Jess Kappeler

About Jess Kappeler

I am a lifelong learner. One of the things I love most about making games is that almost every subject I might choose to learn more about could be applied in some way to help me be better at making amazing games for other humans. I love learning about psychology, behavioral economics, and other social sciences because they help me understand what makes players tick. Physics and math has been a lifelong interest and can of course be applied directly when scripting and programming. Statistics, data analytics and data visualization is something I developed an interest in after I became a designer due to its application both for designing games and analyzing and interpreting the data we gather from our games. When I decided to focus on games as a career, I knew that I wanted to be able to implement my own ideas. This led me to a degree in game programming. That knowledge has been so helpful, not only for implementing games, but when communicating with engineers on the project and streamlining the features I’m designing.Before I got my degree in game programming, I studied filmmaking, and that knowledge has been relevant to working with game cameras, creating cinematics, editing tone reels and pitch trailers, writing narrative content, and working with voice and motion capture actors. As a Game Designer, I found a profession has been able to make use of all of these things, and I absolutely love it. My favorite areas of focus in game design are systems design and iterating on game feel. I love digging into a spreadsheet and creating my own little mini-simulation of the game, as well as creating charts and graphs to visualize the data. When implementing, I gravitate towards control systems, character animations and game cameras, or anything that lets me quickly iterate on the fun.

Experience

1. Associate Design Director

   Pipeworks

   Aug 2024 — Present · Eugene, OR, US

   Together with the Studio Design Director, I am responsible for hiring, managing and mentoring the studio\'s game designers. I work with the Studio Design Director and other managers and leads to represent the design team at the studio.

Education

• Art Institute of Portland

  Bachelor of Science, Visual and Game Programming

  2004 — 2007

• University of Oregon

  Bachelor of Science, Journalism: Video Production

  1999 — 2003

Skills

• Ps3
• Unity3d
• Perforce
• Level Design
• Photoshop
• Game Development
• C++
• Gameplay
• Sound Design
• Game Mechanics
• Game Design Documents
• C#
• Final Cut Pro
• Game Programming
• Unreal
• Pro Tools
• Casual Games
• Sound Forge
• Mobile Games
• Actionscript
• 3d Studio Max
• Maya
• Unreal Editor
• Microsoft Office
• Visual Studio
• Wii
• Flash
• Systems Design
• Video Editing
• Game Design
• Game Balance
• Xbox 360
• Scripting