Ethan Kennerly

Nashville, Tennessee

kennerly + finegamedesign - com

I program, animate, and playtest
serious games
(Available September 2010)

Experience

Fine Game Design, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Seoul, June 2009 - Present

Freelance Prototyper: Demos to practice phonics, ethics, arithmetic, typing, and Go.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, August 2006 - May 2009

M.F.A. Student: Led two advanced games (language learning, procedural graphics).

Octosimple, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia, January 2007

Design Consultant: Advised president and investors. Presented concept.

Incognito Entertainment (SCEA), Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2006 - August 2006

Designer/Scripter (contractor): Scripted a mission and cinematic for Warhawk (PS3). Collaborated with programmer on infantry artificial intelligence. Scripted framework of ambient warfare. Scripted an in-game spawn tool. Drafted manual on scripting.

TableStar Games (board game publisher), Berkeley, California, February 2005 - February 2006

Game Designer, Sep 2005 - Feb 2006: Paper prototyped four games; directed artists.

Director of Development, May 2005 - August 2005: Managed and tested five games.

Game Developer, February 2005 - May 2005: Designed one game; analyzed HeroCard.

NIIT, San Francisco, California, 2004

Author and illustrator (contractor): Textbook chapter, "Game Script and Storyboard Creation" (80 pg, 2 wks). Instructor’s manual, Game Interface Design (290 pg, 4 wks).

San Francisco State University, California, 2002 - 2004

Student: Designed new major of algorithms, screenwriting, and 3D animation. Honoree.

넥슨 (Nexon), Santa Clara, California and Seoul, Korea, 1997 - 2002

Design Consultant, June 2003: Advised managing director about Mabinogi (MMORPG).

Game Designer, Korea, 2002: Wrote backstory, gameplay and UI. Advised producer.

Localization Producer, 2001: QuizQuiz (MMO gameshow) alpha in 3 weeks.

Technical Writer, 2000: Server code of four MMORPGs in Japan, Korea, and Singapore.

Game Director, 1997-2002: Employee #3. Localized, designed, and scripted: religion, politics, legends, contests, events, guilds, arenas, and quests. Collaborated with programmers and artists. Edited fiction and judged 400 works of fan fiction.

20th Century Fox, Los Angeles, California, 1997

Game Concept Designer (contractor): The X-Files Trivia Game (board game).

United States Army Signal Corps, Hanam, Korea and Paso Robles, California, 1994-1997

Maintainer: Troubleshot networks. Secret clearance; awarded ARCOM; mission in DMZ.

Samples and references available on request. Some samples online: fine game design . com

Credits

Game	Platform	Developer	Role	Year
Runesinger	PC	USC MFA thesis	Programmer/Animator	2007-2009
Warhawk	PS3	Incognito (SCEA)	Designer/Scripter	2006
HeroCard Nightmare	board game	TableStar Games	Design Team	2005
HeroCard Cyberspace	board game	TableStar Games	Game Designer and Co-Art Director	2005
퀴즈퀴즈 (QuizQuiz)	PC MMO	Nexon, Inc.	Localization Producer	2001
어둠의 전술 (Dark Ages)	PC MMO	Nexon, Inc.	Game Director	1998-2000
바람의 나라 (Kingdom of the Winds)	PC MMO	Nexon, Inc.	Game Director	1997-1998
The X-Files Trivia Game	board game	20th Century Fox	Game Concept Designer	1997

Highlights of Publications and Presentations

Independent Games Festival, "Runesinger" (honorable mention), March 2010

Korea Game Conference, "Prototyping Gameplay" (speaker), October 2009

Mediateca Expandida Arcadia, "Civilization IV: Quality of Life" (exhibit), Oct 2009

ISAGA, INTETAIN, IEEE-GIC, TCETC, "Runesinger: gameplay = phonics," 2009

Games for Change, "Computing Quality of Life in Civilization IV" (demo), 2009

Game Developers Conference, "Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics" (assistant), 2009

AIIDE, LSIR2, IEEE-GIC, "Thief Belief: epistemic logic" (co-author, demo), 2008-9

AISB, "Open Problems in Simulation and Story Analysis" (invited speaker), 2008

Charles River Media, "Graph Theory for Designers" (two chapters), 2005

GameDev.net, "Randomness without Replacement," 2005

ITT Tech, Game Interface Design (instructor’s manual), 2004

ITT Tech, "Game Script and Storyboard Creation" (textbook chapter), 2004

IGDA, "Persistent World Design" (white paper section), 2004

Gamasutra.com, "Better Game Design through Data Mining," 2003

Joystick101.org, "Fun is Fine: Toward a philosophy of game design," 2003

Education

Interactive Media, M.F.A., Cinematic Arts, University of S. California, May 2009
Games: Runesinger (educational), Euphonics (procedural), Free Ranger (persuasive)

Computer Game Design, magna cum laude, B.A., San Francisco State University, 2004

Software

ActionScript, Audacity, Blender, C++, Excel, Flash, GlovePIE, HTML, InDesign, InnoSetup, Maya, OGRE, Photoshop, PowerPoint, Premiere, Project, Python, SketchUp, SVN, Unix, Vim, Visio, Word.
Proprietary: Game scripts (assembly, C, finite state machine), 2D level editors.