Josiah Colborn - Creative Game Development
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JOSIAH COLBORN

CREATIVE GAME DEVELOPMENT

SHIPPED GAMES


State of Decay 2

State of Decay 2 shipped with three massive, open world maps. I owned the level design and dressing for one of them, known in-game as Drucker County, in addition to the Tutorial and Daybreak DLC map. All level work was completed in Unreal Engine 4. I was part of and led in-studio strike teams to help refine the game's core loop and establish quality standards for final map content for State of Decay 2 and its Daybreak DLC.

State of Decay 2 had over 3 million users in its first month of release and has continued to grow substantially since then.
State of Decay 2 on the Microsoft Store
Drucker County screenshots
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Senior World Builder

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Game Design and Art

Barony: Blessed Addition

I led the design for the "Blessed Addition" content update, adding +50% more content to the game, including all new monsters, levels, lore and dialog. I took these ideas from concept to final asset completion. 

I first joined the team to overhaul all of Barony's art. I also increased dungeon variety using the game's proprietary level editor. The "Cursed Edition" release in 2016 represents this overhaul and other improvements. Since then I've become a key part of the studio's business development and marketing.
Lifetime review scores have climbed from 85% to 91% in that time.

In 2019 I provided content and worked with one of the team's programmers to design the Myths & Outcasts and Legends & Pariahs DLC packs, where I was also responsible for scripting the trailers. The DLC packs have 100% positive reviews as of May 2020.

This is a project of passion I shipped by volunteering my own time and I'm excited for its future.
Barony: Blessed Addition on Steam
Myths & Outcasts DLC on Steam
Legends & Pariahs DLC on Steam


​HEX: Shards of Fate

On this AAA free-to-play MMO-CCG, I worked directly with our Lead Designer and Cryptozoic's Creative Director to create UI layouts, including collection screens and the primary gameboard. I was responsible for building dynamic UI layouts for flexible screen resolutions in Unity 3D. My duties included UX Design Support, UI Content Engineering, asset creation and art-directing for the UI and gameboard.

On this project I had 3 direct reports, including a UI artist and two VFX Artists.
View HEX Beta UI and Gameboard
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UI and UX

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Art Lead


​Age of Empires: Online

I led and organized post-release content for this AAA free-to-play MMO-RTS. I spearheaded post-release content creation of Vanity Gear and Vanity City Decor, in addition to being the technical subject-matter-expert and artist for all new terrain, trees and water.

I was also responsible for tracking all art content production on AOE:O.
View Age of Empires: Online Art


Greg Hastings' Paintball 2

At Super X Studios, I served as the Creative Lead for Greg Hastings' Paintball 2. I worked directly with the Studio President and Creative Director (Greg Hastings) to drive the quality of the player experience for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii releases. I was responsible designing the campaign progression through paintball matches, player rewards, editing and re-writing narrative dialog, scripting cameras for cutscenes and creating level-designs for all-original Paintball fields. I also did most of the project's UI design, designed achievements and player skill upgrades and wrote the game-design documents for our DLC release.

While there were no other dedicated Designers at Super X Studios, I directly managed 3 artists in addition to providing pipeline development, content and art direction for content creation.
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Creative Lead
View GHP2 Level and UI Design

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Mini-Game Design, Animation


Wild Earth: African Safari

After creating the PC version of Wild Earth with Super X Studios, I returned to develop additional content for the Wii release. In addition to creating new content, I pitched and wrote specs for a dozen mini-games, 9 of which are used in the final product. These mini-games were designed to specifically take advantage of the Wii remote and nunchuck's motion-control, while thematically matching the wildlife theme.

​This was my first Design credit.

Additional 3D Art

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Mass Effect & Gears of War

Between other industry roles, I took on QA lead positions, building technical and leadership skills while staying in touch with the game industry.

I am proud to have worked on Mass Effect and Gears of War, and I consider my contributions important to the final product.

GAME DESIGN PROJECTS


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Tactics Corp

Tactics Corp is a short-session, turn-based cyberpunk game designed for touch-screens.


Check out Tactics Corp

The Infinitos Roleplaying System

The Infinitos Pen & Paper RPG is a trans-genre roleplaying system, designed to empower veteran and newcomer P&P players alike to create dynamic gameplay and narrative experiences.


Check out Infinitos
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Greg Hastings Paintball 3

Greg Hastings' Paintball 3 is an action-paintball simulation game by Super X Studios, in development for current-generation consoles and PCs.
Check out GHP3

Other Projects

Materials from other projects I've been involved with creatively.
Check out my misc. projects
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I have over 17 years of experience creating video games professionally in technical and creative disciplines
I am available for full-time remote opportunities and contract work
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