Relevant Skills

  • Game systems design/game balance

  • Level design (junior/moderate)

  • UI/UX design

  • Visual Studio

  • Git Sourcetree

  • Perforce

  • TFS

  • Jira/Confluence/Trello/Notion

  • SharePoint 2016/2019/Office 365

  • Unreal Engine 4/5 (my preferred engine, when possible)

  • Adobe Photoshop

  • Adobe Flash

  • HTML 5, CSS 3, XML, XSLT

  • Adobe InDesign

  • Adobe Illustrator

  • SC2 Galaxy Editor

  • COH2 World Builder

  • Unity3D

Publications

Brandon Casteel was a staff writer for RTSGuru.com while that site was active, and is the proprietor of waywardstrategy.com. His writing has appeared in MMORPG.com, GameSpace.com and explorminate.net, as well as PC Gamer

Career Highlights

Slipgate Ironworks

Design Lead 12/2020 – current

  • I have contributed to 4 game pitches with Slipgate, including being the primary author on 2 of them.

  • I am currently the lead game designer on Tempest Rising Slipgate Ironworks Real Time Strategy game and am a game systems designer/advisor on Warpaws

  • I am responsible for the unit design, faction/army design, game pace, tech trees, ability design, research/upgrade system, and balance.

    • I have design input and direction on single player mission story and design, and sign off on each level from concept to final

    • I designed all of the progression systems for the game including the Doctrines, Requisition, Command Compound,

    • I coordinate with the Narrative team, Development team, UI/UX team, level design team, to find the best possible solutions for the game

  • For the other project, I designed all unit and structure stats. I collaborated with the rest of the team to determine the unit rosters. I also designed large portions of the core game systems, such as build power and territory capture

Fealty

Design Director 12/2019 – 6/2020

  • I was the Design Director for in-progress independent mobile/PC RTS Fealty

  • I defined and refine the game’s core systems and how they impacted everything from the art to the UI

  • I was involved in playtesting the game and providing direction for seeking user feedback as well

 

Wayward Strategist

Writer, Proprietor, Game Design Consultant

2013-Current

  • Started a blog to discuss my favorite game genre – real time strategy games. I write game reviews and RTS theory

  • Developers have approached me to talk about the overarching design of their RTS + tower defense games

  • Game concept design consulting on unannounced Animus Interactive RTS

  • Practical game flow/usability consulting on unannounced independent tower defense game

Dream Harvest Games

Game Designer

2017 and 2019

  • Game designer with Dream Harvest Games on their upcoming Arena RTS Failure: NeroSlicers

  • Created and help maintain a balance and interactions sheet for unts and abilities

  • Propose and implement new features, mechanics, systems, units, and abilities

  • Assisted the art team with UIX wireframes and drafting

  • Have helped clarify the game's core design philosophy and re-form some of its core systems

  • Designed/Prototyped units and structures and upgrades

  • Map/Scene design in Unity3d

  • Supported a variety of government clients, creating workflows and custom-scripted applications to meet mission critical needs for the automation of business processes

  • Created interactive, functional dashboards that combined data from multiple custom SharePoint lists in a seamless interface using Data View Web Parts and Javascript

  • Troubleshooting and management of server and Central Administration

  • User and administrator training

  • SharePoint and website branding using Boostrap 3, custom HTML and Javascript

  • Building SharePoint applications

  • Website and custom application design logic, wireframing, comprehensive drafts, scripting

MD Tech Solutions

Creative Director

Aug 2015-Oct 2017