Maxwell Perlman

Game Designer, League of Legends - Champions Team @ Riot Games

Experience

Riot Games

Game Designer
League of Legends - Champions Team
June 2022 - Present

Zenimax Online Studios

Game Designer (Systems)
Unannounced Title
  • Pitched systems and design thinking to leadership to codify a consistent systems design vision
  • Drove core gameplay progression system design alongside systems and monetization leadership
  • Outlined high level approaches to combat design and systems alongside combat design leadership
  • Reevaluated and evolved existing systems designs against evolving product goals
September 2021 - May 2022

Capybara Games

Game Design Consultant
Unannounced Title
  • Analyzed an early-stage prototype and provided feedback on design and product planning
  • Presented on and answered questions relating to live-service and competitive games
  • Provided approaches for balancing asymmetrical PVP games
September 2021, May 2022

Demiurge Studios

Senior Game Designer
REDACTED (Game Design Contract): March 2021 - September 2021
  • Gameplay content and systems design
  • Proposed metagame and monetization features to design and product leadership
  • Creating mockups and wireframes of potential features
  • Internal genre subject matter expert
REDACTED (Technical Design Contract): July 2020 - March 2021
  • Gameplay content design
  • Scripting (gameplay mechanics, challenges, tutorials, vfx hookups, automated tests)
  • Technical specs and documentation
Marvel Puzzle Quest: July 2019 - July 2020
  • Character Design (mechanics, implementation, balance, and art briefs)
  • Lead an effort to rebalance and rework previous characters
  • System and feature design
    • Shards
    • Intelligent offer targeting and generation system
  • Create economic models for use by game director, data scientists, and other designers
  • Scripted tools for myself and other designers
  • Proposed content, systems, and game modes to leadership and Marvel
  • Restructured core event template data for effeciency, easy of use, and readability
  • Drove revenue through planning and design of in-game offers
  • Designed and implemented in-game events
July 2019 - September 2021

Independent

Game Designer / Programmer
Mixology Card Game
A collabortation between myself and the artist Allyssa De La Torre.

A tabletop cooperative party card game currently in development. 3-5 players frantically cooperate in order to complete drink orders within a strict time limit. For this game, my responsibilities include:
  • Designing game mechanics and content.
  • Directing the artist in early stages of style development and product design.
A special thanks to the attendants of GDC 2018 who played the initial prototype of this game and encouraged me to pursue completing it.

R&J
R&J was a collaboration between myself and the performance artist Jessica Create.

R&J is a two player, multi-day game that explores self-expression and intimacy in the digital world. The game is played exclusively via e-mail and text message. Each day of game play mirrors the events of one day of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, which unfolds over the course of five days. From Day 1 (the masked ball) to Day 5 (the epilogue), players engage in meaningful, story-based conversations, negotiations, games, and activities, all in true masked ball style: never knowing their partner’s true name or location.

R&J has been presented at:
  • Philadelphia Fringe Art Festival - November 2018
  • ​Bandwi/d/th International Festival - March 2018
My responsibilities for R&J included:
  • Conducted user tests and iterated game mechanics and narrative content based on feedback and analytics.
  • Designed and programmed narrative game user interface and messaging server.
Publication References
December 2017 - July 2019

Dejobaan Games

Game Designer
20 Minute Metropolis
Alongside Dejobaan games, I co-designed and developed 20 Minute Metropolis, the Humble Bundle Monthly Original for March 2019.

My responsibilities for 20 Minute Metropolis included:
  • Used proprietary tools to design tutorial levels and direct first time user experience
  • Iterated city building game systems from concept to complete digital prototype
  • Balanced progression and resource systems using Excel
  • Wrote design documents detailing game mechanics, themes, and content for artists and programmers
  • Coordinated with programmers, artists, and musician to create alpha deliverable
  • Developed and transitioned initial C# codebase to full time development team
Publication References
April 2017 - June 2017

MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Game Designer / Software Engineer
Due to the work I did at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory being classified, I am unable to share screenshots, design documents, and code from my time there, however the following is the publicly available information about the projects I worked on and my responsibilities/role(s) on each project.

CASCADE (Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design Environment)
  • Led design of cooperative multiplayer deck-building game from inception to delivered product
  • Invented and successfully introduced game driven systems analysis methodology to MIT and DARPA
  • Wrote Python simulation to provide tabletop game players with long-term results of moment to moment decisions
HIVELET (Human-Interactive Virtual Exploration for Lightweight Evaluation of Technologies)
  • Implemented third person squad control mechanics and procedural content generation in C# using Unity
  • Consulted on projects to assist with game balance, point-cloud data visualization, and agent-based simulations
HURREVAC Extended (HVX)
  • Developed custom narrative game engine in JavaScript for use by the National Hurricane Program
  • Produced narrative content for simulation-driven hurricane emergency decision making game
  • Contributed to a paper for the ITSEC 2016 Conference
  • HVX won a R&D 100 Award in 2018
Additionally, I pitched and co-authored a paper exploring the application of competitive game design and game playing techniques to national defense for the Office of Net Assessment.
October 2015 - December 2017

Skills

game Design

  • Mechanics and Ability Kits
  • Game Balance
  • Systems and Features
  • Economy Modeling
  • Level Design

Programming Languages

  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • Lua

Software and Libraries

  • Proprietary Tools and Engines
  • Unity
  • OpenGL
  • Visual Studio
  • Adobe Design Suite
  • Node.js
  • Autodesk Maya

Other

  • Systems Analysis
  • Mathematical Modeling
  • Basic Japanese Language Fluency

Education

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

B.S. Interactive Media and Game Development
I graduated with honors from WPI in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Interactive Media and Game Development.

One of my major projects of note was the Topdeck Engine, a domain specific card game prototyping and design tool. Alongside two other students, I led the architecture and development of the Topdeck Engine over the course of 5 months. We completed a fully functional alpha of the engine and I have been able to use it both professionally and personally many times.
August 2011 - May 2015

Ritsumeikan University

Global Projects Program
Over the course of three months at Ritsumeikan University, I, alongside Stefan Alexander and the student members of the Media Experience Design laboratory, designed, developed, and released a fitness-oriented RPG for the Apple App Store. Making use of the, at the time new, M7 chip found in modern Apple devices, we were able to create a role-playing game that used player movement and exercise as a core game mechanic, encouraging players to get out and moving in the real world. My responsibilities for the project included:
  • Designed physical fitness-based progression system and mobile game user interface.
  • Programmed procedural content generation and turn based combat systems in Swift.
  • Received the Wedding Park Award in Japan’s ICT Challenge.
July 2014 - October 2014

Interests

Outside of making games, I enjoy stand-up comedy, avant-garde art, and playing games competitively.

I discovered stand-up comedy through Comedy Central as a teenager when my family first got cable TV. I love listening to stand-up and have dabbled in it a bit myself. My favorite comedians are: Norm Macdonald, Eugene Mirman, Bo Burnham, Bill Hicks, Lewis Black, Nikki Glaser, and Patrice O'Neal.

As I have grow up, my taste in music, art, and media has changed a great deal; here are some artists whose work I really appreciate: Captain Beefheart, David Lynch, James Joyce, Marc Rebillet, Tom Waits, Grimes, Frank Zappa, Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Saiorse Ronan, Alan Moore, Rian Johnson, and Stravinsky.

Outside of the games I have worked on, some of my favorite games are: The Witness, Donkey Kong (GB), Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, God of War (2018), Pokemon Crystal, Dota: Autochess, Custom Robo, Magic: the Gathering, League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra.
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