My industry debut

I joined the project shortly after its announcement at E3 2017, assigned as a tester for the open-world content. Assets, collectibles, and points-of-interests on each planet were placed through a scattering system, so part of my job was to ensure it produced the intended results. I also had to sign off on new features to make sure they functioned as intended.

Enter Star Fox!

When we found out about our potential collaboration with Nintendo to bring Star Fox to the game, I begged to get involved. When the mandate was greenlit, I was lucky enough to become its QC point of contact. The stakes were high—all development was done in a secret padlocked room with restricted access. The mandate even had a separate codename and NDA.

Firing on
all cylinders

My days were quite busy. I spent most of my time testing the latest Star Fox content, logging bugs and signing off on new features, preparing reports, and setting up builds for weekly director reviews. In addition to testing open-world content for the main game, I also set up and maintained Nintendo Switch dev kits for the team.

I loved every minute of it.

Representing
the game

The team asked me to join them at several marketing events, mainly to help with the Nintendo Switch hardware and run demos. I was in the theater when we announced the Star Fox collaboration at E3 2018, a great highlight of my life—I felt as though everything had finally come full circle.

My path to
level design

When the team switched its focus to post-launch, I decided to push for a design role. I started playing around with the Snowdrop engine in my spare time, prototyping several levels and features. When I was eventually offered the position, all that practice allowed me to jump in and get started right away.

My Starlink journey continues—this time as a level designer.

Project Overview

Responsibilities

  • Star Fox content
  • QC point-of-contact
  • Feature sign-offs
  • Destructive testing
  • Setup for reviews
  • Daily build reports
  • Nintendo Switch
  • QC point-of-contact
  • Dev kit maintenance
  • General testing
  • Open World content
  • Feature sign-offs
  • General testing
  • Weekly standups
  • Daily build reports
  • Other
  • Toy testing
  • Setup for events
  • Demos for events

About the Game

  • Release Date
  • October 16, 2018
  • Genre
  • Action-adventure
  • Platforms
  • Nintendo Switch™
  • PlayStation®4
  • Xbox One
  • Windows
  • Engine
  • Snowdrop
  • Publisher
  • Ubisoft
  • Developer
  • Ubisoft Toronto
Official Website