Hello! I'm Fisher Michaels, and this website is my portfolio and resume. Level design is my passion, and I've spent my previous years honing my skills developing maps for competitive play in Minecraft. I've most recently done work for ESL (via the Badlion Network) with my experience gained from being the lead competitive designer for the Overcast Network. I also have workplace experience in 3D modeling, graphic
design, and retail. Besides video games and their design, my hobbies include music production, eSports, computer science, and tabletop gaming.
While working at Badlion, I found that it was hard to find and cultivate new talent without an amatuer mapmaking scene giving public submissions. This guide was my attempt to give the community the tools they needed in order to break into the mapmaking scene. Also serves as a window into my creative process.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- "Indirect" Leadership
- Web Design (like this portfolio!)
- Usage of visual design principles
- Looking to outside fields for improvement
The Badlion Diamond Series is a Minecraft-based team tournament with an $8,000 prize pool. Badlion is owned by ESL and I worked as a designer there for a year and a half.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Lead the map design team (6-8 members)
- Designed, built, and balanced 15 play environments
- Authored json config files
- Streamed and commentated tournament matches
I released Solar Survival, a singleplayer adventure, in 2011. Since then the map has been downloaded 330,000 times. It was based on the combination of two popular trends at the time, Skyblock and CTM.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Gameplay design
- Applying innovative concepts
- Building large environments
The pool for the Age of Ares tournament included nine maps. I lead a team of four, all of whom I selected to participate in the project. Together, we achieved the high level of quality expected by our playerbase.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Managing a project team
- Working collaboratively
- Community management
- Designed, built, and balanced 9 play environments
- Authored XML code
In this project, I invented a new game mode which turned out to be highly popular. I spent three months creating, play testing and revising this map. A personal goal of mine for this project was to introduce players to a form of strategy that revolved around playing to the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Invented and developed a new gamemode
- Re-imagined the role of strategy in competitive play
- Participated in tournament planning
- Authored XML code
This video project chronicles the history of a game mode (Capture the Wool) that I invented in 2011 that has found success in the community and is still played today.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Developing a game mode that has become ingrained in the community
- Voice narration
Dewitt House is an architectural project I worked on at TWMLA. The image here, of a proposed new building and streetscape, was modeled by me. Alternate angle in the linked article.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Built city-scale 3D model in Sketch up of proposed project
- Modeling based on CAD plans, field work, site visit
- Created and applied textures
- Set selected views
Requiem is a game mode I developed in which I tried to convert a typically single-player mode (Complete the Monument) to a multi-player setting. The map itself, while generally successful, was abandoned during play testing because it was too large for the server to manage.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Large scale environment design
- Incorporated RPG style progression elements
- Experimentation with a currency based loot system
- Authored XML code
Cubic Hills is a chiptune album I composed and produced entirely by myself.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Original music composition
- Sound design
- Digital audio production
- Cover art
Circle Dodger is a simple third person arcade game I coded in Unity.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Experience with Unity engine and scripting
- Simple graphics development
- Created original sound effects through audio engineering
Cat's Cradle is a map I developed in order to learn the Hammer editor.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Experience with Hammer editor
This video I created as I resigned from Overcast Network.
Highlighted skills from this project include:
- Video editing
- Music mixing
- Cinematography
Email: flm1353@rit.edu
OBJECTIVE:
Game and/or level design in a competitive multiplayer environment.
SKILLS SUMMARY:
- Eight years of experience designing in 3D space
- Strong analytical sense
- Leadership and initiative in project-based group work
- Experience with a multitude of software environments
WORK HISTORY:
2016 - 2017
Trowbridge Wolf Michaels Landscape Architecture Assistant Designer
- Assisted in the development of visual materials to communicate LA designs to clients and the public
- Developed to-scale base mapping and layout in AutoCAD
- Constructed elaborate large-scale 3D models in Google SketchUp
- Created illustrated renderings and visual simulations in Photoshop
- Formulated cost estimate data in AutoCAD
- Assembled presentation boards & graphics in InDesign
2016 - 2018
Turtle Entertainment (ESL Gaming) Volunteer Designer
- Develop multiplayer levels for a high level competitive environment
- Communicate with and manage a community of competitive teams and players
- Incorporate playtesting and community input into meaningful design decisions
- Livestream and commentate tournaments with prize pools of thousands of dollars
- Regularly communicate with developers during gamemode prototyping to ensure gameplay features are polished
2012 - 2016
Overcast NetworkMap Developer, Event Coordinator, Moderator
- Developed multiplayer levels for a high level competitive environment
- Planned competitive tournaments with up to 1000 participants
- Enforced rules of conduct on a public multiplayer server
- Communicatde with and managed a community of competitive teams and players
- Incorporated playtesting and community input into meaningful design decisions
- Actively developed and prototyped experimental designs and gamemodes
- Coordinated playtesting of prototypes with competitive teams and evaluated results and made changes between games as needed
- Revolutionized tournament formats by introducing smaller, more refined map pools and raised the bar for quality as players learned to exploit design mistakes
- Formed and lead a design team of three other specifically chosen individuals to mitigate workload
2016 - 2017
P&C Fresh Cashier
- Process customer transactions for up to hundreds of dollars worth of groceries
- Interact with returning customers in a local environment
EDUCATION:
2017-present
Rochester Institute of Technology Game Design and Development, Freshman
When it comes to how I consume media, I am probably best described as a pretentious nerd. I tend to spend half my time while playing/watching talking over whatever's happening, and sometimes I even score things like I'm some sort of critic.
So I might as well list what I consider to be the best of the best!
So I might as well list what I consider to be the best of the best!
Multiplayer Games:
Singleplayer Games:
- Tooth and Tail
- Rivals of Aether
- League of Legends
- NieR: Automata
- Transistor
- Pyre
Anime:
Music:
- Evangelion
- Madoka Magica
- Fate: Zero
- Like Clockwork - QotSA
- The Raven That Refused to Sing - Steven Wilson
- Worlds - Porter Robinson