24.9.07

Index

The links below will lead you to examples of my work, my social media links, and any projects I'm currently working on.

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Social Media

Game Development Work

Personal Projects
Group Projects

Misc
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26.3.21

Introduction


My name is Reese Mills and I have a history in game development with Rockstar, Microsoft and some indie groups.

Currently I am unemployed and looking for work in the games industry again.


 
I recently left work as an English teacher in Japan for JET, where I was hoping to travel and network. However, covid-19 has ruined my plans and led to me returning to the UK after two years. I am now aiming to find work in the games industry again currently in design, dev support, or QA. 

 


The pandemic has been a great time to learn and play D&D though! I have been a DM for fellow expats and continue to do so weekly online using Roll20. A fantastic hands on game design experience for two games with five players in each.



My Experience:

  • Rockstar North (3 Years - 2017-2019)
    • Level Design Support. (GTAV Online/RDR Online)

    • Compliance Tester. (SONY/MS/Apps/PC/Etc)

  • HCL - Third Party Microsoft Testing Company (2 Weeks -2013)
    • Xbox One Compliance Tester.
    • Uncredited on the games released at the launch for the Xbox One console.

  • VMC - Third Party Microsoft Testing Company (7 Months - 2013)
    • Xbox 360 Compliance Tester.
    • Uncredited on numerous titles tested for Microsoft TCR compliance.
    • Additional work:
      • Reception work.
      • Home console MP stress testing work.

  • Indie Game Groupworks (1 Year - 2012-2013)
    • Shortly after graduating I started working with a few fellow students in a project group we called Rocket Shark Studios. This is where I managed four team members and we attempted applying for the Digital City Fellowship scheme. This would have given us funding and guidance from the University.
    • Unluckily we did not succeed with our application, so we continued and created a few animation projects and was working on a game project before the group disbanded. 
    • I then worked with a few project groups after this before starting my career in QA compliance testing for video games.

  • BA (Hons) Computer Games Design - Teesside University (3 Years 2009-2012)
    • Graduation grade: 1.1 - First class honors diploma in 2012. 
    • Throughout university I have worked on many different types of projects, but I was more fond of the UI design modules, which was a subject I focused on for a time for Scaleform and Adobe Flash.
    • University Group Projects:
      I worked in two major group projects, which was the fabled Journeyman Project and my final year group project. I have also collaborated with friends and colleges on multiple side projects.
      • Journeyman
        Journeyman was a huge group project where five large teams worked on different levels for a game set by the teachers. The game was combined at the end and I had the opportunity of being the UDK level scripter for Team E. The image above was taken at the end of project, displaying all who participated.
      • Final Year Group Project
        During this project I managed a team of two designers, three artists, two animators and one sound developer. I organised the team, adjusted the schedule, facilitated the team's needs and developed the game UI. The game was not to the scope we wanted, but we achieved making a level on an iPad using UDK, which was a new platform for the engine at that time.
      • Group Side Project
        During this time one side project I found time to collaborate on was for a fictional game demo animation for an Alice in Wonderland point click adventure game for the Nintendo Wii.

    • University Solo Projects:
      I worked a few key projects that involved learning development software techniques and designing art, narrative, characters, UI and game mechanics.
      • Final Year Project
        For my university final year project, I chose to focus my studies in game UI design. With this in mind, I wanted to achieve creating a full RPG demo in Adobe Flash.
      • Mini-Game UDK Tutorials
        I had a module that involved making tutorials, so looking online there are many based on how to use Scaleform for creating game interfaces, but there is a lack of ones on how to use it to make interface mini-games. Therefore I created three tutorials on how to make three commonly seen UI mini-games, being a QTE, Hacking and Progress Bar tutorial for UDK.
      • Point Click Adventure UI Design
        This was a UI module to create a UI demo, so I used Adobe Flash to develop an interface for a fictional point click adventure game with a film noir aesthetic.


  • Before University (2008)
    • Before university I would assist a friend on his flash animations, helping with voicework, some artwork and story writing.
    • I also made the first logo animation for a friend's indie game company Drop Dead Interactive using Adobe Flash.

Abilities:

  • Skills and Knowledge
    • Content creation in a triple-A studio game engine.
    • Knowledge of the game engines UDK and UE4.
    • Level, mission, event and mode planning and design.
    • Research and design for modes and content.
    • Dev support in delegating tasks, helping other departments and preparing content.
    • Teamwork and communication with teams locally and globally in different departments.
    • Level/mission/event engine scripting.
    • Extremely dedicated to be flexible, for overtime, relocation, tasks, and learning.
    • QA Testing knowledge for SP, MP, apps, peripherals, etc.
    • Compliance Testing knowledge for Sony, IOS, Microsoft and apps.
    • Creative writing for animation collaborations. (Alice in Wonderland)
    • UI design using scaleform in UDK.  (Mini-Games)
    • 2D animation in Adobe Flash. (RSS)
    • Minor 3D animation in 3DS Max.
    • Audio and video editing.
    • 2D art, digital and traditional.
    • Game Design. (FYP) (UI Design)
    • Japanese language learning. (Novice level)
    • PC building and repair.
    • IT knowledge.
    • Gaming knowledge.
      • Collector of older generation games from PS1 era upwards.
      • Attended Gamescom three times. 
      • Attended E3 in 2019.
      • Follower of game news and game press conferences.
      • Playing games often on console, phone and PC.
      • Still working my way through retro titles, but also new ones.
      • Favorite genres include Horror, Adventure, RPGs and Narratively Strong games.
      • Favorite games: Baldur's Gate, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII and Silent Hill 1.
    • Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Dungeon Master. (JET)
      • Experience of 2 years, playing 3 games, 2 ongoing.
      • Voice acting and performing.
      • Map and token artwork creation.
      • Level/dungeon/scenario/story design.
      • I collaborated on an article on how to start D&D 5E as a newbie during covid-19.

