I started at Naughty Dog as an Associate Technical Designer in 2022, joining the unfortunately now-cancelled Last of Us Online multiplayer project. At first I worked on scripting systemic gameplay elements that could be placed by level designers to supplement our cat-and-mouse style of gameplay, but soon moved to focus primarily on systems design.

Working closely with our programming team, I redesigned and then rebuilt our script-based framework for a “quest” system in order to address issues with efficiency, networking, and ease-of-use that existed in the prior system. The goal of this rework was for the new framework to allow other designers to quickly and easily create new quests, while still being flexible enough to not restrict the types of quests designers could create based on the limitations of the system. This entailed communicating with other designers to learn their needs, so as to ensure that the new system would meet them, as well as writing significant amounts of documentation. I also improved the networking to ensure that the new system was properly host-authoritative while still being efficient enough to not impact gameplay.

In addition, I was the system owner for player comms, which covered all non-voice chat methods of communication available to players. Our goal was to create voice chat alternatives that would not only enable effective communication, but also encourage a more immersive and positive experience through the communication options available. I coordinated with stakeholders across many different disciplines to experiment and iterate on options beyond a standard comms wheel, working especially close with audio and the dialogue team.