Tien Tam

Game Designer | XR & Rapid Prototyping

Portland OR

Tienminhtam@gmail.com

LinkedIn

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PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Game designer with over 15 years of experience across live-service, AAA and mobile titles. Designed progression, live event, and cross-platform social systems for Echo VR on Meta Quest, including the reward infrastructure behind its Battle Pass and the one-day Super Ultra Hyper Turbo event players still ask about. Managed large environment art teams across multiple AAA games at Liquid Development. Took Ultimate Chef from concept to launch at Glu Mobile and shipped live content on a fixed bimonthly cadence at Zynga.

Works across design, art, and engineering. Most recently ran rapid prototyping for Nike's Tech Innovation Office, delivering spatial interaction design on Apple Vision Pro and consumer AR at launch scale. Writes the design doc, establishes the core loop with programmers, then builds and iterates on gameplay, UI, and art. Comfortable moving fast with small cross-functional teams and changing direction based on playtest feedback and design direction.

SHIPPED TITLES

• Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (2025) — Liquid Development · Environment art production during early development.

• Metroid Prime Remastered (2023) — Liquid Development · Project management, environment art production.

• Dead Space (2023) — Liquid Development · Project management, environment art production.

• Halo Infinite (2021) — Liquid Development · Lead level artist, Aquarius multiplayer map.

• Echo VR, Meta Quest (2020) — Ready At Dawn · Game Designer: live events, progression, cross-platform social systems.

• Doom Eternal (2020) — Liquid Development · Project management, weapon and character skins.

• Firewall Zero Hour (2018) — Liquid Development · Environment art, PSVR multiplayer levels.

• Ultimate Chef (2017) — Glu Mobile · Game Designer: core systems, concept to launch.

• Castleville Legends (2013) — Zynga · Game Designer: live content, events, and quests.

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

XR & EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN

  • Spatial Interaction Design — Apple Vision Pro (Nike). Designed and built a spatial footwear browsing experience, defining the product wall layout, scale, and interaction model. Owned E2E development: concept visualization, all 3D assets and optimization, and Unity implementation delivered through a Unity-to-Swift pipeline for on-device review.

  • Real-Time AR Assets — Nike Athlete Presentations (LeBron James, Naomi Osaka). Built 4 full on-court uniforms and 3 complete head-to-toe looks including footwear, modeled and textured to match the real physical apparel 1:1 at texel densities that held up in real-time AR. Final work was presented directly to the athletes for approval.

  • Consumer AR at Launch Scale — Pegasus 40 (Nike). Shipped a consumer-facing AR product experience in Snapchat Lens Studio for the Pegasus 40 launch, with 3D assets optimized to hold visual fidelity inside mobile performance budgets. Owned E2E from concept, 3D assets, to in app setup/scripting.

  • Rapid Prototyping & Iteration — Nike Tech Innovation Office. Ran the prototyping loop for an internal innovation team, taking concepts to playable 3D, AR, and VR builds in short timelines so stakeholders interact with a real demo instead of a pitch deck, then killing or evolving each concept based on direct testing.

GAME DESIGN

  • Cross-Platform Social Design — Echo VR (Meta Quest). Designed how players interacted across platforms during the Quest port: how Quest and Rift players shared a single lobby, and how Quest players coexisted with Echo Combat players on a title that was not available on their hardware. Asymmetric feature availability across platforms is a design problem that needs to be solved before it becomes an engineering one.

  • Live Events & Player Progression — Echo VR. Designed live event and reward infrastructure for a social VR title. Timed events surfaced as dynamic billboards across the shared lobby, and stat tracking rewarded players with cosmetic customization based on progress. That reward infrastructure became the foundation for the game's Battle Pass.

  • Concept to Launch — Ultimate Chef (Glu Mobile). A new genre for the studio, built from the ground up. Blocked out the game board and worked with the lead programmer to implement the store, dish-crafting, and quest systems, then iterated the core loop through to launch.

