2004 Speakers
A team builder and game designer, Harvey Smith 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 multiplayer 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 communication 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 Hong Kong, London, Montreal and the United States.
Harvey Smith has lived all over the world, 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: Invisible War (Project Director), Deus Ex (Lead Designer), FireTeam (Lead Designer), Technosaur (Project Director/Designer) and CyberMage (Associate Producer). Also involved with production of Thief 3, Ultima VIII, System Shock and Super Wing Commander 3D0.
David “RM” Michael has been a successful software developer for over 10 years, working in a variety of industries. He is co-owner of Samu Games (www.samugames.com), which has been making independent games since 1996. He is the author of The Indie Game Development Survival Guide, and his articles about game design and development have appeared on Gamedev.net and in the book Game Design Perspectives. He is also the owner of an independent software company DavidRM Software.
Brody Condon is an artist and educator based in Los Angeles. His current interest is the reverse engineering and exploitation of 3D game development technology. Condon attempts to locate, or fabricate, situations and visual works where computer games and game culture leak outside of the box and into our lived experience.
He is most well-known for his work on the cutting edge computer game Waco Ressurections, a virtual reality game in which players take on the character of Branch Davidian David Koresh.
Condon’s work finds its final form in variety of media including software, video, and sculpture. He is currently working with the collaborative C-Level on a series of 3D games based on “alternative utopias and apocalyptic moments.”