Testimonials

Don’t just take my word for it! Check out these recommendations from my colleagues.

Testimonials
As Brand Representative at Microsoft
See Age of Empires Age of Empires

“Sam is not only one of my favorite people, but he’s an absolutely *phenomenal* developer! He is one of those people whose mere presence at a studio is indicative of the quality it’s creating and the passion of the team. Simply put, it’s because he’s an absolute master of his craft: the type of person who brings passion, creativity, and meaning to your work!

I had the pleasure of working closely with Sam at World’s Edge, where we collaborated to build a community web space for a global audience. He is absolutely brilliant teammate to have in your corner—someone you’re excited to chat with every single day! He radiates with a deep understanding of his audience and what makes for a truly accessible and enjoyable user experience. He brings ideas and enthusiasm to the table while actively inviting others to do the same in the search for the best solution. And he is communicative and collaborative: ensuring that the result matches (and exceeds) the vision of the team.

And when it comes to a result, he is quick, communicative, and a master of his craft. I LOVE working with someone you can trust to capture the vision, who asks questions when clarity is needed, who is open to iteration and improvement as inspiration strikes, and who can truly elevate an idea to its highest form. That’s Sam, and that’s why Sam is amazing!

All that said: Sam would be a selling point for me to join ANY organization he’s a part of, and I would highly recommend him for any team looking to build a meaningful experience for their audience in literally any setting.”

As Web Engineer at Microsoft
See Age of Empires Age of Empires

“Sam is the rarest of double (possibly triple) threats: a graphic designer of immense skill who also has the ability to step into code. At World’s Edge he had great impact throughout the entire studio, not just our web team of which he was nominally part of (and we have the studio merch to prove it!).

Even today, you can’t look at a piece of our branding, iconography, animation (I could go on…) that doesn’t have Sam’s stamp on it. He was always able to read both our game audience and our studio’s needs and come up with solutions that gave us the best of all possible options.

A true pleasure to work with and a font of ideas and inspiration; I would be thrilled with the opportunity to work with him again (and I hope I get that chance)!”

As Video Editor at Microsoft
See Age of Empires Age of Empires

“I worked with Sam in designs and ensuring brand continuity at World’s Edge for Age of Empires. I edit trailers, which also include many graphical assets and motion graphics. I learned a great deal from Sam in creating my own templates and making sure things were how they are supposed to be. If anything looked off he had a keen eye to see it and help me fix it. It’s that attention to detail that I admire and appreciate. I would go to him often to get feedback and bounce ideas around. He always made the job feel more creative and fun. Definitely lost a massive resource when he was let go from Microsoft. Whoever is lucky enough to have him next is going to benefit big time!”

As Community Manager at Forgotten Empires
See Age of Empires Age of Empires

“I worked with Sam across a variety of different projects and can very safely say none of these projects would have been as successful without his skill, perspective and attention to detail.

The level of quality he holds himself to is immediately apparent the moment you’re introduced to a project he had a hand in. More so, I walked away from every conversation and interaction with him smiling.

I couldn’t recommend Sam enough.”

As CEO at Lifeform Entertainment
See LegendSmith LegendSmith

“From the beginning, Sam has been the force behind the UI design and implementation for virtually every app and web site Lifeform has touched. It’s been a pleasure working with him, and I would easily recommend him as an asset to any team.

Sam’s skill set is a unique mix of both art and coding. He can readily work across Apps, Games, and Web, is a true self-starter, and is an insightful contributor when it comes to multi-disciplinary design teamwork. Professionally, he continues to grow–and I’ve come to trust his eye for design sense, functionality, and quality. If Sam says something is “OK”–then it generally is.

As a small example, I reference Lifeform’s LegendSmith App–which is entirely Sam’s creation and under his oversight. Even after 5 years, the App continues to be the #1 companion for League of Legends players. It is polished, frequently updated, and just perfect. We’re at a million downloads and over 900 play hours a day…

All Sam’s doing–I highly recommend working with him.”

As Owner and Lead Developer at Ravenna

“Sam is a great designer and artist. He has a strong attention to detail focus on a quality work.

Sam has performed both design and development projects for me and I have been completely happy with the result. He goes above and beyond to finish projects inside of estimated time and budget constraints.

