Rhys Frampton
Systems and Narrative Designer
Brooklyn, NY. Phone: 718-902-4530. Email: rhys.frampton@gmail.com. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rhys-frampton-878323186/
Project Experience
Agents of Influence (Unity). Game designer and writer for Alterea Inc.
Story-driven educational game about teenage spies who combat misinformation. Expected to be published in 2023.
• Solidified the game’s narrative structure and tone, helped revise the overarching plot, and added two recurring characters, in order to create a balance of entertainment and educational content that would maximize engagement with young players.
• Reworked the design of the least popular minigame (“Research”) until it became the most popular among testers.
• Wrote and designed seven different standalone minigames, providing students and educators with engaging side stories that are short enough to be completed within a single class period.
• Communicated with the programmers at Indian game studio Holy Cow Productions as they implemented Alterea’s designs, ensuring each new feature was functional and within scope.
• Alterea’s official Agents of Influence page: https://www.altereainc.com/agents-of-influence
Live/Wire (Unreal Engine). Product owner, narrative lead, co-lead designer.
Multiplayer sci-fi FPS about rebels with electric guns. Published to Steam on 5/14/2021.
• Led a team of 14 members, ensuring consistent communication and coordination despite working remotely over multiple time zones, to meet deliverables and deadlines.
• Created the game’s narrative context and tone, working with level designers and artists to evoke that context through the environment.
• Designed each of the game’s four unique weapons, working with artists and programmers to ensure they could be implemented seamlessly, as well as working with QA leads to analyze play-testing feedback and maintain competitive balance.
• Wrote clear and thorough documentation to ensure every member of the team understood the goals of the game and the scope of their work to achieve them.
• Design Document: Live/Wire Design Doc
Last Train to Gehenna (RenPy). Sole developer.
Horror visual novel about a woman whose childhood bullies have been turned into monsters from Japanese myth. Published to itch.io on 7/26/2021.
• Wrote the game’s script, imbuing the story with a sense of dread and lingering trauma.
• Programmed dialogue choices and branching paths, forcing players to experience the consequences of their actions.
• Created each character’s sprites and facial expressions using Illustrator, while using photos of my own neighborhood for the game’s backgrounds to create an unnerving stylistic contrast.
• itch.io page: Last Train to Gehenna by Kneesock
Published Writing
“Godflesh”
A short fiction story published in the literary journal Rubbertop Review on 6/25/2021. Link: https://www.uakron.edu/english/academics/get-involved/rubbertop-review.dot.
“A New Taxonomy of Difficulty”
A persuasive game design essay published to GameDeveloper’s “Featured Blog” section on 9/23/2021, as well as the Blogs section on this website. Link: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/blogs/a-new-taxonomy-of-difficulty
Education
BS Game Design, Champlain College, Burlington, VT, May 2021
Skills and Interests
• Designed systems for strategy games, educational games, platformers, first person shooters, shoot-em-ups, and horror games.
• Experienced with tools such as Unity, Unreal Engine, RenPy, and GameMaker, as well as scripting in C#, and utilizing version control with git, SourceTree and Fork.
• Proficient at writing, having crafted stories and characters to suit each game’s genre and level of narrative focus. Also skilled in writing thorough design documents, persuasive design essays, and creative writing.
• Passionate about listening to teammates and solving intragroup conflicts.