Hello! This is Ivan. I am a game designer who can code. I have made games in collaboration with people from different industries, however my passion is in creating media that help people learn something new and forge connections with other people.
Below you can find my portfolio highlighting my game development work. EMAIL / [email protected]
Itch / https://thisisivan.itch.io/ LinkedIn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-karyakin/ |
Achievements
2020 - SAE Qantm Sydney
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Women in Games
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My Games |
Slitherin' / 2021"Slitherin' " - a roguelite snake game made for GMTK Game Jam 2021. The player takes control of a snake, but each of the links are their own class with special attack. Only these warriors can fight off incoming waves of enemies.
It took #76 place in category Fun and #286 Overall. Genre: 2D roguelite snake
Engine: Unity Team Size: 4 Duration: 2 days Platform: PC, WebGL (Android compatible) Website: https://thisisivan.itch.io/slitherin |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
- Designing difficulty of the waves generations
- Designing and balancing attack types and statistics
- Implementing background music with progression over the levels
- Implementing SFX
- Creating effects for border bouncing
- Creating blood splats
- Writing a short document to guide the development
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Stellarsaurus / 2020A 2D side on party arena shooter. Currently in development as a university project. Players take place of top marines in training for any combat scenario. They will have to run, jump and shoot each other and space dinosaurs in order to survive.
Genre: 2D party arena shooter
Engine: Unity Team Size: 6 Duration: 16 weeks Platform: PC, MAC, Linux Website: https://pixelblastofficial.itch.io/stellarsaurus |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
- Designing levels
- Designing Weaponry system
- Designing Game Modes
- Guiding the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and GloBoards
- Sourcing and communicating with students from other disciplines (eg. audio & art) in order to work alongside and bring together different assets for the project
- Communicating with other departments about scope and the status of the work
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Escape Mars / 2020A 3D puzzle video game in which the player with a strong emphasis on exploration, showcasing Block42 users' work.
Genre: A puzzle game
Engine: Unity Team Size: 3 Duration: 15 weeks Platform: PC, MAC, WebGL Website: https://www.block42.world/school |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Design
Project Management
- Concise documentation/ Asset lists
- Level design
- Game flow
- Puzzles and puzzle systems
- Colour/Lighting
- Picked the audio matching the goal
- Menu UI
- Puzzle system
- Audio management
- All Menu functionality
Project Management
- Guiding the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and Trello
- Communicating with direct managers in order to maintain on the schedule
- Communicating with Lead programmer to write more efficient and readable scripts
- Communicating with Animators to create necessary models for the level
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The Breakfast Fight Club/ 2020
A colorful 2D twin stick shooter. The player takes a place of a muffin shooting hordes of breakfast food. On their quest, they have to pick up Mystery jam that has unexpected effect on the hero.
Entry for Game Maker's Toolkit 48 hours game jam 2020. The theme was Out of Control. Genre: Twin stick shooter (Game Jam)
Engine: Unity Team Size: 5 Duration: 48 hours Platform: PC, WebGL Website: https://pixelblastofficial.itch.io/the-breakfast-fight-club |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
- Designing the level
- Designing Buffs and Nerfs system
- Designing AI behavior
- Balancing Buffs and Nerfs
- Balancing the character controller
- Defining the story and defining the characters
- Creating VFX
- Creating Asset lists
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Cheese Wars! / 2019"Cheese Wars!" is a online child-friendly mobile multiplayer tower defence game in which the players send an army of mice to steal the opponent mouse clan's cheese and build turrets to defend their own.
