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Heather Gibson (game developer)
British video game developer and level designer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Heather Stevens (née Gibson) is a British video game developer and graphic artist best known for her work as a level designer on the video game Tomb Raider (1996) and its sequel Tomb Raider II (1997). She was one of the few women in game development during the 1990s and played a major role in shaping the visual and structural identity of the early Tomb Raider games.[1]
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Early life and career
Gibson grew up in the United Kingdom and has described herself as something of a "tomboy," which helped her integrate easily into male-dominated development teams of the 1990s.[2][3] Coming from a working-class background, she recalls that as a girl she "ran around with the boys" and never saw gender as "them and us," an attitude that served her well in the games industry.[2][3]
Rare
Gibson entered the gaming industry in the late 1980s initially working for Rare. She spent nearly six years at Rare, working on various projects.[3][2] Gibson worked as a graphic artist and designer, gaining experience in game art and level design. By the mid-1990s, Rare underwent downsizing, and Gibson was laid off.[2]
In 1995, shortly after leaving Rare, Gibson saw a job advertisement for a design position at Core Design, a game studio based in Derby, England. She applied and was hired at Core Design almost immediately.[2]
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Tomb Raider
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Upon joining Core Design in 1995, Gibson's first assignment was working on the game Skeleton Krew (1995) for the Sega Genesis and Amiga. She collaborated with artist James Ryman and others on that project, which used an isometric perspective that "suited my style," as she later noted.[4] Gibson was credited for both graphics and level design on Skeleton Krew, marking her first credit at Core Design.[4] After the completion of Skeleton Krew, two of Core’s developers, artist Toby Gard and programmer Paul Douglas, were conceptualising a 3D action-adventure game about a female archaeologist adventurer. Intrigued by early concept art and ideas for this project (originally centered on a character named Laura Cruz), Gibson asked to join their design discussions.[2][3]
On the original Tomb Raider, Gibson (credited as a Graphic Artist on the game) emerged as one of the two main level designers on the team, alongside designer Neal Boyd.[3] In an era when having a woman in a video game development team was uncommon, Gibson was a creative voice in a core team of about six people.[2] She was responsible for designing a majority of the game's levels and crafting their visual texture details. In total, Gibson designed 8 of the 15 levels in Tomb Raider.[5] Notably, she created the "Croft Manor" training level and "Caves," the very first level of the game.[5] Other levels designed by Gibson in Tomb Raider include the City of Vilcabamba, St. Francis' Folly (Greece), The Cistern, Tomb of Tihocan, City of Khamoon, and Obelisk of Khamoon in Egypt.[6]
In designing these levels, Gibson exercised significant creative freedom. Gibson and the other designers used Core's in-house "Room Editor", which allowed them to build areas and see textures applied in real-time.[3][7] Early in development, the team chose to base levels on real locations such as Peru, Greece, and Egypt, and Gibson and Boyd then iterated on puzzle and level ideas for each location.[7][8] On designing the "Caves" level, she said: "I had no idea that millions of people would eventually play it... If I had known what a success the game would become then I may have been more nervous."[1] She designed the cave setting of the opening levels to hide the engine's inability to draw a distant sky or horizon in order to work within 1996 hardware limits.[5][8] Beyond layout design, Gibson created most of the environmental textures for Tomb Raider's levels.[6]
During development, before professional voice actresses were hired, Core Design had team members record placeholder sound effects for the protagonist Lara Croft. Gibson (along with colleague Susie Hamilton) provided some of Lara's in-game vocalisations. They provided sounds like grunts, gasps, and the word "No!" for when Lara is unable to perform an action.[5] Some of Gibson's recorded sounds were kept in the final game, although the main spoken dialogue was later recorded by Shelley Blond.[5]
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Tomb Raider II
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After the success of Tomb Raider, Gibson continued her role in the development of the sequel, Tomb Raider II, which released in 1997. She remained a Level Designer, again designing a large portion of the game's stages. Gibson worked on 11 of the 18 levels in Tomb Raider II.[5] Gibson designed Bartoli's Hideout, Opera House, and the Floating Islands and Dragon's Lair levels, among others.[1] She also designed the Tibetan Monastery catacomb levels (Barkhang Monastery, Catacombs, and Ice Palace), though in some cases she was finishing or refining work that another designer started.[6]
Beyond level geometry and art, Gibson also contributed ideas to the story and themes of Tomb Raider II. The game's Dagger of Xian was inspired by a real-world legend that Gibson introduced to the team.[7] Toward the end of the first game's development, she watched a television documentary about China's first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, and the lethal traps and treasures of his ancient tomb.[7] Intrigued by details such as the Terracotta Army and a tomb filled with mercury rivers and booby traps, Gibson discussed it with the team the next day. Several teammates had also seen the same program, and together they agreed this would be "a perfect subject matter" around which to base the next game.[7][8] This led to the Chinese setting and dragon-related storyline in Tomb Raider II.[7]
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Later endeavours
After the first two Tomb Raider games, Gibson worked on Project Eden. After this, Gibson decided to step away from the game industry. She left Core Design in the early 2000s to start a family.[5][6] The demanding work hours and crunch time culture of the game industry, she noted, were not very compatible with motherhood.[7]
Impact and legacy
It has been noted that the character of Lara Croft was co-created with Toby Gard, but the contributions of women like Gibson and Vicky Arnold were at first under-recognised.[1] Modern retrospectives have highlighted that Lara Croft's design had influence from female developers from the beginning.[3] Gibson herself has advocated that Lara can be a positive role model and stated that much of the overt sexualisation was external. In March 2024, the official Tomb Raider website ran a feature titled "Celebrating Vicky Arnold, Heather Stevens, and Susie Hamilton", highlighting Gibson and her contributions to the franchise.[3][1] The article also credited her as one of Lara's first voice actresses.[5]
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Ludography
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References
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