I’d recommend Sam to anyone needing design, especially in the game industry.”

As Lead: Web & Visual Services at ArenaNet

“I worked with Sam for several years at ArenaNet and enjoyed every minute of it. Not only did Sam handle the day to day business of keeping the website updated but he was my go-to-guy for all things Flash related. He was a wizard with actionscript.

He was frequently hit with last minute changes but it never fazed him. He just dug into it and a few hours later I’d have the changes I needed.

Sam is someone I’d always welcome on my team.”

As Full Stack Engineer at ArenaNet

“I had the pleasure of working with Sam for about two years. Sam is one of the best front-end web developers I’ve worked with. He had a great enthusiasm for pushing design and functionality on our web projects. He was amazingly reliable and worked hard to make sure our sites looked great and that they were up to date.”

As Studios Producer at Avanade

“Sam is an amazing artist and a skilled developer. He delivers projects on time with zero errors. He is truly a pleasure to work with.”

Product Reviews

See what happy players have said about my work too!

  • Lollipopofdarkness

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Has all the info I wanted. All I wanted was a LoL description of champs and their abilities / weaknesses so that I can quickly learn how to counter them. It also gives you a basic idea of what they’ll build. It’s a fine app if you feel like you have no idea what you’re up against and want quick answers in game.

  • Delphwind24

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Perfect This app will give you the info and basic tools you need to get you going in an otherwise difficult game for new players to break into. HIGHLY suggested.

  • NArTeRbUrN

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Fantastic This app far exceeded my expectations! it does everything I wanted, plus so much more! From the counter picking, to the matchups, to the champion builds, this app really has it all! I’m amazed that it hasn’t gotten better reviews. if you play league of legends, you should have this app!

  • Joaquin Cuisia

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Wow it was amazing I was able to beat someone 1v1 because of this app loved it 🙂

  • TheDoctor2426

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Best app 10/10 This app here has it all man. You can make builds on any champion including their abilities, runes and masteries. Then you can compare it to other builds, or just save it for later. But my favorite feature has to be the Draft Pick app, you can see what your team’s odds are of winning, and it has yet to be wrong. Of course it has the counter app as well which is also right all the time. Recently, however, they made a new thing which tracks trends in LOL such as, winning/losing streaks, most picked champions, and most banned champions. I love it. What I’m trying to say is, it’s gr8 m8 I r8 8/8!

  • Jason Young

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    As advertised A solid champ builder, updated more regularly than most. Counter/matchups are not bad, I’ve never found a site I wholeheartedly agree with though.

  • Alisha Dodson

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Great LoL app I really appreciate the work they put into this app to help LoL players with many different things while game is loading, during game, and even offline. Awesome app.

  • Christ Sarit

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Cool app Tnx for the tips love it Im getting more kills now

  • Mad genetica

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    SUPER helpful This helps me organize my builds so that I don’t forget them and its a lot better than just writing them down because you can see what your talking about and you can simulate your build and improve it without having to start a whole gmae

  • Jacob Norton

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Great app Solid app overall. It gives you all champion skills, all items, burst output based on items and champion level, I cannot tell you enough great things about what this app actually has and allows you to do

  • Kodalic

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Thank you! I’ve been trying out all the things you can do on this and loving it. Really well put together and easy to use. Best league of legends app out there thank you!!

  • Heath Harney

    LegendSmith
    Review of LegendSmith

    Uninstall all other LoL builder apps! THE ABSOLUTELY BEST LEAGUE OF LEGENDS APP MADE! HANDS DOWN! Easy to pick up and TONS of options. All the information you will ever need about LoL on your mobile. Theory craft your favorite champs and learn the most optimal builds! Uninstall any other builders you have because this beats them all!

  • Cameron Dunlap

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    This is perhaps the best LD game I’ve ever played. The game is cohesive, and fits the theme very well. I think the graphics and the audio are perfect, and it gave me a few laughs. The game could definitely become something greater if work was continued past LD41.

  • Judy Kim

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    I didn’t actually get to play the game since I don’t have a PC. But the cover image was so intriguing I had to watch the demo, which in turn was so cute I had to give good ratings anyway 🙂 The whole texting thing makes me so happy and the main character’s design and animation is so perfect! It seems like a really well-made game for a jam and I wish I could’ve actually played it.

