Greetings and Salutations! My name is John Doran and I’m a game designer soon to graduate from DigiPen Institute of Technology, though currently I am a Game Design Intern at LucasArts. My passion is making games better in every way that I can through my design philosophy. I also help others to become better game designers by sharing my knowledge in classes and through my blog. I live in Redmond, WA and I’m glad that you’re here.

My Design Philosophy:

  • Be the Player’s Advocate.
  • If something is worth doing, do it right.
  • Playtesting + Iteration = Polish

Profile:

  • Have designed and built 4 year-long videogames, on teams of 2 to 7
  • Fluent in C++, ActionScript 3, UnrealScript, and Python
  • Lifelong boardgame and D & D player
  • Excellent visual & cinematic sense (8 years as award-winning video editor)
  • Good at finding what’s fun, prototyping quickly, playtesting, and balancing

Gameplay Video – 2D Platformer – Lunaris

C++ game designer on a team of 7, building a competitive 2D racing platformer

Gameplay Video  -  Custom Level  -  UDK Mod “Unreal Demolition”

Designed levels within framework of a UDK mod.

Gameplay Video  -  Custom Level  -  UnrealEd 3

Designed entire level; implemented custom game type, checkpoint system, and behaviors in Kismet and UnrealScript

Gameplay Video – 2D “Time Traveling” Platformer – Tim-E

C++ game programmer on a team of 4, building a time-travel-based 2D platformer

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Latest blog posts

epicureanTemple

UDK – Epicurian Room

In my Art History class we were asked to do a design a room that could fit a Egyptian, Greek, or Roman sculpture and design a room to display it in. I chose to design the room in UDK using static meshes only from the GDC map that is included in the current build asRead more

End of Internship – Post Mortem

Wow. What a crazy few months. I’ve just finished my internship over at the most excellent LucasArts. While I can’t give any details on what I was working on, I can say that it was one of the best times I’ve ever had before. I’ve met a ton of amazing people, worked on an awesomeRead more

Alice: Madness Returns – Notes and Observations

It has indeed been a bit since my last post here and  a lot of stuff has happened ever since I’ve started my internship at Lucasarts, but things are going great and I’m really enjoying my time there. One of the exercises that I have been working on in my (very limited) free time hasRead more

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