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Bio: Harvey Smith

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Harvey Smith is a game designer and creative director who has been making games professionally since 1993. He worked at Ion Storm's Austin office from 1998 to 2004, acting as project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War and lead designer on the award winning Deus Ex. Prior to Ion Storm, he worked at Multitude, an Internet startup in San Mateo, CA. There he was lead designer of FireTeam, an innovative tactical squad game that was one of the earliest video games to feature voice-communications between players. Smith started his career at the legendary game company Origin Systems, working there for almost four years.

Over the last decade, he has held roles in various design and leadership-related roles. From a professional standpoint, his passions are communications, team building and game design. His creative interests are related to player expression and game ecology. Over the last 5 years, he has spoken on these subjects and others at a variety of conferences and seminars in London, Hong Kong, Montreal, Melbourne and in various US cities.

Harvey Smith has lived all over the US and in Germany (for a period of 4 years), but was born in the industrial wastelands south of Houston. He presently lives in the psychically and environmentally healthy climes of Austin. Beyond his profession, he is an enthusiastic writer, communicator and traveler. His wife, Rebekah, teaches fifth grade, and they have two super-spoiled dogs, Loki and Star.
Projects to date:
  • Deus Ex 2 (Project Director)
  • Deus Ex (Lead Designer)
  • FireTeam (Lead Designer)
  • Technosaur (Project Director/Designer) [cancelled]
  • CyberMage (Associate Producer)

Also involved with production of Thief 3, Ultima VIII, System Shock and Super Wing Commander 3D0.

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Travel Log - Melbourne

Freeplay 2004

GDC 2004: Emergence

Orthogonal Unit Differentiation

Systemic Level Design

Travel Log - Hong Kong

Sacrifice Review

Features Without Interface

Transcendent Moments

Half-Life review

Worlds Apart

Distinct Functions in Game Units

The Future of Game Design

 

 

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Content ©1998 Harvey "Witchboy" Smith     Design ©1998 TheZealot