CV

I’m a freelance Writer, Narrative Designer, Game Designer, Creative Technologist, and Producer with a diverse portfolio of work that also encompasses Project Management.
I’ve made games, organised events, digitised films, curated and installed exhibitions, made apps, researched 13th century castles, and wrangled huge databases into shape.
I’ve worked in games, heritage, and construction.

You can find some details of my work below, including a selective record of presentations and publications.

If you want to chat about how I can help you, please do get in touch. My availability is variable but often flexible.

Experience

Various Freelance Creative & Technical Projects – TIME/IMAGE — 10/2010–Present

 Selected projects at TIME/IMAGE :

• Narrative Designer, Writer, Game Designer; Yaldi Games; 2022–2023
  • Various design work on in-development title Wholesome: Out & About, primarily focusing on narrative design (encompassing plot, quest design, character development, etc) and writing (such as dialogue, lore, and flavour-text) but also contributing to mechanic/system design, level design, and UI in a highly integrated and holistic approach.
• Game Designer; Tanglewood Games; 2022
  • Design of gameplay mechanics and UX for published and in-development titles (including Train Sim World 2) along with implementation of prototypes in in Unreal Blueprints. 
• Creative Technology Consultant, International Collaboration Grants; British Council; 2021–2022
  • Detailed review of ~100 funding applications in the diverse field of Creative Technology, assessing viability and suitability of proposed projects across the fields of games, interactive performance, haptics, IoT, and more.
• Project & Documentation Manager; Credit Suisse on behalf of Zutec; 2017–2023
  • Design and population of complex database to house 55,000+ technical documents. Establishing documentation standards, training colleagues, extensive data-wrangling, acting as key liaison, and contributing to platform development.
• Logistics & AV, MuseTech; Museums Computer Group; 2018–2022
  • Directing logistics and all AV for the popular non-profit Museums+Tech Conference since 2016; managing the technical aspects of running this event online for 500+ attendees in 2020 and 2021, and as a hybrid event in 2022.
• Facilitator, Now Play This; Matheson Marcault; 2017–2022
  • Installation and facilitation of the annual Now Play This festival of experimental game design at Somerset House (as part of London Games Festival).
• Technical Designer & Consultant, Student Lates; Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; 2021
  • Design of events to promote engaging and accessible experiences for hundreds of students, focused on mental wellbeing. Also technical support before and during the events.
• Game Designer; Bushra Burge; 2018, 2021
  • Design of a VR experience based around a custom garment with haptic feedback, and design and rapid 2D playable prototyping of another VR experience with Unity’s Visual Scripting. (Both projects under NDA.)
• Researcher & Assistant; Matheson Marcault for English Heritage; 2018, 2021-2022
  • Research, design consultation, and playtesting to create an educational card game for families about real people who lived at Goodrich Castle in 1296. Another similar project upcoming.
• Co-facilitator, Play Well RawMinds Project; Wellcome Trust; 2019
  • Co-facilitation of a multi-session game-making workshop for about 30 teenagers, teaching design principles and Unity, with the resulting games featuring in exhibition.
• Project Manager, India on Film; British Council and BFI; 2017
  • Management of project launching a colonial film archive collection online; involving content tracking & co-ordination, international stakeholder management, £20k budget management, video editing, content writing, marketing.
• Research Assistant; Culture Counts; 2016
  • Audit and cleaning of audience-generated data, and data analysis.
• Creative Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Poetic Places; British Library; 2015-2017
  • Design and build of an experimental geo-curation poetry app for native mobile, plus content production, completed in 4 months. The app had 10k+ downloads and received uniformly positive media coverage internationally, inspiring a Canadian version.
• Curator & Project Manager, View From Here Exhibition; British Council; 2014
  • Curation, design, and implementation of an exhibition off Trafalgar Square.
• Project Manager; VisitBritain; 2013
  • Audit and cataloguing of substantial historic film archive plus management of digitisation.
• Project Manager, British Council Film Collection; British Council; 2010–2014
  • Managing a project to launch a 1940s film collection online, personally leading creative development, research, content, web design, exhibition design, and press. Liaising with multiple stakeholders including Google and the BFI, achieving 1 million+ views and 30 million+ positive news impressions internationally.
• AHRC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship; University of Nottingham; 2012
  • Exploration of audience-led curatorial concepts leading to written work and public exhibition.
• Community Supervisor; Centre for Creative Collaboration (C4CC); 2010–2014
  • Voluntary management of community at innovative collaborative workspace; involving event management, web design, community management. 

