Retired professional video game designer, aspiring author. Christian, Husband, Father and Granddad. Deadhead, Caniac, astronomy nerd, car guy & rusty guitarist.
Raleigh, NC
Joined August 2026
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Retired from 30 years of designing AAA video games. Spent that career building worlds that don’t exist. Now writing about one that… might?
Married 28 years, two grown kids, and as of last month, a grandson who has yet to form an opinion about any of this.
Following Christ the whole way through, some days better than others.
I post here on marriage, parenting, investing, and faith—all things that take both work and time if you want them to go well.
Also will have occasional updates on my debut novel, Open Doors, which I am hoping to publish later this year.
If any of that’s useful to you, come hang out a bit!
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A lot of this list carries over from level design. Repetitive gestures are just copy-pasted props. Players notice the fifth identical crate and readers notice the fifth shrug.
What to consider cutting when your book is too long: 1) Redundant prose 2) Scenes that only "introduce" characters or a setting 3) Unfocused conversations 4) Repetitive gestures 5) Minor characters you can consolidate 6) Subplots that get away from you 7) Excessive description
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What I like about the Starship double catch plan is the bailouts. Ship only heads for the tower if every check passes, otherwise it splashes down at a spot they picked ahead of time. Always build a safe way to fail…
Upcoming launches this week include the return of Vulcan and Starship's double-catch attempt.
By Joe Kangas (@KangasSpaceroo).
nasaspaceflight.com/2026/11/…
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Midnight local in every time zone means launch day runs almost a full day for the devs. Nobody on that team is sleeping!
Rockstar Officially Confirms GTA 6 Regional Release Times - and They're Not What We Thought digitalfoundry.net/news/2026…
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The catch with letting players play it any way they want is the world can't push back much. Every choice has to stay safe so nobody gets locked out of anything. I'm one of those players who decreased the difficulty slider a bit each time I leveled up, because I always thought Bethesda games did a bad job and making you feel more powerful over time.
Skyrim lead designer gives the most succinct summary of Bethesda's design I've ever heard pcgamer.com/games/the-elder-…
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Cheaper is great if it runs everything the same. If it doesn't, that's one more spec every dev has to test every level against...
Is Switch 2 Lite Possible, Thanks to New Samsung Chip Technology? digitalfoundry.net/news/2026…
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A beta reader once told me I used too many words he didn't know. What would you do or say to that feedback?
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Games figured this out a while back. Watching someone else play became how a lot of folks found new games. Curious if books head the same way…
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In games nobody blinks when the intro is a flashback.
My first novel opens with a short one, then picks up in realtime. Writers seem to have strong feelings about prologues tho… what say you?
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The book I can't stop thinking about is set in a dungeon.
I bought Underkeep and gave it a few hours yesterday, hoping to satiate my D&D urge. The game is great, but Carl and Princess Donut live in my head now.
Can I make it to Christmas before buying book 2? My wife is always sad when I buy myself stuff between now and then...
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I’m the #1 state.io player in the world — please jump in and give me some competition! It’s a great little game. Basically Risk in 30 seconds. #videogames
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Astronomy nerd question for North Carolina folks. Where do you go to get real dark skies around here?
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In games you get to watch a playtester wander around lost in your level, then you go fix it.
With my novel I had to wait on my developmental editor to tell me where people got lost.
Writers, how do you playtest a book? Beta readers? Friends?
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North Carolina folks, if you could turn one real place in this state into a game level, where would you pick? I'm thinking a creepy abandoned log cabin somewhere off Blue Ridge Parkway, but that might just be Halloween leftovers talking...
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30 years designing levels for Medal of Honor, Gears of War and Fortnite.
Nothing prepared me for waiting on a developmental editor. I've read my own manuscript like 15 times just to have something to do.
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Spent 30 years designing game levels. Then I wrote my first novel.
Writers, be honest. What's harder, the first draft or reading it for the 15th time hunting typos?
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Telescope people, do you set up in the driveway on Halloween?
Saturn's already up in the east by the time trick-or-treating starts, and the moon doesn't rise till late. Feels like a waste to just hand out Kit Kats instead of awe and wonder.
Halloween weekend, so here's the scariest thing I ever built in Gears of War. My own layout.
One storm level was such a twisty mess and I didn't have time to redo it. So I trapped the player in a room and killed the lights.
In the dark I swapped the rooms and turned you around. You walked back the way you came and never knew…
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