Game Producer & Director
I’m a game producer and director with over 20 years of experience in the games industry. Between 2010 and 2016 I was a Creative Director in Aardman Animations‘ interactive department, where I directed award-winning casual games based on IP such as Aardman’s flagship Shaun the Sheep and many other beloved children’s IPs.
I then moved to Kenya where I’ve spent the last 7 years helping to foster a games industry across the continent. I’ve collaborated with several studios across Africa to build their production teams and deliver games at a quality rarely seen on the continent, in a challenging environment.
I have specialist experience in the African games industry & growth market, along with natural history & wildlife conservation from my lead role at Internet of Elephants, children’s media thanks to my time at Aardman, and social impact, which is a theme that runs through almost everything I do.
Selected Work
This portfolio contains a selection of my game and interactive work from the last 12 years, which span a broad range of genres.
Please get in touch to find out more about any of these projects, or the rest of my body of work.
UNSEEN EMPIRE
Studio: Internet of Elephants
My role: Director / Producer / Designer
Date: 2021
Engine & platform: Unity for web and mobile
Part-funded by the National Geographic Society, Unseen Empire is a wildlife science game based on the world’s largest ever camera-trap project, which took place in South East Asia. Players reenact the project by setting up research sites all across the region, placing camera traps, and identifying the images they capture, which are all actual photos from the study. As they progress through the game the player completes challenges, upgrades their kit and reveals the documentary-style story of the mammoth project.
We designed and developed the game in close collaboration with WildCRU the science team responsible for the study, with art direction led by data-visualisation experts CLEVER°FRANKE, and it was beautifully written by the extremely talented comedian Luke Rollason.
WILDEVERSE
Studio: Internet of Elephants
My role: Director / Producer
Date: 2019
Engine & platform: Unity for Mobile AR
A narrative-driven mobile AR game which puts players in the shoes of wildlife scientists to track great apes in the wild. Applying an AR twist on hidden object games, players enter life-size holographic forests projected all around them, and search for evidence of animal presence and behaviour. These missions progress a character-driven narrative that gradually enfolds the player in a deeply researched authentic portrayal of wildlife science.
The team combined veterans from the established UK games industry with some of the best developers Nairobi has to offer. The game was originally funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign in which I was instrumental, and subsequently attracted further funding from the Arcus Foundation.
Wildeverse received positive press and coverage from the wildlife conservation sector, and was featured in Unity For Humanity’s showcase in 2019.
SHAUN THE SHEEP: CHAMPIONSHEEPS
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director / Designer
Playable: Web, iOS, Android
Date: 2012
Engine & platform: Flash for web
Children’s BAFTA nomination ‘Best Multiplatform’ 2012. Championsheeps was a suite of 10 comical, polished and beautifully animated casual web games forming a ‘farmyard’ Olympics in the universe of Shaun the Sheep. The games included:
- Flock Together: a physics-based match-3 game matching bouncy sheep dressed in different coloured leotards.
- Sheep Stack: Physics-based puzzle game, catapulting sheep from a clothes line to form precarious towers to reach the cake on each level. We eventually released a mobile spin-off of this game.
- Hedgehog Bowling: Control a team of hedgehogs who roll up and fling themselves down increasingly complex mazes to reach the bowling pins at the end.
- Mud Slide: High octane oval track race where players race their chosen vehicle (think leaf-blower-powered office-chair) against other sheep, before the central pond floods the track.
- Sty Dive: A high dive game where players have to land in a tiny bucket, and perform funny stunts on their way down.
SHEEP STACK
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director / Designer
Date: 2014
Engine & platform: Flash for mobile
Playable: Kindle Fire
Sheep Stack is a spin off of one the more mobile-friendly games in the Shaun the Sheep: Championsheeps game suite. It is a physics-based puzzle game, where over dozens of levels players catapult Shaun and his friends to form precarious towers, to ultimately reach their favorite food – iced buns.
ESCARGOT ESCAPE ARTISTES
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director / Designer
Date: 2016
Engine & platform: Unity for Mobile
Status: No longer available
Children’s BAFTA nomination ‘Interactive Original’ 2015. This was the winning concept from a BBC game design competition, led by Dick & Dom on their Appsolute Genius CBBC show.
The game is 2D side-scrolling physics-based runner, where the player is a snail trying to escape from an angry chef. We wrangled Unity’s 2D physics to create a roller-coaster-style game feel, and it really was a lot of fun, especially with such an absurd concept.
Made on a shoestring budget, the game still boasted a tight and challenging story mode, a procedurally generated endless mode, and support single-switch accessibility controls.
