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Personal Data
Full Name: Jakub Mikołaj Majewski
Date of Birth: 29 Nov 1981
Place of Birth: Toruń, Poland
Nationality: Polish
Phone: 502 209 448
Email: qmajewski (at) yahoo.co.uk
Career Objective
I studied game narrative structure, and it is the exploration of this field
that interests me the most - I want to create games that combine great gameplay
with narrative complexity, giving the player the means to explore and control
the unfolding story. In addition, working as a project manager, I have picked up
a fascination for team management and leadership. I want to continue
combining these two areas of interest, by leading and managing great projects
for consoles and the PC, with strong gameplay and storyline. In order to have as
many possibilities for writing as possible, also continue freelancing as a
creative writer.
Work Experience
- Freelance work - since leaving City Interactive, I have mainly worked as a
freelancer... ironically, mainly for City Interactive. During this time, I
also attempted to start up a development studio, called Revolt Studios -
this project was ultimately abandoned after my business partner decided to
pursue other interests. Projects during this time include:
- City Interactive, Poland, website: http://www.city-interactive.com/.
- Unannounced title (in development) - freelance writer. I
wrote the game's script.
- Combat Wings: The Great Battles of WWII (in development) -
freelance writer and design consultant. This title is an arcade
flying game for the Nintendo Wii. As a freelance writer, I am
responsible for all the dialogues in the game (mostly writing them
from scratch, in some cases based on rough outlines). As a design
consultant, I have also contributed some major revisions to the
game's mission design and the overall gameplay design.
- SWAT (working title; project cancelled) - freelance writer.
I translated the game's dialogues from Polish to English.
- Battlestrike: Force of Resistance 2 (2009; published in
Poland as Rajd na Berlin: Cien Stalingradu) - freelance
consultant. The title was a first-person shooter. I participated in
the project as an independent consultant, and translated the game's
dialogues from Polish to English.
- Revolt Studios, Poland (no website, no longer in existence).
- Race-Train (cancelled) - a light-hearted, casual-oriented
train-racing game with RPG elements. I was responsible for the game
design - writing all the design documentation and ultimately
implementing the game scripts (to some degree). However, the project
ended when we abandoned the Revolt Studios idea. At the time of
cancellation, the game design documentation was in a fairly advanced
stage, and we were working on an experimental demo using my business
partner's game engine.
- Knights over the Atlantic (cancelled) - an arcade flying
game with heavy emphasis on storyline. This is a project I dearly
hope to revive one day. It was a more long-term project than Race-Train
- bigger and more budget-hungry. As such, it was allowed to
"simmer" in the background while we focused on Race-Train.
I was the project director, as well as the lead designer/writer,
writing the game design documentation.
- City Interactive, Poland, website: http://www.city-interactive.com/,
January 2006 – November 2008. The company is one of Poland’s largest
game developer and publisher, with approximately 150 employees, specialising
in 'value' titles. I have worked for City Interactive first as a lead
designer, then as a project manager, and in the last three months, as a
freelance consultant. In the last few months at City, my work primarily
centred on training new project managers.
- Armed Forces Corp (2009; published in Poland as Najemnicy)
- project manager, and subsequently consultant. The title is a
first-person shooter. My job was to kick-start the project, develop the
initial project plan and design documentation, as well as to train a
newly-hired project manager and eventually pass the project on to him
entirely. Subsequently, I also translated the game's dialogues from
Polish to English.
- Royal Marines Commando (2008) - project manager. The title was
a first-person shooter. I was in charge for the first half of the
project, before passing command to a trainee project manager. My duties
included coordinating design documentation development, directly
overseeing the game & level design team, coordinating the game's
development in general, and training the new project manager.
- Code of Honor 2 (2008) - project manager. The title was a
first-person shooter. I was in charge of the project. My duties included
coordinating design documentation development, directly overseeing the
game & level design team, and coordinating the game's development in
general. I also developed the story into a full scenario script.
