CONNOR SMITH
I’m a game designer with a strong interest in game mechanics. With my games I aim to surprise and inspire players, making them feel like they can do more than they originally thought was possible.
Game Mechanics Designer | Student | Interactive Experience Creator |
Game Mechanics Designer | Student | Interactive Experience Creator |
Project Highlights
With the assignment to make a game for a client, I was in charge of testing gameplay with others and creating an educational experience, teaching the importance of emergency preparedness. Being a level designer for this project taught me a lot about experiences in VR.
For this project I primarily acted as a mechanics designer. Crafting and testing the rules and dynamics of the game to ensure a captivating and strategy focused experience.
I also experimented with some particle effects!
With 8 weeks, instead of the usual 3, we were able to take it a lot further than usual! I spent that time learning how to use FMOD and improving my sound design skills, I worked with Unity timelines to create cutscenes, and took this chance to work as a narrative designer too.
After kicking off this project with a simple and fun paper prototype we wanted to try something completely different. This time I worked on animations by learning DOTween, and discovering how networking and mobile games worked, aside from the usual mechanics design and user testing.
About Me
My name is Connor Smith,
Game Mechanic Designer.
It’s always been about games for me. Whether it’s card games, board games, or video games, I’ve always been first in line. It makes a lot of sense that this is the field I would eventually find myself in.
People know me as talkative, optimistic, creative, and sometimes a little competitive. You can find these traits back in all the projects I’ve worked on so far!
Currently, I am in my third year studying Creative Media and Game Technologies at Saxion Enschede. I am also part of study association XP, where I organize events such as game nights and pub quizzes as the head of the Activity Committee. Read more about that below!
Tools
Study Association XP
Head of the Activity Committee
After hosting 12 of the 22 events the activity committee organized, sometimes housing more than 100 people, I was picked to become the new head of the activity committee for the first half of this school year.
As head of activity, I am responsible for hosting game nights, parties, game jams, pub quizzes, and more!
I also lead team meetings every week to discuss upcoming events, keeping track of student’s school schedules and student excitement.
As a board member I also work closely with the rest of the board, namely the Education and PR Committee heads. For every event we make sure to communicate with PR what types of posters, posts, or announcements we would like. We keep in mind the busy schedules of our members and accommodate to their needs within the organization.
The association has only existed for three years now, so I have also been tasked to make events more repeatable and easy to organize.
I have lead teams of over 10 people to organize events, putting to use leadership, planning, coordination, and improvisation skills.
So far this year we’ve hosted a game night counting over 100 attendees, multiple tournaments, and are now organizing our Global Game Jam event end of January!
