Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Amaze Entertainment/Electronic Arts) was the second Harry Potter title produced at Amaze, and the first I was involved in from the ground up. I had arrived as a level designer the year previous to help finish Chamber of Secrets. One of my biggest contributions was to convince the studio management (and EA) to upgrade to the newest build of Epic's Unreal Engine (v3, or "Unreal Warfare" as it was called when it was still the embryonic version of Gears of War). This allowed us to take advantage of technology I'd been using on Splinter Cell, such as static meshes, organic terrain, mesh emitters and upgraded logic systems.

My responsibilities for PoA were to recreate environments directly from the movie set plans, including the grounds of Hogwarts and the Dark Tower were Sirius Black is held. I was also responsible for gameplay levels such as the Expecto Patronum lesson, boss battles and the racing minigame and track that we used for Care of Magical Creatures. I also designed many levels and gameplay mechanics that never made it into the final game, such as a Diagon Alley map and a Quidditch race.

In addition to level design I created game mechanics for special encounters and spells, as well as assisted the Cinematics team with environments and direction for in-game sequences. Of all the games I can tell people I worked on, HP:POA is still the one that has the most excited fans!