2025 Speakers
Alisha Thayer, Design Director, Crystal Dynamics
Alisha Thayer (she/her) is a Design Director at Crystal Dynamics where she oversees a multidisciplinary gameplay and gameplay systems team. She has been a key contributor to technical design career development, mentorship, assessment, and departmental standards at Crystal over the past decade. Over her career she has worked on the Tomb Raider franchise, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3, and Marvel's Avengers as a scripter and technical game designer. Alisha has a passionate interest in meaningful systemic interactions and narrative/systemic cohesion. She often finds herself working with small teams to explore early game prototypes, develop new workflows/content authoring patterns, and expand the boundaries of existing technology and tools. She considers herself to be a lifelong learner and takes great joy in collaboratively solving complex problems.