Genre: Mobile Tower Defence Game
Engine: Unity Team Size: 5 Duration: Feb 2020 - April 2020 (13 weeks) Platform: Android, PC, MAC Website: https://xsfynx.itch.io/cheese-wars |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
- Designed levels
- Co-designed and balanced turrets systems
- Co-designed and balanced troops systems
- Designed and balanced ability system
- Designed and implemented camera shakes, wobbles and splat messages
- Designed and implemented particle effects
- Found and implemented all of the free art assets in the game
- Designed Ability icons using https://game-icons.net/
- Designed the scalable game logo
- Sourced customizable backgrounds for potential monetization of the game
- Guided the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and Trello
- Sourcing students from other disciplines to work on the project (audio)
- Sourcing and communicating with students from audio discipline in order to work alongside and bring together different assets for the project
- Conducted a research into colours appealing to our target audience
- Designed and collected data about player behavior followed by designing an balance update based on that data
- Analyzed existing market in order to create a competitive game with a monetization system
- Co - wrote concise documentation
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Last Swim / 2019
"Last Swim" is a serious game showing the effect of human actions on underwater world. Player experiences a life of a turtle trying to find a way home in the ocean that gradually gets polluted.
Genre: A serious game
Engine: Unreal 4 Team Size: 6 Duration: Sep 2019-Dec 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC, MAC Website: https://thisisivan.itch.io/last-swim |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
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Level Design
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Project Management
The Project was started in VR but due to physical constrains had to be converted to PC.
- Guided the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and Trello
- Sourcing students from other disciplines to work on the project (audio)
- Sourcing and communicating with students from audio discipline in order to work alongside and bring together different assets for the project
The Project was started in VR but due to physical constrains had to be converted to PC.
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Is There Anyone Out There / 2019
"Is There Anyone Out There?" is a potential level for a space exploration and mining game.
Genre: A level for a space exploration game/flight simulator
Engine: Unity Team Size: 1 Duration: June 2019-August 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC Website: Available upon request |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
Documentation available upon request
- Designed, greyboxed and build a space level for mining/surviving space game (e.g. locations of materials to collect, asteroid path for the player to follow, a landmark, a few refinery stations, teleporters)
- Designed Main Menu UI (GUI)
- Designed In-Game UI
- Analyzed existing market and target audience preference
- Wrote UI Design rationale
- Wrote a concise Level design document
Documentation available upon request
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Defective / 2019
"Defective" is following a life of 4 heroes waken up in a mental institution, where they have to collect and trade resources in order to please a mysterious computer.
Genre: 3D gathering game with trading elements and puzzles
Engine: Unity Team Size: 4 + team of art students Duration: Jun 2019 - Aug 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC Website: Under construction |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Level Design
- Designed characters and resources locations
- Designed a environmental puzzles for characters' abilities
- Designed Character Abilities
- Designed Bartering system
- Designed Character controls
- Used a studio and audio equipment to record sound effects
- Created and imported into Unity a bottle with pills asset using Maya
- Wrote a Project Management Plan
- Guided the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and Trello
- Communicating with students from art major in order to work alongside and bring together different assets for the project
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Slimo / 2019A platformer in which the player takes a place of a friendly piece of slime on quest to return the colour to the world after a cataclysm.
Genre: Platformer
Engine: Unity Team Size: 2 Duration: Feb 2019 - May 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC Website: https://ivankaryakin.itch.io/slimo |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Core design
- Concepted the game idea
- Wrote concise documentation
- Designed and programmed the character controller in C#
- Designed colouring of the world
- Designed some obstacles
- Designed the level
- Designed and programed Main Menu using GUI
- Guiding the team through the project using SCRUM methodology and GloBoards
- Sourced and communicated with an audio designer in order to create a track that seamlessly progresses with the play through.
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GetOut / 2019GetOut is a spooky puzzle game, in which the player finds themselves in a dungeon, trying to escape. This is a solo project.
Genre: Puzzle game
Engine: Unity Team Size: 1 Duration: Feb 2019 - May 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC Website: |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Core design
- Concepted the game idea
- Wrote concise documentation
- Designed and programmed environmental puzzles
- Designed and built the level in Unity
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Breakout / 2019
Remake of Atari Breakout game.
Genre: Arcade game
Engine: None Team Size: 1 Duration: Feb 2019 - May 2019 (13 weeks) Platform: PC Website: Available upon request (with code) |
Role(s) and responsibilities:
Created tho whole game from the scratch using C++ and SFML library.