Harvey Smith, creative director at Arkane Studios, will join Game Center director Frank Lantz on stage for a guided tour through the hit game Dishonored 2. The event will include a real-time play through of some of the game’s most interesting levels with Smith pointing out various aspects of the game and discussing how they illustrate his design process and the team’s overall creative vision.
Harvey Smith is a game designer and writer who has been working in videogames professionally since 1993. Currently, he is co-creative director at Arkane Studios, working alongside Raphael Colantonio. Most recently, Smith worked on Dishonored 2, while living in Lyon, France. October 2012 saw Smith and Colantonio release the award-winning Dishonored, working with Arkane Studios teams in Lyon, France and Austin, Texas. In 2009, Smith released the iPhone game KarmaStar. From 2004 to 2007, he served as studio creative director for Midway Austin, managing the design department, starting three projects and shipping Blacksite during that time. He worked at Ion Storm’s Austin office from 1998 to 2004, acting as creative director of Deus Ex: Invisible War and lead designer on the award-winning Deus Ex, winning the 2000 BAFTA and many other awards. Prior to Ion Storm, Smith 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. He started his career at the pivotal game company Origin Systems, working as an associate producer on Cybermage and Ultima VIII, lead tester on System Shock and a play-tester on Super Wing Commander. He has written about numerous game design subjects and has spoken at the Game Developers’ Conference, MiGS, SxSW, E3, QuakeCon and other conferences. In 2005, he won the Game Design Challenge at GDC for his entry, Peacebomb! Smith has served on Advisory Boards for the SxSW Screenburn Festival and the Game Developers’ Choice Awards. In addition to working with Arkane Studios, Smith has written the novel Big Jack is Dead, which he describes as a collision of Southern Gothic and Silicon Valley.
Free and open to the public.