Check out my Career experience here
Hey! My name is Will Howie, (known as shmowie online). I’ve been a Game Dev since 2012, when I was hired at Ubisoft Toronto as a Development Tester on Splinter Cell Blacklist.
Shortly after being hired at Ubisoft, I had a dream I was playing a really cool level in Counter-Strike (one of my fav games). The next day, with a desire to play the map I dreamt about, I took it upon myself to start learning Hammer, to build that very map!
Funnily enough, if you had asked me if I wanted to be a Level Designer while working as a Dev.Tester at Ubisoft, I would have said a definitive, “NO!”
Why? I saw all the problems that Level Designers had to clean-up, I witnessed first-hand the stress and workload the Level Designers were going through, and naturally thought “why would I want to subject myself to that?!”
However, I soon realized that’s exactly why being a Level Designer was the ideal fit for me. You see, turns out being really good at solving technical problems, meticulously organized, and the overwhelming desire to make things “better”, are perfect traits to have as a Level Designer.
Level Designers get to make cool levels/maps/spaces we imagine in our heads, but we must also take direct stewardship of them. Being the voice, the champion of those spaces.
We take on the role of a kind of “caretaker” or “glue” of game development & production, making sure everyone’s work, works together! Ensuring we all see eye-to-eye, enabling the dev-teams to connect our work & meld our design intentions together.
Why WOULDN’T I want to serve that role!?
This role was made for me! I. Love. It.
Please feel free to check out my Linkedin profile below, or connect with me!
Check out my Career experience here
LEVELDESIGN.XYZ 