Hello, I'm Isaiah Everin Cooper, a Lead AI/Enemy Designer at Crystal Dynamics. I hold a Professional Certificate in Game Development, with a focus on Level Design, from SMU Guildhall. I am also a graduate of Columbia University, holding a BA in Creative Writing and Film Studies, with a background in Film Production.
Professional Strengths
My greatest development strength is the speed and efficiency with which I solve problems and implement content or systems. I can rapidly develop a wide range of work, including prototype gameplay, robust scripted/programmed solutions, and detailed technical documentation.
I easily maintain a strong, holistic vision of a project when developing gameplay and collaborating across departments, and I often act as a hybrid producer/designer, as I always have a heavy mental focus on efficient and scope-aware development that facilitates maintaining a clear vision across the team. My favorite aspects of the job are initial design, prototyping and proving out systems, developing tools for efficient content creation, and cross-department management. Lastly, I'm often known for quickly providing detailed and clear design and technical documentation to clarify vision or train new devs.
I'm interested in the union between game design and storytelling, and so it is a personal goal of mine to contribute to strong narrative design in the games that I work on, where possible. As a writer, I possess a penchant for story structure, strong themes, and world-building.
Personal Interests
From childhood, I've always been enraptured with the creation of imaginary worlds, which transitioned into developing a variety of fictional fantasy settings and stories throughout my adult life. I run various TTRPG campaigns, including D&D with an original setting that includes a wiki of world-building and design notes.
Socially, I tend to rant about how much I love something and then completely tear it to pieces for what didn't work, and I'm generally compelled to share analysis that is both honest and thoroughly considered, which led to work on my new YouTube channel, Signals and Light. For my own inspiration, I look to hundreds of games, movies, shows, bands, comics, and books, and I'm not satisfied unless I constantly have something of high creative caliber to enjoy and analyze in my downtime.
Favorite Games
Exploration of locations, systems, and concepts is at the heart of what I care for most in media. I enjoy this quality of gaming so much that I consider foreknowledge of encounters, levels, or mid-game mechanics to be "spoilers" that would disrupt what I gain most from playing a game.
I deeply analyze the structure of how content is presented, and I find much of my pleasure in the sensation of surprise, of seeing something unique or a synthesis of ideas that I did not expect. When structuring content or stories, I aim to build ideas into a sequence of compelling discoveries, combining the inherent joy of the moment with a sense that the player or reader has discovered something new and exciting.
I have played hundreds of games, and my favorites tend to fall into certain categories.
-
Games with a huge range of interdependent mechanics and challenges that allow for player creativity, like Dishonored, Metal Gear Solid V, or Horizon: Zero Dawn.
-
Action combat games with fluid and tough but fair mechanics where learning enemy patterns is core to the experience, such as Hollow Knight, Monster Hunter, and Sekiro.
-
Narrative adventure games with incredibly well-executed stories and character writing, as seen in Disco Elysium, Pentiment, The Beginner's Guide, and The Alters.
-
Unique, exploration-driven puzzle games with strong gameplay married to gorgeous art, such as Antichamber, The Witness, The Talos Principle, or Opus Magnum.
-
Deep multiplayer PVP games with a broad range of mechanics and varied forms of player combat interaction, like League of Legends, Nosgoth, DotA 2, and Overwatch.
-
Platformers that focus on fluid locomotion and deeply engaging level design, like Super Mario Odyssey, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Rayman Legends.