About Me

I am the CEO and Creative Director of Clever Endeavour Games. Apart from steering the ship, I focus on game design but handle tasks in HR, marketing, art, and audio.

It seems the newest decent picture I have of myself is over 5 years old… whoops!

Outside of games, I’m hugely curious and have a ton of interests, too many to know what to do with. I love music composition, tea, cycling, hockey, game soundtracks, mythology, science, space, anthropology, history… and anything (edible) involving chocolate.

I started my studies in music, switched to mechanical engineering, and ended up following this path of game development after working briefly as an engineer. My experience working as an advisor with the games investment fund Kowloon Nights and my multiple stints as a judge for the Indie Megabooth and IGF have allowed me to see a wide variety of games and pitches over the past 5 years. I sat on the board of a games coworking space called GamePlay Space in Montreal, started up an organization called Game Dev MTL and mentor in organizations that help developers from groups that are underrepresented in the industry to break in and succeed.

You can find me on LinkedIn (or Twitter but I’m never there)

Talks

  • 2024-03 Roundtable Conversation: Should we be making smaller games? Hosted and moderated a roundtable about making smaller games in 2024 and beyond—we discussed industry trends, financial models, player expectations and how (and why!) to make games cheaper and faster.
  • 2023-03 GDC Leadership Microtalk: Armored VS Daring Leadership Short talk using Brené Brown’s framework of Armored vs Daring Leadership and explaining how to move from Armored to Daring using some examples from game development leadership. Link to Slides
  • 2019-03 GDC Producer Bootcamp: Tough Questions to Improve Your Leadership Interactive leadership talk which asked participants to think about their own leadership through a series of questions and exercises. Video Link
  • 2018-11 MIGS (Montreal International Game Summit) Panel — HowStuffWorks: A Deeper Look Into Communication and Production at 3 Studios Moderated a panel with three studios asking questions about how they communicate internally, including biggest successes and failures.
  • 2018-06 CGX Talk: From Game Jam to Glory – the Ultimate Chicken Horse Story Talked about the beginnings of our company and where our game, Ultimate Chicken Horse, started.
  • 2018-05 Unity Keynote: Zero to $1 Million with Jongwoo Kim (in place of Tanya Short) Talked about how two different companies (Kitfox Games and Clever Endeavour Games) made their first million in revenues, which were very different paths! (Same as below) Video Link
  • 2018-03 GDC Talk: Zero to $1 Million with Tanya Short (same as above)
  • 2017-08 CGX Montreal Panel: Starting a Game Studio Took part in a panel about starting a studio. Video Link
  • 2017-11 MIGS Talk — From Game Jam to Glory – the Ultimate Chicken Horse Story (Same as above)
  • 2017-03 IGDA Panel Montreal: Starting a Studio Took part in a panel moderated by Jason Della Rocca about starting a games studio.

Community & Mentorship Experience

Game Dev MTL
• Started up an organization which aims to be a single landing page for all games industry events in Montreal, and also to create and run our own events to help with knowledge sharing in the local industry.

Indie Cheers
• Ran and organized quarterly social meetups at a bar
• 18 events as of Fall 2024
• Attendance ranging from 20-100 people
• Started in 2017, paused during covid, and is ongoing today!

Code Coven Elevate Program Fall 2023 — playtesting mentor

Code Coven Solstice Program Summer 2023 — mentoring for QuailCore Games

Code Coven Game Developer Program 2022

Code Coven Solstice Program Summer 2022 — mentoring for Team Gramps

GamerELLA game jam mentorship 2020

Code Coven Elevate Program 2020 — mentoring for Caldera

St. George’s High School Mentorship Meetup — 2019

Panel Judge for UQAT’s Games Program 2018
• Was a judge for final presentations given by teams graduating the business of games program at UQAT

St. George’s High School Mentorship Meetup — 2018
• Various guest appearances in career days where students or aspiring developers speak to industry members about their CV and cover letters, interviewing, etc. (Damage Labs, Code Coven)