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• Check Out My Work

NASA SUITS

Team Lead
12 Members
Unreal Engine & UX

2024-2025

• See More About SUITS

Jungle Jim

Technical Designer
10 Members
Unreal Engine 5

2024

• Learn More About Jungle Jim

Cepheus Heights

Solo Developer
2D Action Platformer
GameMaker Studio 2

2021

• Check Out Cepheus Heights

Game Jams

Team & Independent
GameMaker Studio 2 & Unreal Engine 5

Ongoing

• Discover My Game Jam Projects

Personal Projects

Solo Developer
Unreal Engine and GameMaker Studio 2

Ongoing

• Check Out My Personal Work

Apocalypse Later

Solo Developer
GameMaker Studio 2

2020

• Check Out Apocalypse Later

Illustrative Work

Digital Painting, Physical Media, Illustration, Comic Art, and More

• Click Here To See More 2D Art

3D Artwork

Maya and Substance 3D Painter

• See My 3D Art

Desperate Dive

Theme: Bubble
Time: 72 Hours
Team: Dameron Cook, Vincent Ridpath, Tam Ta, Elian Aguilera
Engine: Unreal Engine
Jam: ICTGameJam Winter 2025 and Global Game Jam 2025

This game tries to recapture the feeling of popping a bubble right before it hits the ground. It's a relatable game we all played as a kid, so we wanted to find that familiar, desperate feeling of putting everything you have into catching this one bubble. That's when we came up with our main mechanic, the desperate dive.It's a final Hail Mary where you bound towards the bubble in one dramatic leap. Either you pop this bubble, or it's over. This mechanic is (practically) necessary to beat every level in the game. We spent a lot of our time fine tuning every level to be tough and fair, and to, well, make the player feel desperate.I was the team member with the most experience with game jams and Unreal Engine, so I functioned as team lead and programmer for this game. I worked to make sure that everyone was making progress towards the same goal. I also focus on developing a responsive controller with a fun central mechanic. Two of my favorite things in game dev!

What doesn’t kill you…

Theme: Not Dead Yet!
Time: 72 Hours
Team: Jacob Jones, Derek Scheuerman, Tam Ta, and Me
Engine: Unreal Engine
Jam: ICTGameJam Summer 2024

After hearing the theme, all four of us got together and brainstormed ideas. We settled on a game where, after dying, you become the enemy that kills you! We then decided to make one main controller, and three different enemies. We then each assigned ourselves an enemy to make. I chose to make the tire enemy. His mechanic is that he always rolls forwards at high speeds! After making the enemy and the enemy AI, I designed the level portion for the tire enemy. Afterwards, I oversaw the rest of the level design.Designing for this game taught me that game mechanics aren’t just what you give the player to control. They’re also what you don’t let them control. Figuring out how to take back control of the player when you turn into a tire is its own sort of fun that gives a jolt of exhilaration.

4 Colors

Theme: Four Colors
Time:2 Weeks
Team: Just Me
Engine: GameMaker Studio 2
Jam: GDA Summer Game Jam 2023

When hearing the theme, I brainstormed a few ideas until I settled on something fun and manageable to finish within two weeks. I decided I’d make a game where you would gradually bring color back to the world. However, as they add color, the world gets progressively more dangerous with more enemies and obstacles. I wanted to emphasize discovery in the player, so I let them explore and add color in their own order. This means that there are 16 different possible world progressions!When I was making this game, I learned quite a bit about designing difficulty for the player. Unfortunately, it was too late, but it’s a lesson I’ll keep with me for a long time. Players need forgiveness. They need multiple tries at a challenge or they will lose patience. The level is short, but players got frustrated after being forced to restart after getting hit one time. It’s easy to lose track of the player’s perspective when developing in such a short amount of time, but that should never be forgotten.

Game Design 1 Class Project

When: Fall 2024
Who: Just Me
Engine: Unreal Engine 5

This is a class project that I had worked on over the entirety of the Fall 2024 semester. In this project, we made a bunker as an interior level that connected to an exterior open world level. Designing both of the inside and outside worlds got me very familiar with the editor tools inside of Unreal Engine. I learned a lot about terrain generation, environmental storytelling, breaking down the world into parts, and interior lighting. I also kept track of my progress as development logs you can check out below!

• See the Devlogs Here!

• Presentation Explaining My Design Decisions

Hook Shot - Wall Run Prototype

When: Spring 2024
Who: Just Me
Engine: Unreal Engine 5

This is a personal project in which I tasked myself with creating an interesting character controller with a unique mechanic. I decided that I wanted to recreate the wall running mechanic from the Prince of Persia series and combine it with a hookshot with multiple shot types. I set out to make a responsive character controller that feels fun to play. I utilized lots of playtesting to make it feel just right. As of now, this project only exists as a prototype and not a build because I plan on returning to the wall running mechanic for a future project… However, feel free to check out the GitHub page for it below!

• Check that GitHub Here!

Dash Platformer Prototype

When: Winter 2023
Who: Just Me
Engine: Unreal Engine 5

This is a personal project I used as an opportunity to get myself familiar with blueprinting and the level editor in Unreal Engine. I utilized Synty Assets to make the level. This was a month long process in which I made the character controller and multiple levels to challenge the player. One technique I utilized was using markers. An example of this would be the giant “WELCOME TO HELL SIGN.” This way, players could orient themselves by finding the marker in the wild, and so they would have a goal to head towards. It’s a great level technique I, uh, borrowed from The Last of Us by Naughty Dog. Try it out below!

