I am a game designer with a passion for beautiful, functional UI and strong, tight-knit user experiences. I want the games of the future to yearn to be played and never struggle to be understood.
I am currently a UI/UX Designer at Free Range Games, having recently launched The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, and I cannot be more proud of the work our team managed to accomplish. Previously, I was at Toys for Bob, working on Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. I also worked on the Call of Duty franchise for several years, first as a user researcher, then as a junior systems designer and associate UX designer.
You can find me playing a decades old, mediocre Falco on SlippiSuper Smash Bros. Melee, dying to chadded out players on Escape from Tarkov, and logging in once in a blue moon to update my main's training queue on EVE Online for the one day I might finally return to New Eden.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria was one of our studio's most ambitious projects to date. I was fortunate to be in a vital role on the project as the main voice of UI and UX, from our first vertical slice until our final betas and shipping deadlines. The team rallied around the once in a lifetime opportunity to build a fresh game, telling a new story faithful to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Moria was a large step forward for me as a developer. Such an ambitious project with a smaller team and budget required that I heavily advocate for the UI, in terms of balancing complex gameplay with intuitable layouts, pushing for precious engineering time to create UI management tools for us while reining in scope bloat, moving with our fast iterative pace on our relatively short schedule, and trying to create core UX moments to elevate the survival crafting genre -- at times, as a UI department of one.
Genuinely, I am so proud of my work on Moria. I did wireframes, art mockups, created texture assets, scripted in Unreal Blueprint, wrote UX copy, even wrote custom materials for HUD animations. From the little jiggle the compass does when you spin the camera quickly, to the way each of the item icons tilt depending on what kind of weapon or armor piece they are, I really wrung out as much love and creativity I could muster, and I hope it shows.
Thanks to: Jared Perfect, Todd Pound, Laura Dell, Steve "Doc" Scholz, and UX is Fine! -- among many others who helped me take this UI to ship.
Gameplay video of my dwarf, Quamp, in her solitary base on the outskirts of Moria.
Gameplay video of Quamp fighting some goblin scouts near her base.
FROM WIREFRAME TO "IN THE GAME"
Mockups created in Illustrator to pitch an awareness meter that gets larger and angrier when a horde attack is approaching.
Process: Development of our gameplay HUD.
Process: Wireframes of our inventory screen.
Process: My initial pitch for a complex interaction system, now in the game.
Process: Wireframe to final on our character creation system.
I worked closely with our survival gameplay team to create the HUD for our stamina system.
Supporting 21:9 ultrawide resolutions was a priority for several PC gamers on our team.
UI/UX DESIGN
Between 2018 and 2020, I worked on the first sequel to the Crash Bandicoot series in over 10 years. It was an extremely exciting opportunity to get to influence the direction we took for the user experience of an entire game from start to finish.
Crash 4 was a joy to work on for its light-heartened, single player focus, which allowed our UI artist the freedom to paint with over-the-top, broad strokes. It was extremely fun to wireframe with simple shapes and straight lines, and then see our UI move towards such a stylized look.
The end of level screen went through quite a few iterations before arriving at its final look and feel.
At the beginning of the project, I did a lot of prototype implementation to get our UI into a playable state. Wireframes were created as we approached new features and restructuring of our game's systems design. I did implementation in Unreal Blueprint for most features that the player encounters, most notably our button remapping system, the level stats screen, and leaderboards, and continued in this capacity all the way until ship.
Process: Development of our options screen.
Process: Bandicoot Battle lobby screen.
Menu animations and skin selection while traveling through the Dimensional Map.
A closer look at the word scramble effect I scripted. I love it, it's so goofy.
I scripted and did technical animation work on Crash 4's HUD.
In 2018, I moved to sunny and tranquil Carlsbad, CA to join a startup studio. I was the UI developer on a small 15~ person team, developing a brand-new cooperative first-person shooter. Starting from an early concept, we developed a first take prototype of our game's big statements, level design, and combat loop.
For the prototype, I created a full UI, including frontend menus, game options, responsive HUD, and if I recall correctly, some sort of card-based/inventory minigame. I also created high level design documents to form our game’s central UX pillars, including a focus on a UI with personality, and with character.
Unfortunately, development on the project abruptly ceased in June 2018, and the studio was disbanded that day. A portion of the team later relocated to Oregon to reincorporate as @mutantarm and work on new, exciting things.
One of my lasting memories was the trip that we as a team took after the news broke. Our final lunch took place at O'Sullivan's Irish Pub and Restaurant, and our final meeting was on the beach, feet dipped in the surf.
USER RESEARCH
My very first day in the games industry was spent observing a user research study for a new Spec Ops mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. I believe it was the mission Killswitch. My job responsibilities grew rapidly to include campaign and multiplayer research on the next year's CoD, and I was swept up. I owe a lot of my intuition and perception to my time in the trenches as a user research assistant on such a storied, infamous franchise.
After my first year, I served as the lead researcher on Call of Duty's Zombies game mode, as well as its other PVE modes. Conducting user tests on a hardcore, round-based survival game mode with intentionally obscure mechanics and objectives was honestly joyful, especially with such inspired designers and developers. It's a mind twisting challenge to apply user-centered design to what I could describe as a scavenger hunt slash death march.
SYSTEMS DESIGN
After my time in user research, I worked as a junior designer at Infinity Ward in 2016 leading up to the launch of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. I took on myriad roles while I was there, including progression, economy, and loot systems design, UI/UX design for multiplayer frontend screens, and even character concept and scriptwriting for the Quartermaster and Mission Team Commanders.
Blood Anvil - Our secret 5th mission team, unlockable after launch. Bombastic and over-the-top as hell.
UI / UX DESIGN
I had the pleasure of working as an Associate UI/UX Designer on Call of Duty: WWII in 2017. Specifically, I was embedded on the Nazi Zombies dev team. It was a great time finally getting to be on the developer side of a game mode that I'd spent so many hours researching and supporting.
While at Sledgehammer Games, I worked on the following:
Menu flows for Nazi Zombies' frontend
Screen layouts, wireframes, mockups, and art comps
Iconography and naming conventions for game systems, including unique Special Abilities and Mods.
Production and scheduling for UI/UX-centric tasks.
Nazi Zombies reveal trailer for Call of Duty: WWII.
Content warning: A LOT OF GORE AND JUMP SCARES.
Here are several personal projects of mine that demonstrate some of my art and design sense outside of the workplace.
EVE ONLINE
In 2018 - 2020, I started playing EVE Online in a big way, joining a multi-thousand member alliance and climbing the ranks as a community leader and alliance director. Here is some of the stuff I produced during my time there.
POSTERS
EVENT POSTERS
TERRITORY MAPS
INFOGRAPHICS
MISC. ART AND ICONS
Please contact me at quinn.le.gamedev@gmail.com for any professional inquiries.
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