The Quixotic Engineer

No Return – Bill & Marlene

April 3rd, 2025Video Games

Composite screenshot of The Last of Us Part II Remastered, showing Bill and Marlene aiming rifles.

The Last of Us Part II Remastered is out now on PC, and includes a small update for the roguelike survival mode No Return. We’ve added four new maps to the rotation, and two new playable characters from Part I: the gruff loveable smuggler Bill and the Firefly leader Marlene. I’m really thrilled with how these new characters fit into the mode, and wanted to unpack a little bit of their design process.

Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

December 18th, 2024Video Games

Screenshot from the Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet announcement trailer. In a forest, a woman wielding a red energy sword squares off against a three-armed robot wielding a dual-bladed axe.

Last Thursday night, I got to attend The Game Awards privately knowing that we had a surprise announcement up our sleeves. As the “one more thing” before the show wrapped up, we dropped our first trailer for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, a new sci-fi adventure from Naughty Dog. The live reaction in the theatre was incredible, and I’m thrilled that I could be there for it.

Balatro & Auto Chess

July 7th, 2024Video Games

A composite screenshot of two games. On the left, Teamfight Tactics with a grid of characters. On the right, Balatro with several playing cards and jokers.

Like many other game designers with a systems bent, I have spent copious enjoyable hours this year with the breakout indie hit Balatro. It’s usually described as a “poker roguelike”, which is a perfect logline for onboarding curious new players. Framed this way, it makes sense that it often invites comparison to Slay The Spire, another hugely popular deckbuilding roguelike.

Game Builder Garage

March 31st, 2024Programming, Video Games

A digital sketch of nodons from Game Builder Garage.

My daughter (age 6) is aware that her daddy makes video games, though with somewhat abstract notions of what that actually entails. She has often asked if we could make a game together, which led me to research various child-friendly gamedev tools. On a whim I picked up Game Builder Garage, a game-making toolkit released for the Switch in 2021. I hadn’t heard much about it since its release, but generally trusted Nintendo’s ability to appeal to young children.

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No Return

January 17th, 2024Video Games

Ellie and Abby superimposed over the ruins of Seattle.

Wanted to share a bit of news about what I’ve been up to since shipping The Last of Us Part I remake in 2022. I’ve had the privilege to continue in the role of game director on The Last of Us Part II Remastered. I helped oversee porting the game to the PlayStation 5, including various technical enhancements and DualSense controller integration. We also added a whole slate of new features: lost levels with developer commentary, a guitar free play mode, new bonus skins, audio descriptions for cinematics, and much more.