Daniel Richards

As an Associate Systems Designer on Weapons and Combat I've contributed to the Design, Art, Sound, and Feel of over 80+ Weapons, 50+ Conversion Kits, and 150+ Attachments as well as a host of Player abilities and movement mechanics such as Tactical Stance, Slide Cancelling, Fast Mantling, and Slide Aiming. On top of these core achievements I've taken it upon myself to go beyond my role, and learn other disciplines such as UI/UX, Level Design, and Production to become a better teammate, Designer, and advocate for our Players and my team.

A breakdown of my core responsibilities have included:

• Mentoring junior designers, fostering a collaborative and supportive team environment.
• Creation of compelling Game Design Documents to pitch ideas, improvements, modes, reticles, and more.
• Creation of test maps for early weapons and movement testing for my team.
• Creation of data structures to better organize our weapons, attachments, and platforms.
• Maintain database management for all things weapons, attachments, and platforms.
• Maintain database of Design documents serving as a source of truth for all downstream teams and QA.
• Research on Weapons and Tactics to become a subject matter expert to advocate for realistic yet fun game mechanics.
• Use scripting tools to create, iterate, and balance game mechanics and systems.
• Collaborate with Creative Directors, Designers, Engineers, Artists, Producers, Sound Designers, and Animators to deliver polished game systems.
• Pitch Designs and Features through the use of multimedia tools. (PowerPoint, Confluence, Photoshop, Figma, etc.)
• Contribute to Design fundamentals and philosophy for our games.

During my time as a Content Specialist Production Assistant I worked on the Live Ops team for Call of Duty: Vanguard. As part of this role I worked closely with Production and Design. My small team was tasked with design implementation of all Seasonal Content into the game. This included areas like Emblems, Calling Cards, Weapon and Character skins, Charms, and more. On top of implementation work, we were also tasked with writing guides, and documentation for each category and making sure every seasonal tracker was up to date.

During my time at High Moon Studios my core responsibilities included writing bug reports, executing test passes, regression testing, and participating in company Playtests for feedback. I was part of the Battle Royale team and focused on map and mode testing. This included Caldera, Fortune's Keep, and several game types that utilized our maps.

My short amount of time spent here at Ghost Story Games has been with a focus on learning their bug tracking software and reporting standards. Working as an embedded Senior Tester with Designers and Engineers as part of their small team taking complete test ownership on the UI of the game, as well as working with an external functional QA team on priority, tasking, and content focuses for their team.

A breakdown of my core responsibilities are:

• Internal test ownership on several features, and systems.
• Learning other disciplines and working in-editor to investigate issues.
• Working with an external team on priority, tasking, and content focuses for their team.
• Writing detailed bug reports, and execution of regression/focus testing. Provide detailed feedback around all systems in the game.
• Utilizing software such as Unreal Engine, Hansoft, and Perforce.
• Unreal Engine 4 automation through Blueprints.

During my time at Bungie I worked on the VPT Test team embedded with Technical Designers, and Engineers. As a part of this team it was my job to find issues, run playtest, help direct testing efforts on owned content, and report feedback relating to our porting efforts. During this time I also utilized the company Bootcamp pages to learn how Technical Design and implementation was done in the proprietary engine. This included things like setting up encounters, AI logic, and level/world building.

A breakdown of my core responsibilities were:

• Writing detailed bug reports, and test plans.
• Performing execution of test plans, and strategies.
• Using software such as TFS, and Ticket Track to track issues to ensure they are reported, regressed, and fixed.
• Working as an embedded tester with a small team to run playtest on specific content, and assist with all QA requirements of the team.
• Learn Technical Design to better understand the work the Design team were doing in an effort to find edge case issues.
• Provide feedback and suggestions pertaining to the workflow, design, and features of the game and test team to my QA Lead.

As a Senior QA Tester at QAMN my responsibilities shifted from a primarily functional testing role, to a more focused team-oriented position. I started leading entire playtest, running communications for them, and organizing strategies for the QAMN team. Additionally my responsibilities turned into mentoring QA Testers, onboarding new Testers, and reviewing/assigning bug reports to appropriate channels as well as a plethora of other duties including writing test plans, creating testing strategies, and leading a small team of testers termed my "squad". I became fully responsible for all of my squads bug reports, and their day-to-day testing with the assistance of my assigned Associate Project Lead.

A breakdown of my core responsibilities were:

• Reviewing and assigning issues created by the Test team.
• Leading Test Teams of 100-200+ Testers in company-wide Playtests on the production floor.
• Using software such as Jira, and Devtrack to organize, track, and manage issues.
• Mentoring QA Testers to be promoted into Senior QA Testers.
• Authoring documentation for use in training new testers, and tracking specified testing requirements.

During my time as a QA Tester at QAMM my core responsibilities included writing bug reports, executing test passes, regression testing, and participating in company Playtests for feedback. I was part of the larger Call of Duty team there, and was primarily a Tester on Modern Warfare. Although I did occasionally volunteer to test other products the company was developing such as Call of Duty Mobile. Quickly into this position I started volunteering and requesting more responsibilities, and through the help of my Leads I was able to take on co-leading playtests and reviewing bug reports of other testers.

A breakdown of my core responsibilities were:

• Writing detailed bug reports.
• Performing execution of test plans, and strategies.
• Co-Leading teams of 100+ Testers on the production floor.
• Reviewing bug reports and working with Testers to ensure that reports are easy to understand, tracked, and fixed.
• Using software such as Jira, and Devtrack to organize, track, and manage issues.