Hi, I make Video Games
I'm Coby West and I've been helping make cool games since 2015. I am currently working professionally as a Game Programmer at 22nd Century Toys.I have previously worked as a Designer, Technical Designer, Engineer, and Producer, among other roles.I was a founding member for the rebirth of Games Y'all, an Austin-based monthly meet-up dedicated to uplifting the underrepresented in games.I am currently working on a new porfolio.
Designer
I started working professionally as a Game Designer in 2018. I have experience with most design disciplines including Technical, Content, Quest, and Level Design, with more listed below. I have professional experience working in Unity and proprietary engines, as well as personal experience working with Unreal.In addition to direct design work, I have also provided playtesting and detailed design feedback for high-caliber games including Tunic and Bugsnax.
Technical Design
The Glory Society (Revenant Hill)
2021-2023
As a Technical Designer on Revenant Hill, I worked as lead implementer and as a bridge between our technical and non-technical members. While implementing new content, I surfaced and documented missing gameplay systems. During my time at The Glory Society, I developed and refined a design document template that designers and engineers utilized to communicate more effectively. I collaborated closely with our Creative and Narrative Director to translate ideas into usable design documents based on this template. I then worked with our engineers to ensure their understanding.I also worked closely with Secret Lab to help develop our narrative and quest toolsets, to ensure their usability for myself and other designers.
Content, Quest, and Narrative Design
The Glory Society (Revenant Hill)
2020-2023
I collaborated with our Narrative and Creative Director to implement content and quests based on narrative outlines. This included surfacing and filling in gaps, as well as ensuring the team had the information they needed to create any missing assets.
gamigo US
(Trove)
2018-2020
I acted as the lead designer on all of Trove's monthly in-game events from December 2018 to September 2020. This included everything from conceptualization to shipping the event. I wrote detailed design documents and collaborated with Artists, Engineers, Producers, and QA to ensure everyone had what they needed to create the assets, tech, tasks, schedule, and test plan for each event. I reviewed player logs after events to see what stage of each event quest players got to and used this data to inform future quest design. Through these events, I also expanded Trove's lore, while remaining true to what existed before I joined the project.In addition to creating the monthly events, I also worked as a general designer on Trove and created a tutorial for the gem system, as well as reworked the entire quest flow to allow players to better understand the quest progression.Of all the content I created, my favorite was an elaborate series of riddles that players could solve to unlock a special costume for Pride. This was intended to be solved via community effort and took the community about 7 hours to complete. This is pretty impressive for an MMO!
System Design
The Glory Society (Revenant Hill)
2020-2023
I developed and fleshed out our farming system. This system encompassed the number of days per season, the number of days to grow each plant, and the yield from each harvest. I worked with our Creative and Narrative Director to ensure these numbers worked within the narrative.
gamigo US
(Trove)
2018-2020
I also worked on farming for Trove, determining what items could be composted, what type of compost each item gave, and how much compost was used to craft new plants.
Encounter Design
gamigo US
(Trove)
2018-2020
I designed the moveset for “Ifera, Underlord of The Deep” who was the most powerful new boss introduced in the "Into The Depths" patch. As Trove is a game targeted for younger players, the mechanics had to remain simple. In general, Ifera attacks the player with the highest aggro, occasionally she will spin, and then pull random players into her. After a few seconds she spins again, which kills any players still in melee range. This leads to an engaging encounter where players have to pay attention but that isn't overly punishing or confusing.