  • FormalCloud

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    This is an excellent entry all around, visually, genre-merging, and the controls feel really good. The music and the setting is done great! Your team did a wonderful job, congratulations!

  • Tutti Ankka

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Very polished entry! Gameplay feels great, graphics are great. Idea was also very funny! =)

  • ImDivingDeep

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Definitely one of the best games I’ve seen so far, it was so much fun to play! Absolutely love the artstyle and it feels very smooth to play. Reminded me a bit of broforce in terms of gameplay. Great music as well. Really loved playing this!

  • JCMonkey

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    you got a nice game here, i love the art. nice job!!

  • Aim

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Wow! This is just hands down, the best game I’ve played from LD41. I absolutely love the creative use of the theme. This is the type of happy surprise when you combine two incompatible genres and actually come up with something that isn’t just superficially challenging because of a mish-mash of incompatible genres, but it’’s challenging in a fresh way because secretly, the two genres do work together if done right, like your talented team has shown here. Great art, great sound design, great animation, great coding! Feels so tight! Great writing! Omg I love it!

  • meskaline

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Good job guys. Awesome music. heart Good graphics. Pretty challenging at times.

  • riordan

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    This is a very interesting and fun game to play. The graphics and the music are so good. I most especially enjoyed the music for the first level which I think fit the game very well.

    The dating sim aspect of the game was an amusing addition; though, it didn’t quite feel to give some important impact aside from the flirting element. Still, it did give the game an adorable romantic side, much like how the James Bond films showed it.

    All in all, it’s a fun and amusing game. Really good job on this one!

  • Honest Dan

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Very polished game, visually, music and felt really good to play – tight controls. Good humour and genuinely enjoyable to play. The dating thing became more of way to regain health and distract, I guess it would have been nicer to have more influence on the dating side of things, for example – your responses lead to different endings when you get to meet you girlfriend. Really impressive overall!

  • Gonz0

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    10/10 , what a brilliant game, super fun to play. really enjoyed that.Music , art , controls everything is brilliant ,well done!

  • GiovanniBarrottu

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Really good polish! The music and audio design are really well done, the game feel is great, the mechanics all work well, animation is done well, good all around.

    Would’ve liked to see the text messages repeat less often, and it felt kind of easy to find a safe spot to send them, but those are small problems. Great game!

  • Cassio Eduardo

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    This is a very polished game with great art, music and smooth gameplay. Fantastic presentation all around, congrats to everyone involved. I think other people have said enough about the good stuff.

    I think neither side of the gameplay (action and texting) are doing very much though. The enemies could do more than stand and shoot, there is no ammo or hidden weapons and very little urgency. The texting aspect was very simple and didn’t do much to affect the action/platforming or the ending (there could’ve been interrogation sections where a text would affect outcome, or something like that). It feels more like you are answering random questions than playing a dating sim with consequences.

    Sorry for the long criticism, but only singing praises doesn’t help anyone. Still a very impressive game with satisfying shooting/movement. Great job.

  • csanyk

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    I loved the presentation, this is super well polished… only, I can’t get the cell phone to register my keystrokes most of the time. It’s hit or miss and mostly miss. So I can’t get very far with my SO. You’ll have to look into that. Otherwise, the platforming and action is really good!

    One suggestion, when you bring up the pause menu, you should recap the controls for the player. Showing them only at the beginning of the game is nice, but there’s a lot to remember, and being able to bring it up in the pause menu and refresh myself would have been appreciated.

    Graphics, sound, and gameplay are excellent, the cellphone input issue notwithstanding.

  • Shape

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    The perfect game doesn’t exi…
    No, seriously, this game is a 5 star in each category. Whoever came with this idea was a genius! The music was perfect and the graphics amazing. Everything is working so fine and the controls are excelent. The gameplay is extremely satisfying and rewarding and even the way you approached the theme was very creative and unique. Congrats for this masterpiece!

