Hey there!
I’m Jayhant (though most call me Jay) and I’m a game designer on Rare’s next IP Everwild where I focus on creating systems and content for emergent play. You might also be here for the fantasy setting and total-conversion mod I created: Anbennar!
If you’d like to know more details about my portfolio or Anbennar, have a look at the links above, else if you want to read a little about how I got started in games and what interests me then keep reading!
I got my start through modding games like Warcraft 3 and Neverwinter Nights, which led me to study Game Design & Production Management at Abertay up in Scotland. The rest is pretty much history. To this day modding is still very important to me, and this Anbennar thing you’ll hear me talk about is the culmination of that.
Modding taught me this “embrace the constraints” mentality which has since formed the foundation of my thinking as a game developer – to me, finding creating solutions within something that is quite restrictive is always an exciting challenge. Modding also showed me the part of game development that I find the most rewarding: sharing and engaging with the people that play your game!
For me, seeing players immersed and passionate about something you’ve made is what it’s all about.
I love writing and worldbuilding. I love creating stories that people can theorize and get passionate about, and I love creating coherent and believable worlds where those stories can flourish. To me, relying on the suspension of disbelief to carry your story should be done sparingly, and instead creating a world that is consistent and detailed enough to make sense and cover its own bases is very important. (Yes, that means not charging your cavalry head-first into a horde of zombies alone with no support!)
Anbennar is a combination of my passions in writing and game development, and is both a fantasy setting I created and name for the total conversion mod I made for Europa Universalis IV. Nowadays I spend my evenings leading the modding project and collaborating with others to further the setting. If you’d like to hear more about the mod, its accolades and what its all about I highly recommend checking out the Anbennar section of this site.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you and I appreciate it.
Feel free to stick around and peruse the rest of the site!
-Jay
tldr; has modding background, loves systemic and holistic design, into writing and worldbuilding, made this setting and total conversion mod called Anbennar which he thinks is pretty cool