SUSTAINABLE SHAUN
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director / Designer
Date: 2015
Engine & platform: Phaser for Web & Mobile
Playable: Web, Android, iOS
TIGA’s ‘Best Game with a Purpose’ in 2015. Built with Shaun the Sheep IP, Sustainable Shaun is a puzzle town-builder, designed to teach 7 to 11 year olds about the subtle complexities of sustainability.
Players take control of a brownfield site on the city outskirts, and must cater for a steady influx of stray animals from the big city. Resources are mined in a line-matching puzzle set on a rubbish dump, and these are crafted into buildings and facilities for the fussy inhabitants.
DEADLY DEFENDERS
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director / Designer
Date: 2013
Engine & platform: Phaser for Web
Playable: Web (UK connection required)
A popular browser-based tower defense game for kids, starring Steve Backshall. The game has 8 tight levels, where the player must protect a sleeping Steve from wave after wave of animal attackers who want to wake him up and ruin his day. The player must carefully deploy Steve’s arsenal of deadly animals to scare off the intruders before they reach him.
THE GRUFFALO – OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director
Date: 2014
Engine & platform: HTML5
Visit: https://www.gruffalo.com/
Official website for the children’s book series The Gruffalo, as well as a hub for Julia Donaldson’s other related works. Designed in close collaboration with Pan Macmillan and Magic Light Pictures.
It used a smart technique to direct young visitors straight into the interactive games area of the site, while ensuring older visitors can easily access the content and information targeted at adults.
THE HOBBIT – OFFICIAL COMPANION APP
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director
Date: 2013
Engine & platform: Unity for iOS & Android
Status: No longer live
The official companion app for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit series, launched in 2013 to coincide with the release of the second film, The Desolation of Smaug.
An absolute dream project for me; requiring me to go deeper than I’ve ever gone before into the lore and history of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and translate it into an interactive encyclopedia.
TONY ROBINSON’S WEIRD WORLD OF WONDERS
Studio: Aardman Animations
My role: Director
Date: 2011
Engine & platform: Flash for Web
Playable: Web (emulated)
A quirky 2D physics-based puzzle platformer built to promote Tony Robinson’s book series of the same name. The player controlled two characters simultaneously; the book little boy protagonist with the keyboard, and his pet dog with point-and-click mouse control. Narrated by Tony Robinson himself, this game punched well above its weight as a marketing tool.
As well as directing this I also wrote Tony Robinson’s script, which is still a career highlight for me!
AFRICA’S LEGENDS: REAWAKENING
Studio: Leti Arts
My role: Director / Producer / Designer
Date: 2016
Engine & platform: Custom engine for SMS & Web
Status: Early prototype
An adventure game played over SMS, designed for players in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria without smartphones or stable internet connections. The game uses a typical text-based interface to reveal an innovative and substantial narrative adventure.
I undertook a huge amount of research and exploration to design a superhero universe that is steeped in authentic mythology, contemporary culture and history from across Africa – all brought up-to-date to tackle the modern-day issues which affect every African. The story follows the interconnected stories of three superhero protagonists in different parts of Africa, who independently reawaken their ancestral super powers and join forces to battle a devastating threat to Africa and the world.
While production stalled at early prototype stage, the IP owners are still exploring funding options to bring this to life.
USIKU GAMES
Studio: Usiku Games
My role: Director / Designer / Producer
Date: 2021 to 2023
Engine & platform: Unity for mobile / Phaser & PlayCanvas for Web
At Usiku Games I have led several small game productions for players in Kenya and other African countries, all with carefully researched cultural sensibilities, and often with a strong social impact angle. These games include:
- Mission 55: A strategy game with roguelike elements, where players utilise the powers of an African Union-style Council to bring stability to a tumultuous continent. Funded by GIZ it was designed to teach players about the African Peace and Security Architecture of the African Union.
- Mama Atingi Shop: A 2D shop sim set in a West African tourist shop, with an art direction based on hand painted signage and wall art commonly seen across Africa, and a narrative reflecting a relatable family-feud scenario. Funded by GIZ it is designed to teach players practical shop management skills.
- Okoa Simba: A clone of merge puzzle games Threes and 2048, where players must match animal tiles to ascend through a hierarchy and ultimately release the lion.
- Shamba Showdown: a realistic 3D farming sim based on smallholder farming in Kenya, designed to encourage Kenyan urban youth back into farming. Built in Unreal for cloud gaming, streaming to low-end devices common in Kenya. Part funded by CIAT.
- Footah: A football-themed social TCG where the stars of the game the players themselves, and the meta strongly encourages real life physical exercise using a novel Google Fit integration. Funded by GIZ.
- Wewe!: Translated to English as “You!”, Wewe! Is a simple 3D runner where the player must chase down politicians in the street to ask them hard questions. The game was designed to empower players in an upcoming Kenyan election to get informed and value fairness.