Age of Empires Franchise

Game Designer (2011 - 2013)

Age of Empires is one of the most well known Real-Time Strategy (RTS) franchises in gaming history. As a player, you take command of civilization and harvest resources to build your base and train an army to conquer your enemy.

Age of Empires Online

I joined the Age of Empires Online team in June of 2011, two months before the game launched. The game was received rather poorly on release and much of my role on the team was focused on improving the game post launch.

  • My first goal was to win back our “hardcore” community. Our hardcore community were the most outspoken players and they were responsible for much of the word of mouth and reception of the game.

    • In the game, players could upgrade their armies by finding gear in single player missions and by grinding single player mission for this gear, they could have a huge advantage in Player vs Player (PvP) matches which disrupted the balance of the 1v1 player matches.

    • PvP matches were the focal point for our hardcore community so working with my team at Microsoft and the developer Gas Powered Games, we created and implemented a mode were the gear from armies would have no impact on the balance of the game other than their visual appearance.

    • This update was received positively and was the first step to reacting poor player sentiment.

Age of Empires “Next”

While working on the video series for Age of Empires Online, I started work researching and concepting the next Age of Empires game. We were tasked with supporting the touch focused interactions of Windows 8 and started creating a tablet based Age of Empires game.

  1. I researched the touch screen and mobile game market to gather insights into how we should transition Age of Empires into this space

    • I realized that with the limited input on a touch only device, players would not have the ability to manage both building a base and controlling an army at the same time. We for the first time decided to split Age of Empires game-play into two distinct sections of game-play, one focused on building a civilization and the other focused on battlefield tactics and combat.

  2. I created a video prototype of the game by using the Unreal engine to mockup game-play. The video was very positively received and the game was green-lit for pre-production.

  3. The game concept ultimately led to the creation of Age of Empires Castle siege.