• Marketing and Publicity Intern – The British Museum Press —08/2010–12/2010
• Footage Logger – Wildcard Productions — 08/2009–09/2009

Achievements

• I’ve created two public art exhibitions for the Woodsorrel Garden Gallery in Animal Crossing—these have received positive reviews, discussed in Eurogamer, catalogued by the National Videogame Museum, and I was interviewed about them as part of the NVM’s Oral History project.
• My mobile VR sea-sickness simulator game, Albatross, was exhibited at Feral Vector.
• I’ve organised and facilitated a number of games events in collaboration with the British Library including Off the Page (2017), Wordplay London (2017), and Off the Page: Chapter 2 (2019).
• I’ve established Badgical Kingdom—an online shop selling brooches and enamel pins inspired by Public Domain artworks.
• I have spoken at a number of events including Museums+Tech and Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities, as well as live on local and national radio.
• I’ve completed the challenging Duke of Edinburgh Award to the Gold level.

Relevant Skills

• IT
  • Adept on Microsoft and Apple Macintosh systems.
  • General skills include project management toolsets, desktop publishing, video editing, live streaming, web and app design, and game-making. 
  • Experienced with Unity (Visual Scripting) and Unreal (Blueprints).
  • Very experienced with data-wrangling, adept with databases and spreadsheets.
  • Experienced with Adobe Creative Suite (including InDesign and Photoshop) and Final Cut Pro.
  • Diverse general digital knowledge and quick to pick up new software.
    
• Communication
  • Copywriting, copyediting, and proofreading skills; excellent written English.
  • A confident public speaker with experience of giving talks at large conferences, representing organisations at events, running software training sessions, and leading meetings.

Interests

• In my spare time I make boardgames and videogames, and am an active member of MakePlayCode—a game-making girl gang based in Brighton. I’m also working with an industry mentor through Limit Break to improve my capabilities.
• I attend a lot of games events and help out as a volunteer at a few of them (including Feral Vector, Global Game Jam Brighton, and Pop Up Arcade).
• A member of two writing groups—a monthly critiquing group primarily composed of published authors and a weekly prompt-driven flash-fiction writing group.
• Participating in a weekly RPG game with others.
• A variety of crafty hobbies (sewing, sculpture, painting, etc.), hiking, and roller skating.

Education

• University of Nottingham (2006 – 2009) — 2:1 BA (Hons) Classical Civilisation
• Loughborough High School (1999 – 2006) — 4 A-Levels: Classical Civilisations (A), Fine Art (B), Biology (B), General Studies (B); 1 AS-Level (C); 9 GCSEs (A–B)

Presentations, Panels, and Publications

History within A Non-Historical Game: Design Choices & Minutiae [commissioned article]
23 Jan 2023
https://www.historicalgames.net/history-within-a-non-historical-game-design-choices-minutiae/

Historical Game Network: Development [panel talk]
[Online] Historical Games Network, led by the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University
25 Jan 2023
https://www.historicalgames.net/recording-hgn-panel-on-development-january-2023/

Electromagnetic Field Festival 2023
‘This is Britain’ – British cultural propaganda films of the 1930s-1940s, their creation, and their far-reaching global legacy’
Eastnor, Herefordshire
4 Jun 2022
https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2022/281-this-is-britain-british-cultural-propaganda-films-of-the

Roundtable on Cultural Heritage and Gaming [panel talk]
[Online] History and Games Lab by the Cultural Heritage and Community Engagement Research Group of the University of Edinburgh
27 Nov 2020
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/roundtable-on-cultural-heritage-and-gaming-tickets-127426984541

The Middle Ages and Modern Games
University of Winchester
16 July 2019

History, Medievalism and the Games Industry
‘Paper Trail: Making an Educational Card Game for a Ruined Castle’
University of Edinburgh
29 Mar 2019
https://www.ed.ac.uk/history-classics-archaeology/news-events/events-archive/2019/history-medievalism-and-the-games-industry
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/history-medievalism-and-the-games-industry-tickets-57705345241

Museums+Tech Conference 2016
‘Poetic Places: Making a geolocation app with little time, less money, and no coding’
The Wellcome Collection, London
19 October 2016
https://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/museumstech-2016-happened/

Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities Conference 2016
‘Poetic Places: An Exercise In Apps, GPS, And Open Collections’
The Lowry, Salford Quays, Manchester
12 October 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRFv1OxswME

Archivist as Interpreter
‘Using archives to reach and develop audiences: How can digital inspire those who don’t have a relationship with the original material?’
British Library, London
4 March 2016