT basically, it was very popular that was commercial work. Plus a bunch of other small projects that never really got off the ground.

Ahhh the serenity

Hardest moment in development of any game you have worked on: There haven't really been any tough moments so far, there have been challenging moments. This is the first time I have worked on a full game so it has been challenging to wait for features to get put into the game so that you can use them. At the beginning of the project you pretty much have nothing to work with, you are working in a vacuum. Now I look back at my work from the start of the project and it is surprising how your design process can change because of how far the project has moved forward.

First gaming system: NES, I must have been about 5.

Earliest gaming memories: Playing the Donkey Kong game & watch, my parents bought it for me when I was 3 or 4.

Favorite game: Goldeneye64, it had so many features and so many things to unlock. It was really well designed and really fun. Multiplayer was awesome, I played if for about two years straight until none of my friends would play against me anymore.

Currently playing: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - I have been playing it for months and Viewtiful Joe before that.

Home PC rig: Yes it is pretty old.

Console or pc: At the moment console because it's cheaper, the games seem to be more fun and original. You can get a lot of games from Japan, which is cool - I like Japanese games.

Single player or multi-player or co-op: Single with a good storyline - RPGs.

Can you think of a map you played from any game before which stands out above the rest and why?
Deck16 from Unreal, which was a death match map. It had the best of everything. There was lots of close quarter combat, lots of long range perfect weapon placement and layout, it was awesome.

What's the design process for you personally, how do you fit into the team?
Since I came in after all the missions had been broken out the process for me is to kind of start small, its different for multiplayer different for single player. In single player I have to look at the mission breakout that was written before I got here, go through that, work out how I'm going to place the objectives into the map. I get to design the layout of the map myself as it's never really laid out in the mission breakout. Then there's the whole process of artistically designing, starting scripting and then going back to the art side, working with the artists to have them put in extra. Tweak things and polish things and then back to doing more scripting and then it's just over and over and over again.

How many revisions do the maps generally go through?
Some of the single player maps I've worked on, design wise, have gone through up to four or five iterations, 4 or 5 different versions of the map with huge changes as to how the map will be played out. Multiplayer I'd say maybe the maps that I've worked on, 3 iterations each, changing things based on feedback from designers.

Do you have a perfect background from working with Unreal?
Yes, it definitely helped with getting the job as I've worked with it for at least four years before I came here. So when I got here I knew how to use it really well.

What percentage of time are you spending on multiplayer as opposed single player?
It depends on the milestone, sometimes it would be 50/50. Sometimes more singleplayer than multiplayer, sometimes the other way around.

What do you enjoy more?
Singleplayer scripting, as I have a background in multiplayer design its fun to be doing something different and something that's not just geared towards artistic design.

So when you say scripting are you talking about the actual fitting the story into the level or coding script?
Coding script, placing the storyline into the level, working on AI scripting, all that sort of thing, scripted sequences, game play sequences.

Have you had fun playing around with large outdoor areas?
Yeah I've really become addicted to the whole tribes game play idea. I was into Tribes2 a lot when it first came out, but i'm having a lot more fun with our outdoor spaces, our skiing model and everything. It's definitely great to play a FPS that's so different to any other FPS out there.

Unreal generally tends to be a tight space, close combat, a lot of action, where as Tribes has these massive outdoor areas, has it to been a challenge to be thinking that you're in a massive area and channel the game play into different areas?
It's definitely a challenge, it's been fun and I'm always getting told the indoor areas are too big. At the moment they're playing out really well and it's really fun to still be working on indoor spaces but indoor spaces which are totally different to anything else we've worked on, plus the outdoor spaces are really fun to work on as well.

Plus the graphics?
Yeah, it looks awesome.

How difficult is it for you building a single player level and having to constrict the player to certain goals even though they can freely move throughout the whole space of the level?
It just comes down to trying to work out any outcome that could popup from the player's actions. You know you just have to think what happens if a player goes to this area of the map before an objective is set that's going to be in that area of the map, it usually ends up meaning we can make maps that are pretty non linear.

So if a player has 3 objectives in that map can they do them in any order rather than there being a specific linear order?
They can either do it in any order or we just have certain events not happen until other events have been fulfilled.

Thanks for your time Dean.