Daniel Achterman

About Daniel Achterman

Daniel Achterman is a detail-oriented senior researcher at Microsoft. He is a 15 year game industry veteran with experience in both design and production roles. Specialized in game systems and tuning, and pioneered tuning techniques on several projects to create content at scale for large RPG and RTS games. Has worked in UX and research for consumer software development for the last 5 years, driving an effort to update an Office team’s culture development to be more customer-driven. Currently helps teammates understand and build empathy for customers through interviews and other studies, and helps make sense of the results.Has significant experience with customer-driven research, free-to-play design, metrics-driven free-to-play tuning, rapid gameplay prototyping, content scripting, concept design, team management, and vision evangelism. Shipped projects include Age of Empires: Castle Siege, Dungeon Siege II, and Myst Exile, and he led the design for Dungeon Siege II: Broken World and Space Siege. Worked in a variety of genres, including adventure, action RPG, MMO, third person action, turn-based strategy, and RTS.You can find him on Twitter at @DanielAchterman.

Experience

1. Senior Game Designer

   Blizzard Entertainment

   Jun 2022 — Present

Education

• Princeton University

  BSE, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering

  1995 — 1999

Skills

• User Interface
• Unity3d
• Graphic Design
• Game Development
• Character Animation
• Xbox 360
• Lua
• 3d Modeling
• Zbrush
• Ps3
• Unreal Engine 3
• Gameplay
• Level Design
• Team Management
• Concept Design
• Uv Mapping
• Mobile Games
• Texturing
• 3d Studio Max
• Maya
• Multiplayer
• Video Games
• Game Design
• Console
• 3d
• Scripting
• Animation
• Computer Games
• Flash