THE SIMS 4
Maxis Studios, Electronic Arts
June 2022 - Present
ENCHANTED BY NATURE
The Sims 4: Enchanted by Nature is the 19th expansion pack for The Sims 4. It released in July of 2025 on Windows, MacOS, PS4, PS5, and XB1. This expansion pack focused on all things nature and fae. Fairies and gnomes, nature and magic, are some of the things that make up the core of this expansion pack. This includes a new type of Occult Sim, fairies.
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I was the gameplay engineering feature owner on this expansion pack for the new Create-A-Sim (CAS) features, including creating fairy Sims. I was also the gameplay engineering feature owner for the new Balance System, which expanded on Sim needs. Much of the CAS functionality is in C++, so I spent much of these pack developing my C++ skills. New CAS UI was written in AS3. Like in other packs, the Balance System required new behavior and new tuning fields to be used by the design team, both of which were written in Python. This system also required new UI written in AS3. During this time, I also helped fill out our A/B testing system to assist with designer's choosing tuning values. This was done for the Balance System, but will be generally applicable in other cases moving forward. That work was written in Python.
LOVESTRUCK
The Sims 4: Lovestruck is the 16th expansion pack for The Sims 4. It released in July of 2024 on Windows, MacOS, PS4, PS5, and XB1. This expansion pack was primarily concerned with romance. It introduced new ways for Sims to meet and date, new relationship types, and new objects related to romance, among other romance-themed additions to enhance the dating experience.
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On this expansion pack, I was the gameplay engineering feature owner for the core dating gameplay, autonomy (NPC AI behavior) updates, and the new romantic blanket object. These features constituted a key part of this pack, and I was thoroughly involved in the technical design and implementation of core pack features. New behavior and tuning fields to be used by the design team were written in Python, and new UI was written in AS3. The autonomy updates feature also gave me the opportunity to dig into our NPC AI code, which is in Python. The romantic blanket object required new animations and updates to our animation Python code to handle them, so I was in frequent communication with the animation team as well for the duration of this expansion pack.
HORSE RANCH
The Sims 4: Horse Ranch is the 14th expansion pack for The Sims 4. It released in July of 2023 on Windows, MacOS, PS4, PS5, and XB1. This expansion pack dealt with new ranch related features and a new Sim species, horses, which was the source of the bulk of the technical work.
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As a gameplay engineer, much of my time was spent on the technical implementation of horse and horse-related features. I was the gameplay engineering feature owner for the horse buying and selling flow and for horse specific portal (doors, gates, etc) behavior. These features required work in Python to implement new behavior and to create new tuning fields to be used by the design team. They also required new UI written in AS3.
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I was also involved in bug fixing horse bugs as related to our animation and pathfinding systems. While I was not the feature owner for these systems, these bug fixed still constituted a meaningful part of my contributions to this expansion pack.
