Elliot Collis

Background

About Elliot Collis

I've been in game development for over 12 years as an Indie Game Developer, Educator, and Engineer. Three years ago I moved back to Japan with my family, looking for opportunities to help make fantastic games and work with like-minded passionate developers. My experiences range from engineering, and design, to procedural content and art/animations. I have been a Senior Engineer at Infinity Vector for the last year and a half working on 3D mobile games. I have led the development of the shared project packages. Worked as project architect for an unannounced project. Mentored the junior engineer and prototyped new game ideas. Previously I was the Game Design Pathway Leader in AUT's Bachelor of Digital Design. During my time there I completely rewrote the game design pathway curriculum, emphasizing making games and prototypes to gain practical knowledge. My favorite assignment was game-a-week, a grueling period of 6 weeks of rapid prototyping. A large part of the degree involved working together with the other pathway leaders to align all the course content, while managing a small teaching team for game design. While teaching I did my Master of Design. This was a great chance to explore rapid prototyping and storytelling in games. Taking what I learned back to my practice I'm better able to design systems and mechanics that work hand in hand with the story. I also had the amazing opportunity to make a more artistic work with Philosobees. I started my Indie Development Journey by forming InkBit Collective with the successful Kickstarter for 'desolate'. I was lucky to work with several friends and artists during this time. Releasing Get Beached VR in 2018. I closed InkBit in 2020 when the pandemic started to focus on family and work at AUT. During the move back to Japan I started a new company Howling Man Games and made the prototype and pitch for Kabuki Pinball. I was not able to secure funding for the game so decided to move more into the industry to gain more experience along the way. My time off is spent exploring Japan with my wife and three kids.