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Jared Mitchell, Level and Technical Designer

jared@jaredemitchell.com

Hello there! I’m a level and technical designer living in the Boston area. Currently I’m working as Quality Assurance at Otherside Entertainment, assisting development of Underworld Ascendant. The work environment at Otherside has been very lenient in terms of the role, allowing me to branch into other areas such as QA engineering.

I’m also working in my spare time as a level designer for Ape Law, contributing to Albino Lullaby Episode 2. Under the creative director, I’m responsible for taking high-concept descriptions of levels, creating a layout for them, and then turning that into a blockout to be finished by other team members.

I, uh… ALSO also create videos in my spare time on my YouTube channel The Playing Field. Usually I take a game, look at its systems, then walk through a level, and conclude by trying to ascertain the level design philosophy the developers applied.

I graduated from Champlain College in 2016, with a Bachelor’s degree in Game Design and a minor in Game Programming. While at school, I studied abroad for a semester in Montreal, where I took courses taught by people who were working at Eidos, Warner Brothers, and Ubisoft.

I’ve also worked at Vicarious Visions in Albany, New York during the summer of 2015, as a QA Tester on Skylanders: Superchargers. Because I was between years in college my time there was a bit short. However, I still feel like I gained a good amount of experience there, having worked on a team, engaged in daily scrum meetings, and getting used to how AAA companies operate.

Skills:

Hobbies/Interests:

• Learning new level editors and engines. I love comparing and contrasting how different tools approach making content creation easier, especially when looking at much older editors.
• Playing bass. I have a 4 and a 5-string, and have used them to learn a bit of music theory.
• Film theory and cinematography. Though I’ve always been interested in great films, I started to realize that learning how to compose a shot would be very applicable to level design.
• Psychology. I’m always interested in learning more about how people think, which helps me make my design more effective.
• Cooking. Definitely a skill out of necessity, but I love trying out new recipes.
• Homebrewing. Being able to drink beer you made yourself is very satisfying, and experimenting with different ingredients is always fun. It’s a great hobby for game developers as well, since it’s hands-off for most of the time.

Favorite Games:

• System Shock 2
• Thief: The Dark Project
• Thief II: The Metal Age
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• Deus Ex
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Outlast
• Half-Life 2
• Portal 2