SUMO DIGITAL

(December 2017 – Current)

Unannonced Project (NDA – Third Person Shooter)

(January 2024 – April 2024)

Role: Senior Game Designer

Designed complicated cross-platform multiplayer flow and accessibility features (color blind mode, closed captioning, gamepad customization) for one of the major third-person shooter brands in the industry.

Unannonced Project (NDA – Online First Person Shooter)

(April 2023 – December 2023)

Role: Senior Game Designer

Designed and tuned combat abilities of multiple character classes for PVP mode of Destiny-style FPS.

Unannonced Project (NDA – Online First Person Shooter)

(October 2020 – March 2023)

Role: Senior Game Designer

Designed and delivered character traversal & controls for an online PVP FPS with a lot of verticality (Apex Legends/Titanfall level of complexity), which received a lot of praise from the publisher and play testers.

Designed and delivered complicated UX architecture for an online PVP FPS, in addition, done most of UI design for the project, designed game settings & accessibility features (including measures for the motion sickness prevention), and pretty complex character customization.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure

(October 2020 – March 2023)

Role: Senior Game Designer

BAFTA-winning platformer for Sony, where I was responsible for the World Map, the biggest single feature of the game, heavily interdependent with other features, and which required a lot of coordination inside 100+ people team to be successfully delivered.

Designed and delivered complicated UX architecture & done most of UI design for the project, with unique artistic intent and very complex multiplayer flow where UI and HUD had to adapt on-the-fly to any number of players that could drop-in/drop-out from the game at any moment.

Designed and delivered game settings & accessibility features, including gamepad customization.

Designed and delivered complicated character customization, taking into account LittleBigPlanet series artistic style, its established UX conventions, and requirements of the multiplayer flow.

Designed the game achievements/trophy set, from brainstorm coordination to the final implementation, making sure that the trophy set follows PSN requirements.

Was responsible for Sony TRCs compliance of the game UI/UX, and also designed multiplayer matchmaking, based on PSN requirements.

UBISOFT

(May 2014 – November 2017)

Watch Dogs: Legion

(March 2016 – August 2017)

Role: Game Designer

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/watch-dogs/legion

Did early stage of design for the PC version (PC controls, features and UI adaptation).

Watch Dogs 2

(March 2016 – August 2017)

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/watch-dogs/watch-dogs-2

Role: Game Designer

As a part of multi-platform/multi-studio development team, designed mouse & keyboard controls for the character, driving and hacking, designed UI for PC, various PC-specific features, ensured their alignment with the overall game direction and seamless transition between gamepad/mouse & keyboard controls.

Coordinated between the dev team, Quality Control department, Ubisoft UR Labs, and studios in Montreal and Bucharest to ensure that the PC end-user experience is delivered in time and in proper quality. During Watch Dogs 2 development, helped new QC department in Kyiv to define PC testing processes and requirements.

Designed the requirements for PC-specific telemetry and user testing. Spent 9 months supporting post-launch of Watch Dogs 2 PC and helped to retain the players in the game by designing extra accessibility settings and PC-specific features, based on telemetry and player feedback.

Far Cry: Primal

(April 2015 – March 2016)

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/far-cry/far-cry-primal

Role: Game Designer

As a part of multi-platform/multi-studio development team, designed mouse & keyboard controls for the first-person character, designed UI for PC, various PC-specific features, ensured their alignment with the overall game direction and seamless transition between gamepad/mouse & keyboard controls.

Coordinated between the dev team, Quality Control department, Ubisoft UR Labs, and studios in Montreal and Bucharest to ensure that the PC end-user experience is delivered in time and in proper quality.

Designed the requirements for PC-specific telemetry and user testing.

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Far Cry 4

(May 2014 – April 2015)

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/far-cry/far-cry-4

Role: Game Designer

As a part of multi-platform/multi-studio development team, designed mouse & keyboard controls for the first-person character, designed UI for PC, various PC-specific features, ensured their alignment with the overall game direction and seamless transition between gamepad/mouse & keyboard controls.

Coordinated between the dev team, Quality Control department, and studios in Montreal and Bucharest to ensure that the PC end-user experience is delivered in time and in proper quality.

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ARKADIUM

(November 2013 – May 2014)

Microsoft Sudoku

(January 2014 – May 2014)

https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/microsoft-sudoku/9wzdncrfhv60

Role: Game Designer

Designed the game from concept to ZBR (zero bug release) stage. Coordinated between the development team, company’s HQ in New York, and Microsoft stakeholders, providing regular reports on the design progress. The original version of Microsoft Sudoku was pre-installed on Microsoft Surface 3 tablet, and was one of the top-rated among all Microsoft’s branded games.

Microsoft Jigsaw

(November 2013 – January 2014)

https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/microsoft-jigsaw/9wzdncrfj9x2

Role: Game Designer

Designed the game from Alpha to release. Re-designed some features, created Daily Challenges for the launch version, polished the design to the highest quality.

