Game Designer - Narrative and System Design

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Antonio Reis

Game Designer - Narrative and System Design

Game Designer - Narrative and System Design

gd

_Game Designer - Narrative and

↓ Experience and Projects ↓

_Game Designer - Narrative and

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Resume

Click on the image on the right to get a better look.

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Work Experience

Volt Games

Game Design Intern, May 2024 - Aug 2024

Over the course of three months I worked as a part of the Volt Games design team and contributed to multiple mobile games' design and testing.I was the lead level designer for multiple hypercasual mobile games (Flip Cubes!, Serve Away!) some of which were not released, and also designed tutorials for them.I worked on two mobile sports games, one of which has not been released yet, and the other has an early build available for testing. I contributed to gameplay design, the design of the leaderboard system, game progression, First-Time user experience, and U.I.Click on the U.I. wireframe and Design Doc to see more.

Work Experience

Game Design Intern, May 2024 - Aug 2024

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Writing Samples

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Splendid Strangers

Published: Apr 09, 2023

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Splendid Strangers is a short narrative game about the beauty of ordinary people and ordinary life, based on Leslie Jamison's 2019 essay "The Photographs That Made Me Feel Less Alone".The main objective of the game was to create a slow and introspective experience, where the player is invited to appreciate mundane yet beautiful moments.I programmed and designed the two "mini-games" and drew rough storyboards of the entire game to serve as a reference for the rest of the team.To look at all the storyboards click on the storyboard to the right.

Splendid Strangers

Heart & Mind

Published: Nov 16, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Heart & Mind is a narrative puzzle platformer, where the player takes control over a character's Heart and Mind, personified in the form of a cat and wolf.The game consists of two Heart and two Mind levels, with one final level where the player takes charge of both at the same time. Levels have dialogue and there are small cutscenes in between showcasing the main character's struggles in real life.During development, I was the go-to coder and level designer. As the lead programmer, I was also able to constantly change and improve the puzzle mechanics, the Mind's platform manipulation in particular, as I designed the levels.While designing the final level, constant playtesting was also extremely important. As the rest of the team sent me videos of them playing through the level, I made numerous changes according to what I saw in their gameplay, be it because I liked how one of them approached a particular problem, or because they found an unsatisfying and easy solution.

Splendid Strangers

The Circus Of Laughs

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

The Circus of Laughs is a visual novel where the player has to get through two mini-games to progress through the story.It was developed in under 48 hours for the 2024 Global Game Jam, in which it was nominated for Best Overall Game at the New York University Jam Site.The main gimmick of the game is that the player must audibly laugh while playing the two mini-games, which were designed and programmed by me, to survive, which I implemented using the Hugging Face Unity API.

Splendid Strangers

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Published: Nov 01, 2024

Roles: Writer and Narrative Designer

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novella of the same title, with a largely original plot, and 3 unique endings.I reread the story at the beginning of the development process, during which I took notes about the characters, setting, language, and verbs, as well as verbs that I felt could work interestingly in the context of the setting but weren't present in the original, such as prayer.While writing the game I paid special attention to tone and mood, creating an uneasy feeling in the player through the environment and small uses of visual effects in the text. I also utilized background variables to keep track of the player's choices, such as how often the player followed the rules and traditions of the town.

Splendid

Radish Boy Commits Insider Trading

Finalized: Dec 20, 2023

Roles: Designer and Programmer

A fanmade sequel/homage to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (2020). Radish Boy is a 2D adventure game featuring the watermelon, sword, watering can, and bomb of the original, with the inclusion of the gun mechanic.The biggest question we had while developing the game was how could we make the gun an interesting puzzle-solving tool, and not just a weapon for combat. The answer to this was in the interactions that it could have with other systems. It takes 3 bullets for the grown watermelon to break, and non-breaking shots push the watermelon along the floor, and if a bomb has been watered, a bullet will make it explode. Both of these unique interactions are essential pieces to the puzzles that we then designed as a team for the game.

