About.

I hold an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where I studied in the Interactive Media Division under Marsha Kinder, who introduced the concept of transmedia intertextuality in 1991, and Scott Fisher. My work has always taken her idea further than the screen. Before USC, a BFA from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

In the spring of 2006, at GDC, I began the conversation that produced the Narrative Designer title, then took the role myself at THQ/Relic Entertainment on Company of Heroes — the first professional use of the title in the games industry. In the twenty years since, the work has run through Electronic Arts, Warner Bros. Games, Rovio, Universal Creative (Super Nintendo World, Volcano Bay), and my own studios.

I founded Wonderfilled Inc., a transmedia studio and RPG publisher, and Alien Ranch, a media studio. Across all of it runs a single thesis: the highest function of a designed medium is to return the participant to the unmediated world.

My Cherokee practice is not a research project. It is lifelong, a documented lineage to Amatoya Moytoy of Tellico, and it is the light the rest of the work refracts. My transmedia work with GiantLands funds the preservation of Indigenous cultural sites, including Aztalan State Park. I am a single father, a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation and Zen, and I work in English and Spanish, with Cherokee and German.

My work on Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge received the Golden Ticket Award for Best New Family Attraction (2023) and two THEA Awards (2021). My thesis on transmedial play has been cited across international scholarship for eighteen years and counting. I have taught narrative design, game development, and interactive media for decades, from Detroit Public Schools to major universities.