Design Management

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Design and Production Consulting Services

Value Offered

Experienced. I have over 12 years of experience in the game industry, spanning several disciplines including programming, scripting, writing/design, and production.Shipped. I have shipped nearly half a dozen titles, and worked on several more. I am currently developing a new game and IP for the growing core-Casual market.Excellent Management Skills. As an entreprenuer I'm responsible for the design and fiscal requirements for my current, unannouced title. In the past, I've served as a lead -- managing 6 cross discipline pod teams of 7-10 people, each working on divergent elements of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Following that, I was promoted to producer, where I did the same for the whole content pipelien. In recent management reviews, I was highlighted as having “exceptional” scores from my teams.Strong Multitasker. As a Lead and Manager, I consistently and successfully juggle multiple meetings, conflicting demands, personnel needs, playthru/reviews, and bug triage, all while working to put out fires where needed and set fires where necessary.Excellent Verbal Skills. I regularly hold meetings with my entire department, regular one-on-one meetings with individuals, and in a previous position gave presentations to publishers and potential partners.Extensive Gaming Knowledge. I am an avid gamer, playing games across all major platforms released in the last 20 years. I have knowledge on many different types of games, with specialized insight into MMOs.

Key Skills

Writing (Presentations)Scripting/Programming/Tech KnowledgeSCRUM/Agile Development (Certified SCRUM Master)Production Process Improvement and MethodologyWriting (Fiction/Dialogue)

Titles and Experience

Unannounced FPS (Canceled)

Roles: AI Programmer/Scripter/AI and Enemy Design

Star Trek: Elite Force II

Roles: Programmer/Scripter/Writer (Training Mission)/Production Work (Scheduling/Milestone Tracking)

Counter Strike: Condition-Zero(Deleted Scenes)

Roles: Design Consulting/Production Work (Milestone Write-Ups and Submissions)

(Uncredited) Adventure Game

Roles: Design Consultation, Review, Feedback, and Design Guidance

Sin Episodes: Emergence

Roles: Design Lead Designer/Production (Project Scheduling/Team Management/Partner Relations)

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Roles: Senior Writer, Lead Scripting Designer, Senior Design Producer

TBA: Core-Casual Title

Roles: Creative Director, Executive Producer

Career Highlights

Ritual Entertainment

Originally hired on as an AI programmer, skill and talent in NPC design lead to a position on the Elite Force II team, where I also began to pick up scripting tasks and production work. From there, I moved into management tasks – taking the reins of a small scripting team (3 people) responsible for all the “in-engine” game code. For production tasks, by my own drive, I took responsibility for scheduling and tracking pre-milestone test runs to ensure the milestone would meet publisher expectations. Additionally, I wrote all the dialogue for the training mission, providing significant value to the company and the publisher

Upon shipping Elite Force II, I was promoted to Designer, then shortly after a company reorganization, I was promoted again to Lead Designer/Writer. In this role, I was actually more focused on production tasks, helping to schedule out the projects, reviewing content, tracking overall progress, and managing the entire team. In several cases, I was performing these roles on several projects simultaneously. During my tenure, I worked on 2 unannounced console titles, and an expansion pack, while helping to ship an expansion pack to Black Hawk Down, and directly shipping Counter Strike: Condition Zero (Deleted Scenes), and Sin Episodes: Emergence

Bioware

Originally hired on as a Senior Writer, I contributed to the

overall story design, structure, and approach for Star Wars: The Old Republic,

I also wrote all the dialogue for the first pass of the Jedi Consular Class Story

Arc. After a year in the writing

department, I stepped up to help provide the leadership needed in the recently

formed World Design Department. There,

my job was to help the World Design Director build, train, and grow a staff of

World Builders, Cinematic Designers, and Scripters. Once the team was built, given my experience

in both programming and scripting, I took over the management role for the

scripting team. As the project and staff

grew, the project was reorganized into multi-disciplinary “pods” each with its

own lead and responsible for specific sections of the game. I was promoted to Lead Scripting Designer,

where I fulfilled management and senior production duties for 6 separate

cross-discipline pods each with 7-10 members, while simultaneously providing

direct-line management to over 25 scripters. Nearing the end of development, I was charged with getting the game out the door, with my efforts helping Star Wars: The Old Republic to have one of the best and most stable launches of any MMO ever released.

Theorycraft Studios

I left Bioware to found Theorycraft Studios, a company dedicated to designing games for the growing core-casual market. There I serve as Creative Director and Executive Producer. I also offer my expertise and services as contractor and consultant, seeking to help other studios ship high quality titles, on budget, and on time.

Achievements

Repeatedly ranked “Above Target” in yearly reviews. Received some of the highest manager scores in the company, based on feedback provided by both my reports and my superiors.Trimmed weeks off the design schedule by designing and implementing a database system to automatically update documentationReworked the Online Wiki for the entire World Design Department. The information is now used company-wide, and the format and approach are under consideration for adoption by several other departmentsSuccessfully trained and mentored several scripters to promotion and leadership positions, with 6 of them now providing first-line management duties for their cross-discipline pod.Designed and implemented the “Soft Lock” policy for game content that is now in use across the studio.Helped form a team and culture that consistently delivers on time and at or above target for content polish.Was instrumental in revamping our pathfinding pipeline, saving the spawn team several man-years worth of time.Created a prototype Scripting API in Heroscript that allowed us to implement the first example Flashpoints in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Additionally, I helped design and implement the first iteration of Flashpoints – now one of the key, “back of the box” features for the game. Significantly increased adaptability by creating, implementing, and maintaining standards and policies designed specifically to allow a designer to pick up and run with another designers work with minimal downtimeWorked closely with the World Design Director, the Creative Director, and the other department leads to define and evolve the quality standards for Star Wars: The Old Republic, while simultaneously pushing my teams to exceed them.

Education

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS Denton, TX

BA in Psychology, dual

minor in English and Radio/Television/Film, 1998

Technology

MS Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access),

Hansoft, SQL, C++, VB/VBA, Wiki, Id Tech(Quake III/Quake IV), Unreal

Engine/UDK, Source Engine, Unity, Hero Engine, Devtrack, Extraview

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Get Your Game Done: On Time, On Budget, and At Qua...

About Me

Shawn Ketcherside

I'm a 12 year industry veteran and entrepreneur. In my time in the game industry, I've worked as a Programmer, a Senior Writer, Lead Game Designer, and Creative Director/Executive Producer. I'm worked on a varied portfolio of games with an even more varied scale and scope. I've worked on small scale expansions like Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre all the way to sprawling giants like Star Wars: The Old Republic. As far as genre’s go… I’ve seen my fair share of those as well, having worked on Adventure games, FPS titles, Action RPGs, and, of course, MMORPGs.

As founder of Theorycraft Studios, I'm currently offering my services expertise as design and production consultant, availble to help ship products on time, at quality, and at budget. I can help studios get their production back on track, solve difficult design issues, and simply put -- Get their game out the door.

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