Tim Rawcliffe

About Tim Rawcliffe

Tim Rawcliffe is a Gameplay Engineer and Designer with 15 years industry experience across 10 shipped titles. Tim grew his love for video games in the 90\'s when he spent his summers each year in Singapore, obsessing over the evolution of games during the 5th generation of consoles. He cemented his path while getting his Computer Science degree at the University of Utah, where he was fortunate enough to study under computer graphics legend Pete Shirley (currently Distinguished Researcher, NVidia) and do an independent study involving multi-threading on the PS3 / IBM Cell Processor under Dr. Steven Parker (currently VP Graphics, NVidia).He then started an 8 year journey with Disney\'s Avalanche Software where he developed AI gameplay for several titles, before beginning work on the Disney Infinity Trilogy where he focused on Player Avatar Mechanics (Camera, Controls, Combat). While at Avalanche, he gained mentorship from many talented engineers and designers and became the go-to traveling engineer to fight development fires on projects with Disney partners. Then he moved to Seattle to work for Amazon Games Studios. Here, Tim made a small tech demo of fundamentally different gameplay for a struggling project which was then formally accepted as the new project direction after building out a more polished prototype with a small team. While that project did not make it to fruition, Tim leveraged this experience by being the tech lead on several ideation teams within AGS and formalizing the TDD component of the internal game pitch process. He was then recruited to be the Lead Gameplay Engineer on The Grand Tour: The Videogame where he wrote the car camera system and tools for the team, while fighting fires that came with being the first released Lumberyard Engine video game, the first Lumberyard Console game, and the only game in history to release day and date with each episode of a TV show!Before joining Firewalk, Tim was at Stray Bombay Company where he was the longest tenured engineer on the team and helped build the small indie team from ~8 to ~22 people. For The Anacrusis, he designed and implemented the full roster of Enemy AI in the game; owned engine integrations, console implementation, and performance work; and contributed to weapons, tools, and more. Tim enjoys spreading his love of games, engineering, and design via mentorship and volunteering at various STEM events. He also is an avid snowboarder and musician who has played with the likes of 30 Seconds to Mars, Grouplove, Loverboy, and more!

Experience

1. Principal Gameplay Engineer

   Supercell

   Jul 2024 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US

   Ideaing new products in uncharted areas for Supercell. Prototyping new ideas on a small Startup like team within Supercell.

Education

• University of Utah

  Computer Science, Graphics, Physics, IBM CBBE

  2002 — 2008

• University of Utah

  Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Computer Science

  2002 — 2008

Skills

• Visual Studio
• Sql
• User Interface Design
• Php
• Game Programming
• Android
• Game Design
• Web Development
• C++
• Perforce
• Css
• Python
• Video Games
• Gameplay
• Java
• Directx
• C
• Programming
• Mobile Applications
• C#
• Flash
• Artificial Intelligence
• Unity3d
• Ps3
• Xbox 360
• C
• Photoshop
• Lua
• Actionscript
• Opengl
• Game Development