About me

I'm a video game software engineer with 18 years experience developing AAA titles at Rare. Starting in 1996, I joined the team developing Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64. After the release of DKR in 1997, I was part of the team that developed Jet Force Gemini and subsequently Mickey's Speedway USA (both N64 titles). Following Microsoft's acquisition of Rare in 2002, I worked on Conker: Live & Reloaded (Xbox), Viva Piñata (Xbox 360) and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (Xbox 360).

Our focus shifted to developing Kinect titles in 2009, and I was part of the team that developed both Kinect Sports and Kinect Sports: Season 2 for Xbox 360. Both of these titles went on to win the team BAFTA's. More recently, I worked on Kinect Sports Rivals (Xbox One).

I'm skilled in C, C++, Flash and Actionscript, and have experience of using industry tools such as Visual Studio, TFS, Hansoft, Perforce and Code Collaborator.

For more details about my involvement on these projects, see below.

For any further queries, please check out my profile on

Kinect Sports Rivals.

Xbox One - 2014.

Role: UI Engineer Supervisor

Responsibilities:

Developed UI asset pipeline in the form of a Flash CS5 plugin.
Early prototype of a frontend for the game, which I presented to the whole company in an all-hands meeting.
Prototyped a Kinect cursor and several selection gestures.
Developed a scrolled list component controllable by Kinect gesture and controller.
Implemented post-game flow screens.

Video courtesy of David Buttress - a Senior UI Artist on the project.

Kinect Sports: Season 2.

Xbox 360 - 2011.

Role: UI Engineer Supervisor

Responsibilities:

Prototyped in-game HUD for golf.

Prototyped new frontend, pitched it to management, and brought it to production standard.

Responsible for bringing together E3 demo. Developed custom front-end for the E3 demo.

Maintained and uploaded localized, dynamic UI content to production Xbox Live Title Managed Servers.

Kinect Sports.

Xbox 360 - 2010

Role: Principal Software Engineer

Responsibilites:

Evaluated Scaleform as a UI solution, and integrated it into our engine.

Implemented most of the frontend, working closely with the art and design team.

Image courtesy of David Buttress - a Senior UI Artist on the project.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

Xbox 360 - 2008.

Role: Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

Senior engineer in charge of UI.

Developed much of the frontend, working closely with artists and designers.

Developed the code for the animated talking heads dialogue UI.

Viva Piñata.

Xbox 360 - 2006.

Role: Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

Part of a team of four engineers responsible for implementing AI strategies for NPC’s.

Worked closely with the PM to manage workload across the four engineers.

Conker: Live & Reloaded.

Xbox - 2005.

Role: Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

Brought onto the team in a fire-fighting role – mainly giving technical support to animators converting 2.5 hours of cutscene animations from a bespoke N64 format, to that required for the Xbox product.

Mickey's Speedway USA.

N64 - 2000.

Role: Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

All audio software.

Developed very polished 3D frontend in close collaboration with artists.

Implemented all in-game HUD UI.

Developed code for "jiggling" animated text.

Jet Force Gemini.

N64 - 1999.

Role: Senior Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

All audio software.

Developed very polished 3D frontend in close collaboration with artists.

Implemented all in-game HUD UI.

Developed code for graphical effects.

Diddy Kong Racing.

N64 - 1997.

Role: Software Engineer

Responsibilities:

All audio software, including audio objects to control MIDI cross fading for interactive audio.

Implemented all in-game HUD UI.

Some tool development.