Producer

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Summary of Contributions

From January 2026 to May 2026, I worked with a team of eleven to create a vertical slice for Paint the Town Dead. With developers from Sony Santa Monica consulting every step of the way, we proved out an idea for a first-person brawler game, mixing the gameplay of games like Devil May Cry and Ultrakill with the aesthetic of games like Splatoon and Mirror’s Edge.

We used Jira to manage our sprints and coordinate with team members locally and remote.

We used Figma as a whiteboarding tool and eventually migrated those ideas to firm documentation in the software.

Communication was led through discord, with weekly meetings and standups for all team members.

Here is the glowing feedback we received from our industry partners at SMS and faculty at MSU:

“They did a great job grabbing the core loop of “fun” and built some pretty interesting/robust systems as a group.

There were a lot of moments where they would reach a cross-roads, they would discuss (sometimes with us) and make a call fairly quick without too much hesitation. Overall, this group brought a pretty solid project to the table!

Bug fixing, iteration, quality-of-life improvements were all always on the table and accepted.

I don’t think they ever once truly struggled to figure out what direction to go in, and always explored ideas/options to see what worked and what didn’t. Rapid iteration is a key process in every gameDev toolbelt, and they did a great job there.

The tools and systems the built also sounded robust enough to expand on too, which is also a great accomplishment and something they should be proud of.

Sound/audio has been consistently improving, as is the UI and art of the game. Even the enemy rig/model/animations came out great and they even said at the beginning of this project they didn’t have an animator.

This team knocked it clear out of the park. They chose a complex project with a large scope and many risks, but remained focused on building strong foundations. They were extremely proficient in getting their prototypes stood up in game quickly, and they had plenty of time to iterate and find the fun.

Then they found the fun. The game is fun. It’s sick. They cooked. Their game’s core systems have been realized. They are complete enough for me to get locked-in, and I experienced a profound enjoyment punching the gooey paint people into walls and grinders.

Throughout the semester I was consistently impressed and sometimes shocked by the progress they made between meetings. It was very clear that this team was both dedicated and talented.” – Sony Santa Monica

“The teams took on large projects and successfully managed/produced the projects.

Project risks were taken and were mostly successful.

Several rounds of prototyping, playtesting, and iteration resulted in positive gains.

Some big programming, art, and design challenges conquered.

Presenting ideas and concepts really well. It definitely improved across the semester in both the pre-recorded talks and the final, live post-mortem.

It was really cool to see people working across teams to help out each other, build better games, and get more showcase pieces for all.

The team seemed to work really well with each other. Really professional and well done.

As I said at the post mortem, I am really proud of the students, teams, and projects this year! Way to go!” – Faculty at Michigan State University