Kain Shin

Kain is a former games journalist for a humble hardcore gaming website. He spent some time as a chemical engineer before finally deciding to follow his passion to get into the games industry. Kain graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Computer Science in May of 2000.

He entered the games industry shortly before graduation as a programmer on the Microsoft/Bicycle Casino (PC) line of products developed by Compulsive Development and Glass Eye Entertainment. After Compulsive folded, he went on to join the team at Ion Storm to work on Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC/Xbox) and Thief: Deadly Shadows (PC/Xbox). Spent a short time at TKO Software working on the N-Gage 2.5 SDK. Became a senior programmer at Breakaway Games's Austin studio working on unannounced and unshipped console and PC projects. Served as Lead Programmer on Mushroom Men for the Wii, which was developed by Red Fly Studio.

Kain formerly volunteered as a director of IGDA-Austin where he focused on running social activities for the organization and promoting visibility of the professional game development community in the city. He eventually initiated the tradition of IGDA-Austin Microtalks before handing the torch over to the next generation of IGDA torchbearers.

He was also the first programmer on Dishonored at Arkane Studios in Austin, Texas where he played a primary role in the core architecture and implementation of the decision and combat systems in that game. The culmination of Kain's involvement with NPC interfaces to animation and non-blocking cinematic events made the ending possible in which multiple cinematic branches respond properly to each systemic gameplay rule exercised by an unpredictable armed player capable of sneaking, stopping time, or teleporting. He stayed with the Dishonored team until the very end of that project.

Most recently, Kain served as a weapon of Harmonix Music Systems in Cambridge, Massachusetts before parting ways on good terms in order to focus on his own independent game.

He is a disciple of the Looking Glass specializing in the conversion of Entropy into Meaningful Emotional Context through Mathematics and Demonology.

If you see Kain Shin in the street, do engage him. Kain is generally a non-threatening category 3 human who may potentially be useful to your cause.