  • Jupiter Hadley

    00Boyfriend
    Review of 00Boyfriend

    Nice graphics great idea! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. 🙂

  • Official Judge Review

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    I AM MEOWLNIR SLAYER OF JOTUNS. Absolutely fun game and a well made prototype which runs overall quite smooth in the browser until the whole jotun population shows up, then it gets laggy. The GDD is well written and acts as a great base for the games development. The skills feel powerful and mighty as they should, the sound and music is amazing and has the correct energy for this kind of game. The only thing you might want to look into is the balancing between the enemies and the player, I was on my first play pretty much unbeatable from the beginning, I could run into all the enemies without really taking damage, running through hordes of enemies with some life leech was enough to keep me topped of. A way to see the upgrades the player has would be great as well like on the side of the screen maybe. I had a lot of fun playing this, thank you and keep the fun work up.

  • bake12345678

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Very fun vampire survivor clone, like the theme, very addictive levelling and abilities , the regen might need a bit of tweaking as I was literately doing the sword art online episode where the enemies were doing less damage than I was healing 😀

  • Lazy Bear Studios

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Awesome game! Made it to level 10. Love the music and effects.

  • Kodachi Games

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Damn I’m surprised that worked as well as it did on the browser XD. Reached like wave 27 and had to kill myself against the walls because nothing happened. Very fun and polished, congrats!

  • Yonker

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    This game is pure insanity. I love the movement and the feel of hitting so many enemies. Only issue was my eardrum almost burst once I got a few upgrades xd
    Overall great job

  • Kyklop Karsten

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    What a lovely horde game, wish I could see my stats somewhere though

    Also really loved that you support as many controlschemes as you do (one without arrowkeys here)

  • Miyabell

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    We played it with our friends over Discord yesterday and we had super fun 🙂 Got us a while to realize you have to follow crows to find Thor. Also we managed to lag the game, but thankfully we survived due to armour and life steal upgrades 😀

    Amazing VFX, beam ability was super satisfying and cool.

  • Ryan

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    this game is really addictive and satisfying! the impacts as you hit the enemies feel great, and the bifrost beam sounds AMAZING. i found the different rarities to the upgrades satisfying as well

    at first it wasn’t clear to me whether was supposed to use the cat foot or try to avoid it, but i figured it out pretty quickly! eventually, the gameplay loop got a bit repetitive, as the life steal percentage effectively made it impossible to die.

    Very polished overall, and well-executed. Solid jam submission, good work!

  • Techy Cat

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    So I got to wave 24 and than the game crashed. On my second play through, I ran straight to the end as I kind-a had the maze memorized. Great game really enjoyed!

  • Eisenwalde

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Vampire Survivors on crack. Gotta try it at least once haha

  • Roku

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Really fun game! A lot of enemy and fast action! Love it! Meow!

  • jSpeak

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    It took me way to long to realize I was supposed to be exploring, but I really like the concept of exploration in a vampire survivors style games. I think there’s a lot of potential here.

    I think the balance probably needs a little tweaking, you probably level too fast early on and you get a little too powerful too quickly.

    Overall, really fun game! Nice work.

  • Matt Ravenhall

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    This game brings a lot of energy, but I never really felt threatened by the enemies. The objective of finding Thor added a nice goal to seek out. Nice job!

  • moonshews

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Really enjoyed the vampire survivors aspect of it and fun choice of aesthetic and weapon powers.

  • Mélanie Thorpe

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Good game and fits the theme nicely. Personally I would enjoy a little bit more difficulty to it as I found after a few power-ups I felt pretty invincible. But good game overall, great job! 🙂

  • Worgen Cub Clubbing Club

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Really nice Survivors-like with a fun theme! Great feeling power-ups and well polished, fantastic job!

  • cileth

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Nice job! The UI/Icons etc is fantastic. The gameplay, while a bit unbalanced, is quite fun. It’s awesome to ram through hordes of enemies while shooting out lightning and lasers. Took a bit, but I did manage to find Thor in the maze, think I was up to wave 15 or so.

  • Naizy

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Cool ideas! I think the player is a bit overpowered but the experience is very cool! Also the assets and animations are great, love the icons for the upgrades!

  • pythagos

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Lifesteal TOO STRONG, but oh boy was this game fun! Also I don’t think the game expected us to hit wave 24 hahaha

  • ColossalCanoe

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    I think you really made something special here! The only issue I had was by the end of the game the sound effects were so loud and overwhelming lol

  • Laura

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    crashed at level 14 / wave 23. The rainbow effect is cute! love the simplicity of it.

  • Romeliano

    Meowlnir
    Review of Meowlnir

    Too fun bro!