Lily Mansfield, also known professionally under the names Lily Childs, Brandy "Lily" Childs, and Brandy M. Childs, is a designer of levels who contributed to different Star Wars video games that were released by LucasArts.
Mansfield's career began in technical support at LucasArts, where she provided assistance for products such as the 2000 vehicle-based combat game, Star Wars: Demolition. She applied for a level design position for the real-time strategy title Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, and was surprised to be selected, considering her lack of experience in that particular game genre. She came to understand that her selection was intended to bring in a fresh perspective, enabling the team to make adjustments that would cater to more casual players.
Mansfield was responsible for designing a level for the Wookiee tutorial campaign, which was initially outlined by Reed Knight and further developed by John Stafford. She worked with fellow designers Kevin Schmitt and Don Sielke to get their feedback. In addition, Mansfield conducted focus group testing for the tutorial and participated in the creation of a developer diary by the level design team, which was then published on the LucasArts website. In her writing, she discussed the trial-and-error nature of game design and mentioned that she had memorized all of Qui-Gon Jinn's lines. Mansfield is also responsible for naming the character SRAM-13, who is mentioned in the tutorial campaign's final level; the name was inspired by Santaram, a ceramic goat statue with Santa Claus's head that she owned and kept in her LucasArts office.
In 2002, her name appeared in the credits of the starfighter combat game Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, although she was uncertain as to why she was included. She speculated that it was either because she provided feedback to the game's developers or due to the influence of her then-husband, G. W. Childs.
Mansfield returned as a level designer for the Galactic Battlegrounds expansion, Clone Campaigns, which was being developed at the same time as the prequel trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. To create the game's storyline, the level design team signed agreements to protect confidential information and were given the chance to individually enter a secure room to read the movie's shooting script. Mansfield designed the first two levels of the Separatist campaign. The second level includes the Kaer Orbital Platform, a name that Mansfield chose as a modified version of the Welsh word "caer," which means fortress.
She also contributed additional artwork to the 2002 action game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, which included graffiti for run-down locations. At one point, she was asked to remove bolts from her artwork, as they had not been previously featured in Star Wars media. Along with other level designers from Clone Campaigns, Mansfield was also involved in the development of a game with the codename Pangea, which was LucasArts' attempt to create a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Originally, the game was not intended to be a Star Wars project, but it became one at some point before it was ultimately canceled.
- Official website
- Lily Mansfield (@woesis) on Facebook (backup link (woesis) not verified!)
- LilyMansfield ( @OhThatLily ) on Twitter (backup link (OhThatLily) not verified!)
- Lily Mansfield (@ohthatlily) on Instagram (backup link (ohthatlily) not verified!)
- Brandy M. Childs on MobyGames