Splendid Strangers

That Time I got Reincarnated and Cursed My School

Published: Feb 19, 2023

Roles: Designer and Programmer

A visual novel beat 'em up game developed in a week for the 2023 Brackeys Game Jam.The player must make their way through five floors of possessed classmates to reach the school roof, fight their best friend (the game's final boss), and confess to the love interest.I was the sole programmer for this project and designed the combat system and final boss.

Splendid Strangers

A Snowy Day

Finalized: Sept 27, 2024

Roles: Writer and Narrative Designer

A Snowy Day is a short and cozy narrative game prototype made as a solo dev in Twine, where the player experiences a day off in a snowstorm alone at home, free to do whatever they want.The game was made in under a week for a game development class, with the main objective being to create an experience that was cozy and humorous, but not satirical or wacky.The consists of the morning routine and the 10 choices that the player has on what to do during the day. Depending on what they choose, they will get a different ending message reminiscing on the day.

Splendid Strangers

Crazy Boarding

Finalized: Oct 04, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Crazy Boarding is a high-score based snowboarding game prototype, where the player controls a character using a bottle cap as a snowboard.To get points, the player must do flips and turns in the air, with full turns and flips counting for more points, and get to the finish line as quickly as possible. Once the player reaches the finish line they are presented with an ending screen, breaking down their score.The game was developed in under a week by myself for a game development class.

Cozy World

Published: Oct 03, 2023

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Cozy World is a simulation game developed in under 72 hours for the Ludum Dare 54 Game Jam.The game offers a relaxing experience where the player can place different kinds of seeds and bugs in a light bulb terrarium and see how the ecosystem develops as plants grow, die, and produce their own seeds.The game also features a soundtrack where different instruments come in as different kinds of seeds are planted, and switch from a day to a night version, and back to a day version, as time goes by.I contributed to the design of the game and was one of two programmers on the team.

Splendid Strangers

Grand Central Run

Finalized: May 02, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Grand Central Run is a high-score based game where the the player must run to catch their train starting from several different starting spots in the station, with every successive train they catch making the trains' speed quicker and quicker.The game was developed over the course of a handful of months, initially as a solo dev before getting help for texturing and modeling. It was made using Unreal Engine 5, and I was responsible for all of the code and design.

Sarmale

Published: December 16, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

Sarmale is a short narrative cooking game about the player character's refusal to come out as gay to their grandmother, in fear of the reaction that it could receive, and the damage it could have on their relationship. The game consists of five small cooking minigames during which the player has a conversation with their grandmother, with her Romanian being translated into English.My main responsibility was the dialogue system and to make it work hand-in-hand with the cooking minigames. I did some quick experimentation with some dialogue plug-ins for Unity before creating a system from scratch, using a script to interpret what to do from a CSV file. I then created a guide sheet using some of the early dialogue the writer had made, along with explanations for how the system worked, so they could then use it themselves. We found CSV files very unreliable in some ways, but after some concessions on complexity, the resulting system did exactly what we needed it to.Click on the Dialogue Sheet to get a better look!

Splendid Strangers

DJriving

Published: December 11, 2024

Roles: Designer and Programmer

DJriving is a 3D racing game with synthwave aesthetics and a breakcore soundtrack. The player must use the car's drifting and boost capabilities to achieve as good a time as possible as the music responds to the player's racing.I was part of a team of 4 and was the main programmer for the project while contributing to the design, with the drift mechanic in particular being something I spent a lot of time iterating on to achieve as good a game feel as possible.We spent a lot of time as a team iterating on different ideas for movement and audio interaction with the controls. We landed on a set-up that is relatively similar to traditional racing games, but still encourages heavy use of the drift mechanic to achieve as good a time as possible.

Splendid Strangers

Volt Games

Period: May2024 - Aug 2024

Role: Game Design Intern

Over the course of three months I worked as a part of the Volt Games design team and contributed to multiple mobile games' design and testing.I was the lead level designer for multiple hypercasual mobile games (Flip Cubes!, Serve Away!) some of which were not released, and also designed tutorials for them.I worked on two mobile sports games, one of which has not been released yet, and the other has an early build available for testing. I contributed to gameplay design, the design of the leaderboard system, game progression, First-Time user experience, and U.I.Click on the U.I. wireframe and Design Doc to see more.

_Splendid