Game Design Portfolio | James VanderMeulen

Portfolio Showreel

Absolution

Absolution is an top-down roguelite shooter where you use your weapon's recoil to move. Developed over 8 months, it features adaptive audio, randomly generated levels, 13 unique items, 16 intelligent enemies, and 3 unique playstyles. Absolution is planned to be released early this summer on Itch.io

Download on Itch.io

Role and Contributions

Skills and Proficiencies

Game Designer

Director

Scrum Master

Programmer

Gameplay Design

Jira

Unity 2D

Project Management

Size: Variable

Size: Variable is a short and simple maze-puzzler created for the GMTK 2024 Game Jam. You play as a blob trying to escape a science facility, and must grow and shrink in order to activate the correct switches and escape the facility.

Play the Web Version

Role and Contributions

Director

Level Designer

Programmer

Skills and Proficiencies

Level Design

Game Design

Jira

Unity 2D

First Aid Trainer

First Aid Trainer is a simple proof-of-concept gamefied training tool designed for a first-aid school to walk players through the basics of first-aid response protocol in conjunction with a first aid training resource.

Role and Contributions

Director

Scrum Master

Lead Programmer

Game Designer

Skills and Proficiencies

Gameplay Design

Jira

Unity 3D

Project Management

Other Projects

Shifting Kingdom

Level Designer, Game Designer

An isometric puzzler in which you must travel between the past, present, and future in order to navigate the ruins of an ancient kingdom.

I served as the lead gameplay and level designer for the project, responsible for working with a team of designers to create 8 unique puzzles of gradually progressing difficulty, each built around the main mechanic of time travel.

Additionally, I was responsible for constructing the game's narrative, and portraying that narrative through dialogue.

Rude Goldberg

Game Designer, Programmer

Rude Goldberg was submitted to a private student game jam. The game is a physics-based puzzle game where the player must make use of various physics objects to construct a chain reaction that can turn on the TV and wake up the dog.

While each level was designed with at least one solution in mind, each level has many solutions.

Players can challenge themselves to create a machine with as few parts as possible, as many parts as possible, or simply see how many solutions they can find.

CLONED

Solo Dev: Programming, Level Design

CLONED was the first game project I produced. A puzzle-platformer in which your past attempts replay each time you attempt the level. Use these clones to hold down buttons, pass through closed doors, or as platforms to reach inaccessible platforms.

As a foray into level design, I wanted the player to approach each level in stages: see what needs to be done; break it into multiple attempts; and execute.

Someone Call HR!!!

Game Designer, Programmer

Someone Call HR!!! was submitted to a private student game jam. It's a top-down beatemup in which the player must cause as much destruction as possible in a limited time in order to get fired. Each attempt, they recieve a rank based on how many coworkers they beat-up, how much office furniture they destroyed, and how many secret chickens they found.

This game's gameplay was very simplistic, and so as a designer, the challenge was making the game interesting, satisfying, and replayable. I achieved this through introducing the ranking system. Players had to split their time between the different point sources, trying out different strategies in order to get a new high score.

Pogo-Go

Programmer, Technical Designer

A physics-based platformer in which you must traverse an alien landscape by aiming and charging massive leaps through the air.

I served as the project's lead programmer and technical designer, and was responsible for creating a physics-based movement system that was reliable, fun, and easy to grasp.

Additionally, I worked with the game designers to come up with unique upgrades that would improve the player's ability to navigate the environment, gradually unlocking more options as the game progressed.

A Nomad's Dream

Solo Dev: Writer, Environment Design

A Nomad's Dream was the culmination of 4 other projects made in the minimalist engine Bitsy as an exercise in minimalist game design.

A Nomad's Dream brings these four experiences together into a philosophical reflection on the nature of games and development.

I consider this project to be something of my manifesto as a game developer, something I aspire to and can return to when I forget why I do this.

While this project is highly personal, I also wanted to demonstrate my capability as a writer, breaking complex concepts into poetic flow, and using level design to compliment information and spread it across multiple encounters.

Pursued

Solo Dev: Writer, Game Design

Pursued is a text-based maze game in which the player must navigate through an industrial complex to escape a horde of corrupted humans.

As a narrative designer, I needed to create an environment and a chain of choices that the player could follow even without visual aid. The complex was first mapped out on paper, and then translated into the game.

To add stakes to the game, certain directions could also take or buy the player some additional time before they were caught, and some choices could lose the player time, but reveal narrative information about what may be going on in this world.

Love at the End of the World

Solo Dev: Writer, Narrative Designer

Love at the End of the World is a text-based dating sim that takes place during the last day before the end of the world. The player is placed in a bunker along with three other characters, and can choose how to spend their last day alive. There are 11 diffferent endings to obtain, lending a significant amount of replayability to an otherwise short and simple game.

As a narrative designer, I wanted to explore the possibility of multiple endings in a condensed form, what was the smallest number of choices that could have the greatest impact on the ending. I wanted to create a bite-sized game experience that would allow the player to experience all the options available to them with relatively little time commitment.

Game Designer, Programmer, and Indie Developer

Portfolio Showreel

Absolution

Role and Contributions

Skills and Proficiencies

Size: Variable

Role and Contributions

Skills and Proficiencies

First Aid Trainer

Role and Contributions

Skills and Proficiencies

Other Projects