Hi, I’m Rachel, I like making people feel clever. I believe every level is a toolbox, enticing players to experiment and build their own emergent stories.
I'm a Senior Game Designer with 9 years of industry experience across 8 shipped titles. Most recently I contributed to the level and quest design of The Killing Stone. I also scripted missions and built levels for South Park: Snow Day! + post launch missions for The Blackout Club. And before that - puzzles and story for Adventure Escape Mysteries, including: Haunted Hunt, Cursed Crown, Trapmaker 2, Pirate's Treasure, and The Covenant.
In my spare time I model/3D print dollhouses and design patterns for handbags. Occasionally I manage to intrigue two cats.
My Resume: here.
My Itch.io: here.
My Linkedin: here.
Resume
SKILLS
Game Design:
Level Design, Quest and Mission Scripting, Gameplay Implementation and Iteration, Design Documentation, Dungeon Mastering (D&D 5e/2024e)
Game Engines and Code:
Unreal 4/5, Blueprint, Lua, Unity, Creation Kit, Quest, Twine; C, C#, JSON, Papyrus, Python
Tools:
Jira, Confluence, Perforce, Git, Articy, Miro, Maya, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Blender, Photoshop, Premiere
AWARDS
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2018/2019 AIAS Foundation WomenIn DICE Scholar
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2019 GDC Game Narrative Review Gold Winner (Analysis on Dishonored 2: here)
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2017 Microsoft Women in Gaming Game Changer
EDUCATION
Masters of Fine Art in Game Design from New York University | New York, NY
Bachelors of Fine Art in Art from Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, PA
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Minor in Game Design
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Game Creation Society President
EXPERIENCE
Question | Remote
Senior Level Designer | October 2019 - Present
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The Killing Stone
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Owned all narrative scripting, goal logic, and environmental storytelling implementation earning consistent praise for story pacing in Steam reviews contributing to a 96% “very positive” rating.
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Collaborated with Narrative and Design leads to translate the VO script into gameplay flow charts, defining geometry, texturing, lighting, sound, and VFX needs for each beat in Jira. Directed feature kickoffs and strike team meetings identifying design flaws and pitching low-cost solutions.
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Created the innovative Reserve placement mechanic to facilitate long term planning in card battles, commended by AV Club for its “strategic depth and clarity.”
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Analyzed playtest trends from Discord players to identify balance issues, revised cards to support all playstyle patterns with multiple card synergies.
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South Park: Snow Day!
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Pitched, planned, and implemented 20+ in-game map layouts and enemy encounters showcasing memorable landmark locations from the show.
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Scripted all mission logic and VO in Blueprint, melding narrative and gameplay with a focus on multiple routes and golden moments for all melee and ranged weapon types.
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Built combat conditionals to solve spawn timing issues in encounter design. Collected usability feedback from other designers, then iterated the tools.
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Led external co-dev level design team in weekly reviews and authored clear technical documentation leading to quick turnaround times (3 weeks) for polished 3D levels cohesive with existing maps.
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Level Designer
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The Blackout Club
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Implemented 3 postlaunch missions in Blueprint, including player community favorite “Shadow People.”
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Developed video verification standards for debugging gameplay logic, reducing QA contractor time.
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Haiku Games | Remote
Game Designer | June 2017 - March 2020
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Adventure Escape Mysteries: Haunted Hunt, Cursed Crown, Trapmaker 2, Pirate's Treasure, and The Covenant
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Responsible for all design, iteration, dialogue, and QA from pitch to ship, maintaining a 4.6/5 star Google Play rating over 200k reviews and 10 million+ players.
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Created clear, concise design specifications for non-English speaking co-dev art teams, reducing art iteration to 1 cycle during production.
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