Head Count: Dave Halsted
James Arbaje
02 / 05 / 18
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Dave Halsted is a long-time member of the Human Head family and one of our lead level designers. As a kid, he and his brother Ted played a wide array of games on classic systems like the Atari 2600, Amiga, and the NES. Dave was captivated by the worlds those games inhabited, and began thinking about their design from an early age. He applied that curiosity to learning different skills such as animation, 3D modeling, and programming, which gave him a great wealth of knowledge for developing games. After almost 20 years at Human Head, Dave has experienced a long list of exciting projects and various challenges. His favorite thing about the studio is the supportive culture that continually allows people to flourish and try new things. Currently, Dave is designing the apocalyptic Norse world of Rune: Ragnarok.
Advice for Level Designers:
“Go out and study nature, try to find what feels interesting. Don’t feel like you have to cram a bunch of stuff into every square inch of a level. Make your statements where and when you want to make them. It’s also important to get a good mix of large, medium, and small scale shapes in most views, which helps the player believe what they’re seeing.”
Three Games that Everyone Should Play:
