Mat Metzner
75B Ditchfield Road, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. EN11 9HS
metzneruni@hotmail.com
07837 982136
www.matmetzner.co.uk
Personal Statement
I am a Senior Game Designer with 7 years of industry experience and multiple published titles for global
clients and specialising in social gaming, the writing of game design documentation and rapid prototyping of
game ideas. My passion for video games came from a very early age, through the Spectrum ZX and
Commodore 64 machines I was motivated to get involved with the creative industries and learn all I could
about the subject. From then until now I have strived to master new technologies, innovate design, and work
hard to learn my craft. My academic and commercial careers have shaped me and taught me many things
about games design, design documentation and development but it is the intrinsic love of engaging and
immersive gameplay and strong narrative storytelling that keeps me motivated and excited to develop new
and original titles, whether that be for the PC, console or mobile, in educational or social markets.
Employment
Note: for employment from November 2012 to present, see the ‘freelance’ section of this CV
January 2007 – November 2012
Senior Designer and Developer
MotivatEd Ltd. – The world leader in curricular education
through sport.
Intrigued by their background in sports based flash gaming, I joined MotivatEd as a games designer and
developer in 2007. As a result of my skills gained during my MA and BSC, and my high level of sports
knowledge, I was immediately entrusted to work on several high level projects.

I designed and programmed educational flash based games for a large project with Canon and the
World Wildlife Fund. The site translated to 10 languages and was used in schools across Europe.

I worked on an in-house project; ‘Footee’. A site for 7-14 year olds consisting of football based
educational flash games which fed into an overarching football management simulation. Due to my
success on the WWF project, I was tasked to lead the design on the interface, structure, quest-writing
and navigation of the site.

Later into development I was asked to design the monetisation aspects of the site, including balancing
in-game currency to in-game rewards, pricing of virtual items, and the design of a subscription based
member service. Based on my research into the financial models of other free-to-play titles, I wrote a
document for our Managing Director detailing why a switch to a micro-transactional model would be
more beneficial to our site. Soon after we switched to this model and saw an increase in revenue.

Over the next two years, after my promotion to Senior Designer, I designed, and led a design team
over 30 educational and skill based games for the site and for mobile platforms. At its height, Footee
reached 75,000 unique monthly active users. I was made responsible for community support and
social media management, building a community on Facebook to encourage fans to communicate
and ask questions, keep them up to date with latest developments, pass feedback and bug reports to
developers, and run competitions through the site.

Following on from the success of Footee, Motivated was commissioned to produce a spinoff game for
the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. I led a team of five, project managing designers, programmers and
artists and liaising with the ICC and Sky Sports to create the most authentic game possible.

With the success of Footee, MotivatEd signed a deal with Football League Interactive to create
bespoke versions of the site for over 40 football clubs, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. I led
the design, monetisation and implementation of this process, liaising with branding, marketing and
community teams up and down the country.

On each of these projects I was entrusted with the development of the Game Design Document, and
the writing of this documentation is what I would consider my strongest skill.

During my 6 years with the company I was also proud to work with some of the biggest sporting
bodies in the world, including UEFA, FIFA, the English FA, LOCOG, the RFU and Premier Rugby, and
delivered presentations at Lords Cricket Ground, Old Trafford and the City of Manchester Stadium.
July 1998 – July 2005
Technical support and data processing assistant
Albany Radio Ltd – Independent electrical retail outlet

I provided the highest standard of customer service when delivering and installing electrical products,
and continued this high standard via on call technical support, particularly on the phone.

When a new computer system was integrated for data control I took responsibility of this, ensuring an
extremely high level of data accuracy when booking stock in and out, and creating/maintaining
customer accounts. I enjoyed using the opportunity to utilize my computer skills and attention to detail.
Freelance Work
August 2013 – Present
Freelance Digital Designer
Farm Africa
Through word of mouth from my work with BLESMA, I was contacted in August by Farm Africa, another
London based charity, and commissioned to create several banner advertisements for their upcoming
campaign ‘Give Hunger the Boot’. One banner, an animated gif used to promote the event to schools, has
been delivered and is currently running on scholastic.com
March 2013 – Present
Freelance Graphic Designer
IFM, Cambridge University
I was contacted by a lecturer at the Institute of Manufacturing at Cambridge University in early March to
design a series of covers for PhD research handbooks. At time of writing the first of these covers, a handbook
for business startups, has been delivered.
December 2012 – Present
Freelance Digital Designer
BLESMA – The national charity for limbless veterans.
Over the Christmas period I was commissioned by BLESMA, the British Limbless Ex-Servicemans
Association, to create a promotional video for their flagship cycling event ‘Soldier Ride’ to appear on their
website and social media channels. BLESMA were impressed with my quick turnaround of material and I was
commissioned several further design projects over the coming months, ranging from additional fundraising
video productions, to logo design and print advertising.
September 2006 – January 2007
Freelance Work
After graduating from the University College for the Creative Arts, I worked as a freelance designer, producing
a number of small projects and interests.

Produced flash based websites for clients including a daycare nursery and a wrestling tag team.

Put a team together for London’s Dare to Be Digital games design competition

Helped to teach an after school IT club at a local primary school, teaching the basics of Office
applications, the fundamentals of frame based animation and drawing packages.

Became a Co-Organiser for the “Sense of Play” Event for the London Games festival 2006 where
Ihad the chance to meet and pick the brains of leading industry experts such as Charles Cecil and
Patrick O'Luanaigh.
Technical Skills
Flash
I have 7 years of industry experience and 15 years’ experience overall in using Flash to create games and
applications, both to specification, and under my own design. I have a strong knowledge of Actionscript 2.0 /
3.0 and of integrating external assets such as XML, images, video and audio.
Photoshop
I have been a keen Photoshop user for 12+ years and have used it extensively and in various ways in screenbased creative projects for numerous clients. Including designing interface elements, photo editing, texture
effects, typography, logo design, batch processing and game concept mockups.
Premiere
As the most experienced user of Premiere at MotivatEd, part of my responsibilities at the company included
creating video packages, promotions, trailers and screen captured tutorial videos. I am confident in using a
variety of other video editing packages, including Final Cut Pro and Camtasia.
Other
I also have 6 years of higher education experience using Industry standard applications such as
Dreamweaver, 3D Studio Max, After Effects, Illustrator and Fireworks. I have a working level knowledge of
HTML, Javascript, XML and CSS, extensive experience in all Microsoft Office applications, am quick to pick
up new skills and software and have a good understanding of Hardware Installation and PC maintenance.
Education
September 2005 – September 2006
Surrey Institute of Art and Design
MA: Digital Games Design
Distinction, 1st in class
September 2002 – May 2005
University of Hertfordshire
BSc (Hons):
Software Systems for the Arts & Media 2:1
September 1999 – May 2001
Hertford Regional College
BTEC National Diploma:
Multimedia Design
Distinction, 1st in class
September 1995 – May 1999
John Warner School
GCSE: English, Maths, Graphic Design, IT, Italian, English Literature, PE (C or Above)
References
Testimonials can be seen on my website and references are available on request.