- Operation Thunderstorm (2008; published in Poland as Mortyr:
Operacja Sztorm) - Localisation Kit manager. The title was a
first-person shooter. I stepped into the project late in its development
cycle, so my role was relatively limited. I was there, more or less, to
ensure that the project would be completed on time. I handled the
Localisation Kit and helped to manage the project as a whole in its
final stages.
- Terrorist Takedown 2 (2007) - project manager. The title was a
first-person shooter, and I was in charge of the project. My duties
included coordinating design documentation development, directly
overseeing the game & level design team, and coordinating the game's
development in general. I also developed the story into a full scenario
script.
- Battlestrike: Force of Resistance (2007; published in Poland as
Mortyr III: Akcje Dywersyjne) - level designer and Localisation
Kit manager for the product, a first-person shooter. Apart from that, I
also handled the Localisation Kit again. As such, I was responsible for
checking and correcting all the game texts (briefings, objectives,
dialogues, etc.) in Polish and English, as well as preparing the
Localisation Kit for translation into other languages.
- The Hell in Vietnam (2007) – design consultant. I was
attached to this project, a first-person shooter, late in its production
cycle. In spite of the odd job title, my main responsibility was to put
together the game's Localisation Kit - I collected all of the game's
texts and dialogues, worked with an outsourced writer on a second draft,
and then polished everything up into a final draft. I was actually
attached to this project mainly in order for me to gather experience
working with first-person shooters, so originally my official task was
to a) brush up on using the editing tools for the Chrome engine, and b)
to play the game and offer ideas on how to further improve it. I didn't
much like being a fifth wheel, however, so I was able to finally get the
more concrete task of handling the Localisation Kit.
- Wings of Honour: Battles of the Red Baron Arcade (2007) - lead
game designer. Another internet conversion, but this time more far
reaching than CW:BOB AE - we essentially rewrote all the missions and
heavily reworked the gameplay mechanics.
- Combat Wings: Battle of Britain Arcade Edition (2007) - lead
game designer. This project was a sort of conversion of the original CW:
BOB - the idea being to make the gameplay more arcade while
simultaneously reducing the game's size drastically in order to adapt it
for the internet download-before-you-buy market.
- Combat Wings: Battle of Britain (2006) – lead game designer
& writer for this arcade flying game. Functions included general
game design and writing the script, mission design and supervising the
implementation of all the missions by the level designers.
- Wings of Honour: Battles of the Red Baron (2006) – lead level
designer, co-designer and co-writer for this arcade flying game.
Functions included overseeing the production of all the missions in the
game (i.e., developing missions and supervising the level designers). I
contributed to the general game design, and wrote & edited a great
deal of the voiceover texts.
- Tannhauser Gate, Poland, website: http://www.thgate.com,
2004 - 2005. This was a small game developer with about fifteen-twenty staff
members. When I joined them as a junior game designer, both of their
projects were in late stages of development. However, the small size of the
team meant that I was given far greater responsibilities than the title of
junior game designer would indicate:
- The Roots (cancelled) - junior game designer for this
role-playing PC/XBox game. My main duties included finishing up the game
texts, implementing the game narrative using Lua scripts and an in-house
world editor, and balancing the game. The title was eventually
terminated when the company went out of business.
- The Roots: Gates of Chaos (2005) - level designer for the
product, a role-playing game for the Nokia N-Gage. My tasks included
distributing all the enemies and retrievable items in the game, which
included approximately 40 different maps.
- Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia, February – April 2003. Casual
marking tutor in COMN13-612: Videogames as Communication. Duties include
marking student papers and helping to prepare weekly discussions.
- Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia, October – December 2002.
Research assistant for the “Diverse Worlds of Computer and Video Games”
research project conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Brand, School of Humanities &
Social Sciences, communications. Duties included overseeing data collection
and participating in the analysis.
