Resume

MICHAEL M. ARSERS        Gameplay Engineer

OVERVIEW

Gameplay engineer with a strong design focus. Enjoys working very closely with designers and rapidly iterating to find the fun in any game or system. Highly values the entire player experience from core mechanics and AI interaction down to controls and user interface. Extremely collaborative and very comfortable working and communicating with all members of a development team, regardless of discipline. Passionate gamer who plays anything and everything to improve his perspective on crafting quality games and the industry as a whole. Has entirely too much fun with his work.

EXPERIENCE

Electronic Arts        September 2007 - Present

Shipped Titles: Spore, Darkspore

Unannounced Online Action Game (PC)        September 2011 - Present

Software Engineer (Gameplay)

  1. Rapidly designed, prototyped, and iterated on initial core gameplay concepts. Our team was already playtesting daily in pre-production.
  2. Revamped AI Director based on new design requirements and learnings from Darkspore.

Darkspore (PC)        September 2008 - September 2011

Software Engineer (Gameplay)

  1. Proposed, built, and maintained AI Director to encourage gameplay variety and replayability. Owned this core system from concept to ship.
  2. Aided transition to Scaleform UI by implementing many existing and new UI screens in Flash & ActionScript.
  3. Primary gameplay engineer for all competitive player-versus-player modes.
  4. Implemented and refined many player and non-player character abilities with our in house ability system (based on Lua scripting and client/server C++ code).

Spore (PC)        September 2007 - September 2008

Software Engineer (Gameplay)

  1. Took over the camera and control systems for Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space modes to simplify and unify the controls across four separate game sub-teams.
  2. Implemented many AI behaviors and core mechanics for Creature and Tribe games.

Electronic Arts        June - August 2006

The Simpsons Game (360 / PS3)

Software Engineer Intern

  1. Developed and tested tools for the content pipeline.
  2. Learned the ropes of large-project software engineering and game development.

Cornell University        September 2006 - May 2007

Game Design Teaching Assistant        January 2006 - May 2006

  1. Assisted interdisciplinary teams of 5-10 students with semester long game development projects.
  2. Refined introductory exercises for engineers to develop their technical abilities in gameplay programming.
  3. Created well documented game demos with teaching staff to serve as instructional examples of game development.
  4. Advised faculty to develop the course structure and curriculum of the game design track.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

C / C++ • Java • C# • Lua • Python • ActionScript • HTML/CSS • Win/Mac/Unix • Office

EDUCATION

Cornell University, College of Engineering

B.S. in Computer Science

RELATED COURSEWORK

Game Design Initiative at Cornell        January 2005 - May 2007

  1. Participated in small team semester long game development projects for five terms resulting in several small PC games (and one also running on 360 via XNA).
  2. Developed with a variety of platforms and technologies. Became extremely comfortable jumping in and learning new systems.
  3. Prepared and delivered oral presentations and live gameplay demos every two weeks.
  4. Managed cross-disciplinary teams working on a very tight schedule.
  5. Presented every game to the public at a day long showcase event to end each term.
  6. Experimented with accelerometer-based motion gaming before it was cool.

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