  • Environment Art Pipeline — Halo Infinite (Aquarius). Lead level artist on a competitive multiplayer map, building environment art and points of interest against 343's gameplay blockout. Built reusable modular components and trimsheet textures, working within the play space so environment art never compromised sightlines or readability.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Design: Multiplayer and social systems, live events and progression, economy and quest systems, level blockout to ship, rapid prototyping, playtest-driven iteration

• Engines & Code: Unity (C#), Unreal Engine (Blueprint), Godot.

• Content Tools: Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Photoshop, Figma, VS Code.

• Platforms: Meta Quest, Apple Vision Pro, PC, mobile

• Production & Collaboration: Jira, Atlassian, ShotGrid, Monday.com, Cursor.

• Portfolio: tientam.com/prototypes — playable prototypes and game jam projects, with video.

CAREER HISTORY

Nike — Full Stack Engineer

WHQ Beaverton, OR | Apr 2024 – May 2026

  • Led frontend delivery for production business applications, shipping 13 releases across 10 months.

  • Built production analytics and observability from scratch; the resulting behavior data was surfaced to leadership and shaped product decisions.

  • Ran a small cross-functional team through planning, deployments, and release calls.

Nike — Senior 3D Innovation Engineer

WHQ Beaverton, OR | Jun 2022 – Apr 2024

  • Led small development teams across concurrent 3D, AR, and VR prototypes for Nike's Tech Innovation Office, killing or evolving each concept based on direct testing rather than review cycles.

  • Developed and optimized real-time content pipelines, including Unity-to-native handoff, mobile AR asset optimization, and USDz packaging for device-ready visualization.

  • Translated broad creative goals into interactive prototypes and technical requirements alongside designers, engineers, and marketing partners.

Liquid Development — Senior Game Developer / Project Manager

Portland, OR | 2020 – 2022

  • Lead level artist on Halo Infinite's Aquarius multiplayer map, shaping visual composition, points of interest, and spatial readability from gameplay blockout through to ship.

  • Delivered environment content across Dead Space, Metroid Prime Remastered, and Metroid Prime 4 to Nintendo, Retro, and EA Motive quality bars.

  • Managed 10–20 artists across multiple international studios, partnering with art direction on scope, quality, and milestone execution.

Ready At Dawn — Game Designer

Portland, OR | 2019 – 2020

  • Designed live event, progression, and cross-platform social systems for Echo VR, working inside a games-as-a-service loop: ship, watch player behavior, tune, repeat.

  • Contributed to Super Ultra Hyper Turbo Edition, a one-day crossover event between Echo Arena and Echo Combat.

Liquid Development — Project Manager

Portland, OR | 2017 – 2019

  • Coordinated multidisciplinary teams across client projects, including multiplayer level content for Firewall Zero Hour on PSVR.

  • Prototyped and analyzed pipelines in Unity, Unreal, Frostbite, and proprietary engines to assess scope and feasibility.

Glu Mobile — Game Designer

Portland, OR | 2015 – 2017

  • Designed core systems for Ultimate Chef from concept to launch: game board blockout, store, dish-crafting, quest systems, and interactive UI.

Zynga — Game Designer

Eugene, OR | 2014 – 2015

  • Created story, events, quests, and supporting gameplay systems for Castleville Legends on a bimonthly live release cadence.

Vector Solutions (Convergence Training) — 3D Artist & Motion Graphics Artist

Portland, OR | 2010 – 2013

  • Created and rendered 3D environments as well as composited videos based on storyboards for training material.

Supergenius — Freelance 3D Artist

Portland, OR | 2009 – 2010

  • Created 3D props and levels for a variety of games.

Liquid Development — Freelance 3D Artist/ QA

Portland, OR | 2007 – 2008

  • Performed QA on 3D art assets.

  • Created 3D props and collision.

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Science, Game Art & Design

The Art Institute of Portland | 2005 – 2008