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Personal ProjectThe Fog

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Personal ProjectTerraforming Outpost

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Personal ProjectSakura Crossing

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Fairytale FightsForest Kingdom

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Fairytale FightsThree Bears Inn

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Fairytale FightsFairytale Village

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Fairytale FightsThe Candy Castle

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Fairytale FightsCanon Ball Bay

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Fairytale FightsDeep Freeze Inn

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Fairytale FightsThe Waterbook Falls

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Personal ProjectRagnaz Marsh

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Personal ProjectVorlon Planetkiller

Who I am and what I do

  • Labeled at birth as: Marco Fritzsche
  • Gender: Male
  • Years spent on this earth: 39
  • I come from a place called: Amtsberg, Germany
  • Let me work for you and I'll be a: Lighting Artist / Level Artist / Level Designer
  • Languages I know about: German, English, some Dutch and a few bits of French
  • I'm known to be: a video game aficionado, music addict, devourer of cereal and biking enthusiast
Marco

The year was 1996

when I stumbled across the very first Unreal Editor. I taught myself how to use it and dedicated "a lot" of time to my new-found hobby. I published maps for various games, joined several modding projects and ultimately, won the second Make Something Unreal Contest.

Eventually, Epic Games granted me my first glimpse into the games industry. Working with the very people who sparked my interest in the digital arts was a dream come true. And it made one thing very clear: it's what I want to do for a living, no matter what. And so a short-lived career in economics came to an untimely end (I spent most of my time drafting layouts during lessons anyway).

Today, I do specialize in the design, decoration, optimization, and especially the illumination and visual presentation of levels. Working with fellow video game enthusiasts, filling digital worlds with life, it still is my favorite hobby to this very day!

Professional Work

Toxikk - Reakktor Studios

  • Classic arena FPS developed by Reakktor Studios as an early access title
  • Successfully released in September 2016 as a PC exclusive
  • Primary Level Artist, Level Designer and Lighting Artist of the team, built a majority of the levels
  • Improved lighting, collision, and performance for almost all levels, created assets & textures
  • Responsible for polishing, fixing/rebuilding of outsourced levels
  • www.toxikk.com / Release trailer

Fairytale Fights - Playlogic GamesFactory

  • Hack & slash, action-adventure game for up to four players, shipped in fall 2009 for PS3 & Xbox 360
  • Features a vivid, cartoonish, clay-like visual style and a world that is, figuratively and quite literally, based on classic storybooks
  • Winner of Best Visual Design at the 2010 Dutch Games Awards
  • Primary roles: Level & Lighting Artist, and occasionally Level Designer for multiplayer content
  • Worked closely with the art director to develop the visual style, created multiple prototype levels, developed global rules/setups
  • Later promoted to Lead Technical Artist, coordinating, level & cutscene decoration, lighting, optimization and review builds
  • Guided & trained junior level artists and internship students
  • Additionally worked on Fairytale Fights' three DLC packages, two unannounced arcade games and Fairytale Fights 2
  • Overview of my contributions to various Playlogic projects here and here

Unreal Tournament 2004 Editors Choice Edition - Epic Games

  • Roles: Level Designer, Level Artist, Environment Artist, Texture Artist and QA tester
  • Created a level for the team based Onslaught game mode for up to 16 players
  • Featuring a number of all new vehicles introduced through this special edition of the game
  • I created a unique environment with almost entirely custom made assets

Personal Projects

Levels

  • Built many levels for Unreal Development Kit & Unreal Tournament 3, currently working with Unreal Engine 4
  • Built many levels for Unreal / Unreal Tournament / Unreal Tournament 2003 / 2004, click here or here if you want/need to see some of my earliest works
  • Founding member of the Community Bonus Packs for the Unreal Tournament series, officially endorsed and promoted by Epic Games
  • Make Something Unreal Contest: Won 1st place & 4th place, finalist in all three rounds and both level categories
  • Did some minor work in inofficial Borderlands Editor, CryEngine Sandboxes, Source Engine, Unity Engine and a few others

Miscellaneous

I do like a good challenge, especially when there's a creative aspect involved. To gain new perspectives and perhaps even discover skills otherwise ignored/overlooked. Pretty much how I ended up doing things such as web design or advertisement. See the examples below if you want to know more.

