CHRIS MCGINNIS

Assistant Professor | Miami University

Chris McGinnis is a game developer and Assistant Professor in Miami University's Games + Simulation department, bringing over 13 years of professional industry experience to the classroom and the stage. Holding an MFA in Game Design from NYU, Chris has worked across a wide spectrum of the game industry—ranging from indie studios to FAANG—serving as a Gameplay Engineer, Technical Designer, and Tech Artist. His work spans console and mobile titles across diverse genres, with a specialized focus on gameplay systems, designer tooling, and interactive experiences.

GDEX 2026 Workshop: Beyond the Basics: Advanced Unity Architecture & Design Patterns
Taking a project from prototype to production requires architecture that is clean, scalable, and easy to maintain. In this fast-paced crash course, we'll dive into advanced Unity engineering practices and software design patterns used in professional game development. We will cover key concepts including decoupled communication with the Observer pattern, clean component abstractions using Interfaces, robust state logic via Finite State Machines (FSMs), and scalable object creation with the Factory pattern, and more. Whether you're looking to clean up spaghetti code or level up your system design, you'll walk away with actionable code patterns and structural frameworks you can apply directly to your Unity project.