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GAMELOFT

(June 2013 – October 2013)

Role: Game Designer

Participated in Game Evolution of several projects (Playmobil Pirates, UNO, Despicable Me 2, Fantasy Town), delivering updates for Gameloft mobile games while adhering to tight deadlines of the live projects. Underwent training at the Gameloft Design Campus training, which focused on mobile/live games and monetization.

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N-GAME STUDIOS

(August 2007 – May 2013)

Robo Wars

(September 2011 – January 2013)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/285090/

Role: Game Designer

Mid-core tower defence, based on Plants vs Zombies mechanics. Designed game mechanics, balanced units & abilites, designed UI/UX for the game.

Towers of Oz

(December 2011 – December 2012)

http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/7967/towers-of-oz/

Role: Game Designer

Casual tower defence, based on Plants vs Zombies mechanics and “Wizard of Oz” setting. Designed game mechanics, balanced units & abilites, designed UI/UX for the game. Originally published by Bigfish for the US market, then was pirated in China and became there quite popular 🙂

Wizardale

(June 2010 – September 2011)

Role: Game Designer, Writer, Community Manager

Mid-core 3D MMORPG for Russian social network ok.com with complex PvP combat system and open economy.

Come up with the idea of the game and successfuly pitched it to the external stakeholders, did all game design from the initial concept to the game launch, and was a community manager when the project was live.

Designed and delivered an original PvP combat system for three unique character classes, each with its own set of spells, items, and abilities – favorite part of the game for many players. In addition, designed the game progression and open economy that allowed the players to trade items.

Designed and delivered complex UI/UX of 3D MMORPG that worked in small window of social network with primary windowed mode and technological restrictions of Unity + Flash.

Written most of the game’s quests.

Communicated design with external stakeholders and successfully managed the game community after the game’s launch.

Allods Online

(January 2009 – April 2009)

Landscape trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glt-bgIBWK0

Role: Level Designer

Delivered complex visual level design for a big MMORPG, as a part of outsource work for Nival.

Locations I worked on were considered as some of the most beautiful in the game as a result of players voting.

Stalin vs. Martians

(April 2008 – April 2009)

Trailer of the game (be careful): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzQrgqd1yLY

Role: Game Designer, Level Designer

RTS about Stalin and Martians 🙂

Was responsible for turning crazy ideas of a…unique game’s author into actual mechanics 🙂 Did the game balance, initial level design (level schemes, level flow), all under extreme resource and time constrainsts.

The game was later published by Paradox Interactive.

X-Team: Day of Freedom

(August 2007 – April 2008)

Role: Game Designer, Level Designer, Writer

Designed and balanced all the game systems (units, RPG stats, weapons and abilities), re-designed and improved an existing UI.

Did an initial level design (level schemes/flow) for the whole game and then designed some complex big maps for the final missions.

Written most of the dialogs, characters, and quests for a complex script with a branching narrative.

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ABSOLUTIST

(June 2006 – November 2006)

Scepter of Ra

(October 2006 – November 2006)

http://www.bigfishgames.com/games/2056/scepter-of-ra/

Role: Game Designer, Level Designer

Designed, balanced and then tested most of the game’s levels.

Jewelix

(September 2006 – October 2006)

Role: Game Designer, Level Designer

Video of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8h8FSvaTo

Designed, balanced and then tested most of the game’s levels.

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OUTSOURCE

Let the cat in

(July 2015)

Role: Game Designer, Level Designer

Video of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0VBJkGxAbg

Did total re-balance of the game, fixed the game progression, re-designed some levels and tutorial.

Dice Journey

(February 2012 – June 2012)

Video of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_o5mNEAr3I

Role: Game Designer

Designed all game systems and UI for iPhone/iPad, and also did an initial game balance.

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CANCELLED PROJECTS

3D Travian-like browser-based strategy

(January 2010 – June 2010)

3D travian-like browser-based strategy for Nival Network which was based on popular in the US sci-fi table-top game. Project has been closed after changing of publisher’s internal policy.

Role: Game Designer

Worked with popular license, adapted core mechanics of the table-top game for browser-based online version.

Designed all the game UI and game systems, did an initial balance of the game’s combat and economy. In addition, did a lot paper prototyping of the game’s combat and designed principles for it’s cinematic visualization in the game.

3D MMORPG

(January 2009 – April 2010)

Client-based 3D MMORPG. Unfortunately, has been closed due to lack of funding.

Many ideas from this project were moved to the next game – Wizardale.

Role: Game Designer

Designed all the game systems for the game (character classes and abilities, UX architecture of the project and most of UI design) up to Pre-Alpha stage, when the project was cancelled due to lack of funding.

Created and maintained a complex wiki documentation system for the remote team of programmers.

Slasher/Action-Adventure

(March 2004 – May 2006)

Role: Writer, Level Designer

My first experience in the game industry. During my education, I worked as writer/level designer for an action-adventure/slasher based on the popular Russian book. Later, studio Nekki cancelled the project and focused on free-to-play games.