Example #1 Example #2 Example #3 Example #4

Resume Curriculum Vitae

Personal detailsPDF

Name Marco Fritzsche
Gender Male
Date of birth November 18th, 1980
Nationality German
Occupation Level Artist / Lighting Artist / Level Designer
Portfolio www.marco-fritzsche.com
Email

Education

2003 - 2007 Economics studies @ TU Chemnitz, Germany
1987 - 2000 Abitur (high-school diploma) @ Gymnasium Einsiedel, Germany

Languages

German Native language
English able to communicate fluently
Dutch basic understanding
French very basic knowledge

Software experience

Highly experienced in all Unreal Engines, 20+ years of practical experience
Very Experienced in Unreal Engine 4
Very experienced in Autodesk Maya
Experienced in Autodesk 3ds Max and Blender
Experienced in Autodesk Mudbox
Experienced in CryEngine, Unity, Source Engine, and other engines
Experienced in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver, Filterforge, Crazybump, NDo2, NJob and others
Experienced in 3D terrain creation software such as Terragen, TerreSculptor, L3DT and WorldMachine
Experienced Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others
Experienced working with software for bug-tracking
Experienced in development software for Sony and Microsoft consoles
Experienced in video and audio editing software

Qualifications

Excellent team player with strong communication skills
Ability to create & follow design rules, to finish and polish work
Ability to quickly and independently familiarize with new software and techniques
Ability to understand gameplay elements necessary to create enjoyable and fun to play levels
Ability to guide and train junior artist/internship students
Creating levels from scratch, based on existing architecture, own ideas, concept art and according to art direction
Creating levels with both compelling gameplay and visuals, for multiplayer as well as singleplayer games
Creating own assets and textures for levels, experienced in both low and high poly modeling
Creating lighting setups, guides, and documentation for many different environments

Work history

August 2014 - January 2017
  • Lighting Artist / Level Artist / Level Designer / Environment Artist / Texture Artist @ Reakktor Studios, Germany
  • Titles: Toxikk, unreleased Toxikk Expansion Pack
  • Worked closely with the producer & art director to create, light, tweak and polish levels
  • Responsible for outsourced level adjustments & polish
  • Other responsibilities included performance optimization, collision improvement, asset creation, QA testing, bug fixing
  • Created a majority of the games' levels
December 2007 - September 2010
  • Level Artist / Lighting Artist / Level Designer / Lead Technical Artist @ Playlogic Game Factory, Netherlands
  • Titles: Fairytale Fights, Fairytale Fights DLC, Fairytale Fights 2 (PS3 / Xbox360), Fairytale Arcade Games
  • Worked closely with the art director to develop the visual style, created multiple prototype levels, developed global rules/setups
  • Guided & trained junior level artists and internship students
  • Created global rules & lighting setups for a majority of levels & cutscenes
  • Other responsibilities include: cutscene decoration & lighting, weekly review builds, collision & performance optimizations, outsourced level improvements
June 2004 - September 2004
  • Level Designer / Level Artist / Lighting Artist / Environment Artist / Texture Artist @ Epic Games
  • Title: Unreal Tournament 2004 Editors Choice Edition (ECE)
  • Designed & built a team based multiplayer level from scratch
  • Visually unique environment with almost entirely custom made assets

Personal history

2016 - today Primarily working with Unreal Engine 4
2008 - 2018 Various levels for Unreal Development Kit / Unreal Tournament 3, working with CryEngine, Unity, Borderlands Editor and others
2007 - 2008 Level Designer / Level Artist / Environment Artist / Texture Artist / QA for Community Bonus Pack (CBP3)
2005 - 2006 Level Designer / Level Artist / Environment Artist / Texture Artist / QA for Community Bonus Pack (CBP2)
2004 - 2007 Various multiplayer levels for Unreal Tournament 2004 / modding work
2003 - 2004 Level Designer / Level Artist / Environment Artist / Texture Artist / QA for Community Bonus Pack (CBP1)
2002 - 2004 Various multiplayer levels for Unreal Tournament 2003 / modding work
1999 - 2002 Various multiplayer levels for Unreal Tournament / modding work
1996 - 1999 First level design attempts with the release of Unreal©

Awards

Fairytale Fights winner at 2010 Dutch Game Awards for "Best Visual and Best Audio Design"
 
Make Something Unreal Contest :
Phase 3: DM-CBP2-Drakonis won 4th place in "Best Level Using Custom Content"
Phase 2: DM-CBP-Arkanos won 1st place "Best Level Using Custom Content" and Honorable Mention in "Best Level"
Phase 1: DM-Tree-of-Ages was Honorable Mention in both "Best Level Using Custom Content" and "Best Level" categories
 
Community Bonus Packs for UT2003, UT2004 and UT3 were officially featured & in-game advertised by Epic Games
Received multiple awards from the most well-known review sites such as NaliCity, Insite, Mapraider, and others
Received several "CliffyB Ownage" awards for my UT2004 levels from former Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski

Miscellaneous

December 2013 - Today
  • S&F Maschinen- und Werkzeugbau GmbH, Chemnitz, Germany
  • Advertisement / Promotion / Web Design / IT Service
  • Created promotional flyers & airbrush designs in cooperation with the client
  • Designed / updated / maintained the company website
2001 - 2002 Military service in Regensburg, Germany
Experience in HTML / CSS / Javascript for personal & commercial website creation
Experience in creating advertisment graphics & promotional material