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28.2.21

D&D 5th Edition - 2020-2021

During my time in Japan, I have finally found time to play Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition as a Dungeon Master. I always wanted to play in the past learning the 3.5 edition rules, but I had no time or opportunity when I worked at Rockstar. 



This has been a great tool to meet people, which led to me creating the Japan Gaming Hub, a gaming group for English expats in Japan on Facebook. I've been running three games online with the people that joined, and two of those games are still being ran each week. I've even run a simplified version of the game for my school kids, and oh boy, murder hobos the lot of them.  (ﾟAﾟ;)

This also led to me collaborating on making an article for the Connect AJET local expat magazine, explaining how to start D&D for newbies, and how to use it online as a tool to meet people.

  • View/Download the magazine here. (Page 25-29)
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24.2.21

Jet Programme 2020-2021

 

After 7 years in the games industry, I have left Rockstar to take a short break to teach English in Japan on the Jet Programme, an English language cultural exchange programme. 



Here I am teaching four different senior high schools, each with about 3-4 classes full of 42 kids, fun English lessons. I'm placed in rural south Japan, in the prefecture of Okayama.


It has been a great way to work on my presentation, language and communication skills. 


It was always my intention to travel and using this job to allow me to network and apply for game industry work here in Japan, but it has been difficult due to the pandemic that struct half way into my first year, just as I adapted to my job fully.

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24.2.20

Rockstar Games 2014-2019



I have not added much here in a while due to working at Rockstar Games for roughly six years. 

My time was largely taken up by overtime and learning the testing practices or creating content there, so my portfolio feels a bit lacking. Due to my NDA I am unable to directly refer to the specific things I developed, however I  can tell you what games and released DLC packs I worked on between 2014-2019.




Rockstar Lincoln - Functionality Tester

I joined Rockstar Lincoln during the release of GTA Online in January 2014 as a temporary tester.

Here I worked on their multiplayer testing team from the first few DLC packs, starting with the Beach Bum pack. I managed to obtained a fulltime contract when I was promoted to compliance tester after switching between many different roles. 

I worked on the following during this time:

Rockstar Lincoln - Compliance Tester

As a compliance tester, I tested on multiple platforms during the release of many DLC packs, and also as the next generation versions of GTAV was launched on PS4, PC and Xbox One. 

I worked on the following during this time:

Rockstar Lincoln - Other Titles

Also I was able to test Red Dead Redemption 2, as well as many other titles that the company ported or updated on other systems during my time at Rockstar Lincoln. 

I worked on the following during this time:



Rockstar North - Content Creator & Level Design Support

After three years at Lincoln, in 2017 I became a content creator at Rockstar North, based in Edinburgh Scotland. Here I worked on DLC pack content for GTAV and eventually Red Dead Redemption Online. After two years or so I was promoted to Level Design Support, developing content in other areas in the games. This involved using the in-house content creation engine, creating or editing online content such as co-op missions, multi-player modes, open world events, race tracks, and other DLC content. When I moved to level design support, I worked more on open world content, designing and implementing events through scripting.


I worked on the following during this time:


It was an honor to work at Rockstar for almost six years. I have since left to work in Japan.

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31.12.13

VMC/HCL - Compliance Tester - 2013

After graduating I took a year to attempt starting up an indie game development group, which lead to the Rocket Shark Studios projects listed below.

However it did not work out and I started looking for my first game development job.


In 2013, I started a compliance and functionality testing job at VMC, where I would do compliance testing for Xbox 360. 

I learned the TCR rules to test many triple-A games arriving from many studios, and I would fill in the bug reports if issues were found.

For roughly two weeks I worked at HCL to do test the XBOX One before the release of the console. It was quite the experience where I would often volunteer to work 16 hour shifts.


After a year of this I was able to secure QA Testing work at Rockstar Games.

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9.8.12

Rocket Shark Studios - 2012-2013



Core Development Team
I previously worked with a project group called Rocket Shark Studios after university. It consisted of four people I managed, and we collaborated on a few projects before disbanding in 2013.


Here we originally worked on a game for the iPad called Late Runner shortly after graduating, where we attempted applying for the Digital City Fellowship scheme to get funding from the university and legitimate ourselves as indies. We were sadly not picked, but we continued till we disbanded in 2013.

Commission Work
We also worked on a few commissioned animations for little companies such as D-Ranged t-shirts. Here we were commissioned to create five animations for their t-shirt characters. I animated the following three animations with my colleague Alec creating all background art.

ZED DEAD

TITAN

HIROKI


Besides that, Myself and Alec Woods were then commissioned to create an animation about LEAN process improvements for a small company.

Due to disagreements with the customer, the project was scrapped towards the end.
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