Professional Game And Level Designer

I’m Sean Noonan, a UK-based game and level designer with two decades of professional experience across first-person shooters, open-world action games and turn-based tactics. Currently, I am Lead Designer on SENTRY with Fireblade Software, a small independent studio where I’m responsible for the game’s overall design.

Previously, I was Lead Level Designer at Splash Damage, working on the turn-based tactics game, Gears Tactics. I was responsible for driving the level design vision and directing the level design team. Together we built a single-player campaign with a mix of scripted and procedurally generated content. The results were really quite good!

Before that, I was a Senior Designer at Foundry 42 (Cloud Imperium Games), working across Star Citizen and Squadron 42. I was responsible for the game modes and level design of the competitive multiplayer module, Star Marine, and was the level architect for many of the on-foot segments of the Squadron 42 campaign, particularly its vertical slice.

Earlier in my career, I held design positions at Ubisoft Montreal, Ruffian Games (now Rockstar Dundee) and Midway Studios – Newcastle. Starting out in mission design, I gradually moved into broader game and level design roles, eventually taking on senior and leadership responsibilities. Much of this work was on open-world games, including Watch Dogs, Far Cry 4, and Far Cry Primal.

You can find more about these projects and my contributions in my portfolio.

Independent Developer And Artist

Outside my professional work in the games industry, I maintain an active presence in the indie games scene. In my spare time, I develop small, personal projects for PC, mobile and web, taking on almost every aspect of development, from programming and design to art and audio (though I tend to leave musical composition to the experts).

In contrast to my professional work, these projects tend to favour low-poly or pixel art aesthetics, reminiscent of those that originally drew me to the medium in the early 1990s.

My first commercial indie release was the pixel art platformer, Jack B. Nimble for PC, Mac, and iOS. Originally created for a game jam, it grew into a much larger project developed over several years alongside my professional work. You can revisit its development through my YouTube devlog series.

At present, I am hard at work on a number of small projects. The first of which being “ND1” (working title), a first-person narrative exploration game set in the trenches of the first world war. I am also working on “Ident”, a short immersive-sim action puzzle game set in an oppressive dystopia. More on those soon!

More recently, I’ve been working on projects including an atmospheric exploration game and a retro-inspired first-person survival horror game. Both reflect my continued interest in exploring genres I enjoy, whilst adapting their scope to the realities of solo development.

If you’d like to know more about my work, explore my portfolio or follow my development updates on the blog.

And if you’d like to get in touch about work, collaborations or simply to tell me how much you enjoyed Jack B. Nimble and wish I’d bring it back, you can contact me here.

Thanks for stopping by!