Mark Simon

Midway Games West – April 2001 to September 2003 (2 years, 6 months)

Midway Home Entertainment – September 2003 to September 2005 (2 years, 1 month)

I left Oddworld with mixed feelings in 2001. They gave me my start, but at Midway – I had a huge opportunity to make a difference as a Lead Designer. Scot Amos hired me and brought me to a team that was a mix of veterans and newbies – and there was a lot of talent in that group! Midway was never exactly a stable company, so we felt the pressure to deliver. Working in a building that used to be Atari, where they manufactured the cabinets, soldered the input boards, and kicked out arcade games like NBA Jam, Joust, and Star Wars gave the place an aura of greatness. It was like being in the halls of a museum. Some of the games I enjoyed as a kid were plugged into the walls and still worked! We frequently played them together at lunch, after work, sometimes during work. You get the idea – it was a cool place, with cool people, but the company was kind of falling apart around all the talent.

Dr Muto – Lead Designer (2001 – 2003)

Thankfully people like Scot and the great Ed Logg shielded our team from the noise and let us concentrate on making a brand new IP – an action adventure platformer called Dr. Muto. The brainchild of Steve Caterson, Muto was a lovable mad scientist that, with the power of his splizz gun invention, he could morph into various creatures and use their powerful abilities. Muto’s goal was to rebuild planet Midway. That meant a lot of collection, a few enemies and puzzles got in the way, and lots and lots of navigation challenges to overcome. Here’s a few learnings from my time on Muto:

• Led team of two designers (Todd Papy, Justin Hendry) that created a new character-based action-adventure IP
• Produced the GDD, game script, mission structure, and story
• Designed the main character along with its combo system, attacks & upgrades
• Tuned five separate physics models (hero, mouse, squirrel, gorilla, spider) implemented by the incredibly gifted programmer Scott Reeser
• Scripted the full AI cast and laid out two game worlds
• Mistakes I made: The game was too long, navigation challenges needed perfect execution (no ledge grab), no way to skip tough areas, game was too linear, and the player didn’t unlock the cool abilities early enough

Unannounced Title “Gladiator” – Lead Designer (2003)

After shipping Dr. Muto, we were split up into prototype teams to try and find the next game for the studio. We were in a bit of a scramble mode looking for a game that would keep the studio going. A lot of really cool projects that could have been, one of those that I worked on was codenamed “Gladiator.” Think the world and timeline of the movie Gladiator, with a player customized hero, co-op gameplay, and fighting mechanics taken from a Soul Caliber like project that was in development for a couple years prior.

• Lead design that refocused an existing fighting game, its team and its assets into a story driven action-adventure demo, fit for full production
• Crafted a cinematic player experience with refactored hero controls, combo system, and fixed camera system
• Led team of three designers to rapidly prototype three levels and the new game core in only five months of development

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows – Senior Designer (2003 – 2005)

All that work and Midway Games West still closed down. I was moved to San Diego in the summer of 2003 and brought some of the gameplay prototype from Gladiator with me to the studio, but unfortunately, I was unable to bring any of the talented team with me. Without the team, many of the things we pulled off were left behind. Fortunately, we did assemble a pretty kick ass design team. I was able to work with the likes of John Romero, Terry Spier, and Josh Sawyer. I learned a lot, but in the end, the company we worked for wasn’t able to hold it all together, and we had to rush the title out the door. I’ll never forget how much fun we had putting that game together, and most importantly, I’ll never forget the epic lunches filled with board games like Catan, Acquire, and Samurai.

• Led initial prototype team to get the project green lit
• Designed and laid out the City Under Siege, Bog and Underworld levels
• Scripted enemy AI, cinematic events and game sequences
• Laid out navigation paths, tuned enemy RPG data, placed game objects
• Design the camera system and mentored the implementation of the cameras
• Helped tune the player progression systems for launch