• Try "Dash Platformer Prototype" Here

Left for the Unknown

When: 2019
Who: Player Character Design and Animation - Anna Thomas, Everything Else - Me
Engine: GameMaker Studio 2

This is a 2D Metroidvania I made over a couple months while I was in highschool. It was one of my introductory projects into game development and it taught me a lot about game design and level design. I took lots of cues from Axiom Verge and Super Metroid to make the level. I wanted to make an environment where players could feel like an explorer without being hopelessly lost. I did this by blocking paths behind them to limit the amount of space they could go to and giving them multiple objectives to go towards at once. I’ve certainly learned a lot more about making games since this one, but I know this one shows some fundamentals I’ve picked up along the way.

• Try "Left for the Unknown" Here

Character

When it came time to design the main character, I needed her to have a sole mechanic that was dynamic, easy to grasp, and fun. This way, it would be fun to play with for the entirety of the game. This is where the idea of the Hookshot came about. It’s a multipurpose tool the player has that can handle all sorts of situations. It can latch onto multiple different hooks, enemies, and boxes. This way, the player could use it for action, platforming, exploration, and puzzling. While the Hookshot is just one input for the player, Cepheus Heights allows many different possible outputs. This keeps the game engaging throughout the playtime.I believe the character of the game itself came from the Hookshot, so I needed to immediately show how dynamic it could be. This is why the game starts with the swing mechanic. Players swing left and right to gain momentum and height in a pendulum motion. Players can use this to find secret areas and battle tough-to-reach enemies. It’s a fun mechanic that changes the pace of the game. From there, I made more and more hooks. These hooks can be combined in interesting ways that allow the levels to feel systemic. I designed the Hookshot so that the game could stack mechanics. This way, the players never stop learning.

Camera

A lot of the feel of Cepheus Heights comes from the camera. The camera acts as an invisible actor throughout the game since the player should never notice it, so It needed to balance the action-oriented parts and the puzzling parts. I made it consistent and reliable by adding "juice" and predictability. For instance, to supplant the action, I added just the right amount of screen shake to make the impact of the action more fulfilling. When the game was more puzzle-focused, I reduced the screen shake so that the player wouldn’t feel distracted. This way, the camera wouldn't get in the way of the player figuring out the puzzles. To make it predictable, I kept the camera in place when swinging. This way, players could line up their jumps for platforming and it wouldn’t be constantly singing back and forth! If the camera isn't predictable, then the game becomes unfair and disengaging for players. I designed the camera specifically around avoiding that!

Control

I designed the Hookshot to feel more than just snappy and responsive. I wanted it to feel like second nature to the player, so I implemented a few different tactics to make it responsive. First, I made sure that the Hookshot was shot at a fixed distance every time the button was pressed. This made the Hookshot feel responsive and predictable. This puts the player fully in control of the mechanic. Second, I telegraphed every mechanic around the Hookshot to make intuitive sense. For instance, wooden boxes latched to the Hookshot, and pendulum latches were shaped like circles. Even the enemy designs telegraph their functions! Thanks to the control, Cepheus Heights is snappy for the action segments and reliable for the puzzles. Since the Hookshot is the key mechanic that the rest of the game relies on, it needed to be controlled just right!The player controller was also designed for intuitive controls. I did lots of research into making sure the jumps, latches, and acceleration of the player feel good. I struck a fine balance between making the character feel human yet responsive. For research, I took inspiration from classics like Super Mario Bros. and modern hits like The Messenger and Celeste to make all of the controls feel tailor-made for the game.

Level design

The levels of Apocalypse Later are designed to emphasize action. Since players engage with the same enemies multiple times, I had to find ways to keep levels fresh. One of the key ways I did this was by combining different enemies into dangerous groups. These groups created new environments that players had to adapt to to survive. This way, even if a player knew how all enemies behaved, they’d still have to change their thinking on a level by level basis. By providing different combinations of enemies in the levels, players have to think on their feet and change up their strategy. This kept players engaged and curious to keep playing the game.I believe one of the foundations of engagement in a game is the ability to plan. The faster and smaller scale the plans, the more action packed the game feels. Think Mario Kart. The slower and larger scale the plan, the more tactical the game feels. Think Chess. Since I wanted to emphasize action, I designed the levels so that players had to make quick decisions. For example, I would combine short range melee based enemies and long range sniping enemies. The player would have to think and choose who should be eliminated first all the while evading enemy attacks. Levels had to have situations where players could plan by necessity so that the game could maintain engagement.

Combat Design

The combat of Apocalypse Later was designed so that players had to develop quick response based timing and make risky decisions. I made response based timing through the enemies. I gave them quickly readable patterns so that players could predict their next move. This gave players the ability to react quickly before enemies lashed out their attack. For instance, the shield enemy will whip out his gun and hold for a second. I included the delay so that players could react before the enemy fires. I fine-tuned the amount of delay such that the player would have enough time to react while keeping the enemy dangerous. All enemy attacks also leave them vulnerable. This way, reacting to enemy attacks is the player’s best offense.I implemented risky decisions through the game's combo system. In the game, the player can perform a 2-hit combo. This combo will do more damage than two basic hits. However, this combo will leave the player in one place and vulnerable for longer. Players have to balance between reaction times and damage output. This system keeps players on their toes throughout the entire game. It keeps them thinking and engaged in the gameplay.