Toke Krainert

Lead Level Designer

Hello!

I'm Toke, a Danish lead designer with nine years of experience in AAA level design. My passions are nonlinear levels, interactive narrative, systemic gameplay, and user experience as well as leadership and product ownership. I also teach university, dabble in academia, and give talks whenever time allows. See also my portfolio at krainert.com.

Experience

Interval Title Responsibilities
Apr 2014 – present IO Interactive
Mar 2024 – present Lead & Senior Technical Designer Building Project 007's Technical Design department and leading its members. In this capacity, I emphasize a few things in particular:
  • Working with producers to assess the short- and long-term needs of the project.
  • Hiring team members with the right mindset, skills, and potential given our goals.
  • Working with team members and other departments to establish efficient workflows.
  • Working with technical stakeholders to establish best practices for our team and beyond.
  • Strategically balancing team members' development against current and future project goals to achieve short- and long-term success for the studio and designers alike.
  • Designing tools, systems, nodes, and workflows.
  • Scripting core nodes and interactions.
Jan 2023 – Feb 2024 Senior Technical Level Designer Designing tools, systems, nodes, and workflows, hiring a team of Tech Designers, supporting and educating Level and Game Designers, representing the technical needs of the Level Design department, scripting core nodes, and formulating best practices on Project 007.
Apr 2022 – Dec 2022 Senior Level Designer Track owning, supporting game management, and designing tools and systems for the level design department on Project 007.
Feb 2021 – Mar 2022 Lead & Senior Level Designer Leading a team of Level Designers on HITMAN: World of Assassination. In this capacity, I emphasized a few things:
  • Mentoring team members in the unique design of HITMAN and technical skills.
  • Ensuring a consistently high quality of content delivered within the game's direction.
  • Working with producers to assign team members to tasks based on each designer's strengths, weaknesses, and motivations.
Jan 2021 Lead Level Designer Leading a team of Level Designers on HITMAN: World of Assassination.
Apr 2014 – Dec 2020 Level Designer
  • Concepting, pitching, prototyping, developing, polishing, and bugfixing open-ended levels and live content for the HITMAN: World of Assassination trilogy of stealth/puzzle assassination games
  • Track leading multiple levels, developing concepts with stakeholders, ensuring consistency and adherence to direction, maintaining the creative vision, and being the touch-point for directors and stakeholders
  • Leading, mentoring, and reviewing the work of other level designers
  • Working with programmers on the design of various systems and tools
  • Establishing best practices and developing various reusable scripts
Apr 2014 – present IT University of Copenhagen
Jan 2019 – present External Lecturer (part-time) Teaching part of the course Game World Design with a focus on level design, environmental storytelling, and student projects.
Jan 2019 KADK
Sep 2018 External Lecturer (part-time) Planning and executing five exercise sessions on Playmaker for Unity.
Jan 2013 – Dec 2014 IT University of Copenhagen
Aug 2013 – Dec 2014 Teaching Assistant (part-time) Assisting professors in teaching courses on game studies, programming for game designers, and experimental interaction.
Jul 2013 – Jan 2014 Dagtilbuddet Lærkevej
Jul 2013 – Jan 2014 Teacher (part-time) Engaging mentally challenged users with games, videos, and music.
Aug 2010 – May 2012 Aarhus University
Aug 2010 – May 2012 Teaching Assistant (part-time) Preparing and executing exercise sessions for courses on programming, interaction design, and philosophy of science.

Education

Interval Title Specialization
Aug 2012 – Mar 2015 IT University of Copenhagen
Aug 2012 – Mar 2015 M.Sc. in Games Design Applied game design theory, practical courses, and electives in theoretical computer game studies.
Aug 2009 – Jun 2012 IT University of Copenhagen
Aug 2009 – Jun 2012 B.Sc. in Computer Science Theoretical computer science with electives in interaction design and digital arts.

Talks

Date Title Description
Nordic Game Jam
Apr 18, 2024 Narrative Gameplay in HITMAN A talk on the intersection of gameplay and narrative in the missions of HITMAN: World of Assassination.
Coding Pirates Game Jam
Nov 11, 2023 Making Games the Smart Way A keynote on the application of design processes in AAA to game jams.
Uppsala University
Feb 17, 2022 Building the Sandbox A talk on the level design of HITMAN: World of Assassination.
ICIDS
Nov 4, 2014 Storytelling Artifacts The presentation of my paper Storytelling Artifacts at the National University of Singapore.

Publications

Year and month Title Description
Routledge
Jun 2024 Foreword, Introduction to Game Programming using Processing The foreword for a former colleagues's book on programming for creatives.
GamesIndustry.biz
Aug 2020 Craft, art, and science: Three ways of teaching game design An exploration of approaches to game design education in Copenhagen and Malmö.
ICIDS
Nov 2014 Storytelling Artifacts An exploration of embedded media in video games.

Interviews

Date Title Description
GameSpot
Mar 4, 2021 Hitman 3 Devs Break Down Dartmoor Mission A breakdown of the mission Death in the Family of HITMAN: World of Assassination.
The Washington Post
Feb 12, 2021 The making of the 'Hitman 3' murder mystery mansion A breakdown of the mission Death in the Family of HITMAN: World of Assassination.

Volunteering

Interval Title Responsibilities
May 2017 – Mar 2020 E/F Vermlandsgade
Jul 2017 – Mar 2020 Chairman Leading the board managing the owner's union.
May 2017 – Jul 2017 Vice-chairman Member of the board managing the owner's union.
Sep 2013 – Oct 2014 Student Council
Sep 2013 – Oct 2014 Board member Representing the students of the IT University of Copenhagen.