Hired for the symptom. I find the cause.
I've held nearly every seat on a game team: 3D artist on Black Ops III and Fortnite, tech artist, UI designer, level designer, creative director, and the CEO who raised the money and shipped the game.
That's why I can walk into your project, play the build, open the editor, and find the problems living between your disciplines, where nobody owns them.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III
- Fortnite
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Rage 2
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game
- Kinect Star Wars
- Homefront: The Revolution
- SMITE
- Tribes: Ascend
- INFESTSTATION
Hours, weeks, or years. Same pattern.
Every engagement starts with the problem a client can see. The work is finding the one underneath it.
The capture problem that wasn't
A pitch team needed cinematic capture fixed before a hard deadline. The real problem was spread across six systems, and nobody owned any of them.
Read the case →The "infant model"
A biotech firm asked for an "infant model." What they actually needed was a way to measure a disease with a video game camera.
Read the case →Two years, one contract
Hired as an environment artist. Ended up solving a detail-vs-performance problem the studio was stuck on, and putting hard layout questions on the table.
Read the case →Working with Dan was an excellent experience. He seamlessly integrated into production, providing thoughtful and insightful solutions that proactively solved problems. His attention to detail, communication and visibility made a difference in the daily development which made closing out the work predictable and reliable.
I've also been the one signing the checks.
As founder of Atom Switch, I raised the money, hired the team, directed the game, and ran the business. When the gaming VC collapse capped my round at $3.4M of a planned $5M, I didn't stop. I rebuilt the plan to cover the full two years of development anyway, and shipped in Early Access. There were lessons left to learn and a real chance at success was still on the table. So I understand the budget and schedule pressure you face on a visceral level.
Teams where every seat has to count.
Indie & mid-sized studios
Small and mid-sized teams working with today's much leaner budgets, tough milestones, and too few senior people to cover every gap. When every hire has to stretch further, it helps to bring in someone who knows the whole pipeline.
Indie publishers & investors
Hands-on development help for the studios you back: build reviews, milestone health checks, and an embedded fixer when a project is in trouble. You get game-dev depth without having to hire it in-house.
AAA teams resetting
Smaller teams, fewer specialists, same expectations. I've run production at indie scale with AAA standards and can help your people work across disciplines instead of waiting on each other.
Start with what's wrong.
I embed with your team, diagnose the root causes across disciplines, help set clear ownership, and work alongside everyone until it's fixed.
- Project triage
- Pipeline & engine issues
- Cross-team blockers
Production-ready work, no hand-holding needed: UI/UX, technical art, environment art, and prototyping in Unreal Engine.
- UI / UX
- Tech art & VFX
- Environment art
- Prototyping
Pitch materials, vertical-slice direction, and publisher/investor readiness, from someone who's raised a round and taken pitches to executive review.
- Pitch decks
- Vertical slices
- Game pillars & GDDs
Steamworks setup, release operations, roadmaps, and marketing that feels like part of your game's world, not a separate department's.
- Steam & launch ops
- Roadmaps
- In-world marketing
The problems live between disciplines.
Most problems that stall a game aren't strictly art, design, or engineering problems. They sit in the handoffs, which is exactly why they survive so long.
The first call
It's usually where the real problem shows up. You describe the symptom, and I listen for the cause. More than once, the job I was hired for wasn't the job that needed doing.
Play the build
Before I read a single doc, I experience the game the way a player or a publisher will.
Open the project
I work directly in the engine, the levels, the Blueprints, and the materials. I don't diagnose just from a slide deck.
Talk to everyone
Each discipline sees a different piece of the problem. I speak all of their languages, because I've done most of those jobs myself and directed the rest.
Trace the causes
One visible failure usually has several roots. I find all of them, not just the first.
Own it, fix it
Every issue gets an owner and a path forward. I stay hands-on until it's solved, and leave your team ready to carry the momentum from there.
Every seat. Receipts included.
This is the evidence, organized by the three disciplines I've worked in hands-on.
Development
Art, tech art, UI, level & technical design, from AAA weapons to a near-solo playable prototype.
Direction
Pillars, systems, boss design, lighting and art direction that keep a whole team pointed the same way.
Operations
Pitching, fundraising, planning, Steam operations, and marketing written from inside the game's world.
NoteThe three columns are the evidence. What I'm really offering sits in the gaps between them.
One senior person. Not an agency.
Engagements are contracted through Atom Switch, Inc., my studio since 2013, so billing is simple and business-to-business. But you're hiring me. I'm the one on the call, in your project, and accountable for the result.
When a project needs more hands, I bring in trusted collaborators I've shipped with. I stay your single point of contact.
- Contracted via Atom Switch, Inc.
- Remote · US-based
- From a short diagnostic to a multi-year embed
Tell me what's broken.
Describe the symptom. The first call is usually where we find out what the real problem is.