- Freelance work:
- Wing Commander: Standoff (2004-2009, PC-based space action
game) – heading a large team of 10+ volunteers, I co-produced and
co-directed this unofficial, episodic expansion pack for the game Wing
Commander: Secret Ops (1998, Origin Systems, Inc.). Functions
included coordinating the project, as well as mission and cinematics
design, cinematics scripting, and finally writing the game’s script
and text fiction. Website: http://standoff.solsector.net.
- Australian Game Developers, Australia (the website no longer exists,
but you can check it out in The
Wayback Machine)
- The Omega Syndrome (2004) – design consultant.
- Dio Games, Romania, website: http://www.diogames.com.
- Pax Solaris (2003; later republished as Pax Galaxia)
– game manual writer, game level co-designer, and quality
assurance.
- Niels Bauer Games, Freiburg, Germany, website: http://www.nielsbauergames.com.
- Smugglers 3 (2004) – design consultant.
- TV Manager (2002) – game manual writer and game
co-designer.
- Smugglers 2 (2001) – game manual writer and game
co-designer.
- Wing Commander: Unknown Enemy (2002) - Co-produced and
co-directed the product, an unofficial expansion pack for Wing
Commander: Secret Ops (1998). Functions included helping to
coordinate the project as well as mission and cinematics design,
cinematics scripting, and writing text fiction for the game. Website: http://unknownenemy.solsector.net.
Educational Background
- 2002 – 2003 Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia. Master of Film and
Television, focussing on interactive media. The degree included practical
and analytical subjects, as well as a thesis component. The thesis dealt
with the nature and structure of narrative in video games.
- 2001 – IECS Université Robert Schuman, Strasbourg, France. One semester
stay through Bond University’s student exchange program.
- 2000 – 2001 Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia. Bachelor of Arts,
majoring in International Relations and French Language. Also undertook some
film courses as electives, including subjects like scriptwriting and video
production.
- 1998 – 1999 Canadian College, Macau, China.
- 1992 – 1998 The International School of Lae, Lae, Papua New Guinea.
Employment Skills and Attributes
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, particularly in creative
writing (both prose and scriptwriting).
- Eight years of experience in organisational and managerial functions.
- Can accept responsibilities, meet deadlines, and always willing to go
beyond the requirements.
- Practical knowledge of most aspects in the process of video production,
including pre-production, video camera operation, sound editing, and
non-linear image editing.
- In-depth theoretical and practical knowledge of scriptwriting for both
films and video games.
- Has a wide variety of skills related to games design/implementation:
- Experienced with designing and progamming/scripting computer game
missions and cinematics,
- Experienced with computer scripting languages such as Lua, easily
capable of learning new languages when necessary,
- Experienced with 3d game world/level editing tools for a number of
different game engines, including:
- Impact engine (City Interactive),
- Roots engine (Tannhauser Gate),
- Chrome engine (Techland),
- Jupiter & JupiterEX engines (Monolith Productions),
- The TES Construction Set (Bethesda Softworks’ version of the
Gamebryo engine)
- Can rapidly learn new tools as needed.
- Also familiar with a variety of other computer software applications,
including Microsoft Project, Primavera, Adobe Premiere, Jasc PaintShop Pro,
GoldWave, Open Workbench, and all the usual like Microsoft Windows, Office,
DOS, etc. Quick to absorb new skills in this field.
- Highly proficient in English and Polish, also has working knowledge of
French and some knowledge of Russian.
Other Interests
Film, history, naval warfare, drawing/painting, kayaking, and aviation.
Awards
- Vice-Chancellor’s list for academic excellence, Bond University, January
semester, 2003
- Vice-Chancellor’s list for academic excellence, Bond University,
September semester, 2002
- Highest grade in Film & Television: Style & Genre (FITV11-130),
Bond University, May semester, 2001
- Dux in History and Politics, The International School of Lae, 1998
- Australian Computers Competition, award for highest result in Papua New
Guinea, 1997
- Dux in Computer Studies, The International School of Lae, 1995, 1997
References
For the sake of their privacy, I do not list my referees here - please contact
me for a full version of my CV if you are interested.
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