Derek Manning

I started my own video game company so I can work on my own projects and am able to hire the talent that I would like to work with.

Taking on a team of 40+ to lead the flagship products of the studio.

Leading the Design for all projects in Social Gaming and Real/Play Money including the following:
- PokerStars Play
- Jackpot Poker
- Desktop PokerStars Client
- Creating brand new IP's

Designer/BI Lead on Prominence Poker
* Design mentor to the Lead Designer, assisting the Lead Designer with Task Creation, plotting release phases, and prioritizing content development
* Created numerous innovative feature designs, first time user experience, responsible for creating entirely new IP and Brand for future expansion, economy specialist on the project
* Moved into BI Lead role once we were design complete. Learned SQL, Tableau, and DeltaDNA in order to accurately track and analyze data internally and externally with our Publisher.

Lead Designer on RollerCoaster Tycoon World
* Wrote game pitch that got the product green-lit, heavily involved in production roadmap, collaborated heavily with all disciplines to facilitate frictionless development, designed spline-based coaster creator from scratch, designed entire game UI, and spearheaded new Feature Sign-off process for the studio. This was unfortunately transferred to another studio for undisclosed reasons in December of 2014.

Lead Designer running a small team of artists and engineers on creating new responsive web apps with a mobile-first mentality. I was involved with all aspects of the design for the apps and games we were creating. I came up with original IP's, creating the gameplay loops, mechanics, UI designs/flows, reward systems, monetization techniques, etc.
* Helped successfully release the goal-setting app Jauntly, mood-enhancing program Moodhacker, and the Parent-Child Communication game Betwixt

Lead Designer for ESPN Return Man Facebook. I was involved with all Design decisions regarding the game mechanics, UI, flow, balance, and monetization.

Designer on Disney City Girl. I was responsible for designing major game mechanics, involved with writing and maintaining scripting, created UI mockups, and was the content integration manager.

Game Designer on one unreleased title. I created numerous features, created the majority of the game locations, and UI features.

Lead Level Designer on Fallen Empire: Legions. I familiarized myself with the Torque engine, taught myself the Hammer modeling program. I created four brand new levels, including making all new environments and interiors, did all level scripting, and updated multiple other maps.

Lead Designer on two new unannounced titles for the PC. I was responsible for the genesis of the project, developing all elements of the game including the gameplay, UI, story, and more. One was in the early alpha stages when the studio shut down.

Senior Level Designer for an unannounced iPhone title. This was a catapult game in the vein of angry birds, and was already in beta when the company was shut down. I created roughly 175 levels for the game, all of varying difficulty.

Designer on Instant Jam. I helped polish features, oversaw all final designs, and created numerous note charts for songs.

Lead Designer on an unreleased racing game. I was responsible for all Level Creation and scripting the Car Physics.

Level Designer on the Tomb Raider: Underworld project. I had to re-design multiple areas of the core next-gen game in order to make it playable on the Wii and the PS2. I created numerous new areas for the Mexico underworld while scaling back others. Additionally I worked on a couple of the Thailand and Mansion areas, and finally, I completed a re-imagining of the last level of the game. I did all scripting for the levels I worked on including camera movements, camera switching, event triggers, pop-up text, and more. I was also heavily involved in puzzle creation and implementation, reward placement, and object animation.

QUALITY ASSURANCE on Tomb Raider: Anniversary for the PS2, PSP, 360, and the Wii. I wrote up over 1,400 bugs over the course of the project and worked very closely with all other departments to reproduce bugs and figure out solutions. I also worked on an unannounced, unreleased project for two months