CinderWeaverA game development portfolio

Introduction ​

I’m a 26-year-old game developer and systems designer with 6 years of Unreal Engine experience focusing on gameplay systems, tools, and plugin development. I create efficient systems and enjoy solving technical and design problems. I specialize in melee combat and RPG systems inspired by Soulslikes and survival games.

I haven’t shipped a full game yet, but I’ve worked on multiple UE tools and systems which demonstrate my skills and experience. At the moment I am focused on creating a small, tight-scoped game of my own but at the same time, I am also looking for contract work, ideally on single-player games.

I work with both Blueprint and C++, build scalable GAS-based systems, integrate animation with gameplay, and use GameplayCues, Metasounds and Niagara for audio-visual feedback.

I also create reusable tools and plugins, custom editor assets, and AI behaviors using Behavior Trees or Utility AI.

I am incredibly passionate about games both playing and making them so with every project my goal is to learn, grow and just do things better than I could in the past.

What I do ​

I like gameplay feature programming more than anything else but I also love getting into the design side of game development.

• Soulslike / Melee Combat Systems
• GAS: Abilities, Attributes, Effects
• Blueprint and C++ Architecture
• Animation Blueprint Integration
• Gameplay Feedback (Cues, Metasounds, Niagara)
• Custom Plugins & Tools
• Custom Editor Assets / Editors
• AI using Behavior Trees or Utility AI
• RPG Mechanics & Systems Design
• Basic Optimization & Profiling

Portfolio Highlights ​

GridCast ​

This to me personally is the highlight of what I've learned and am able to do at this point after the years of learning Unreal and game development. I was working on a prototype for a boss rush game and I wanted the bosses to have MMO like telegraphed mechanics that happened in the arena. Authoring those kinds of attacks one by one would've been very time consuming and iteration would've been difficult, to solve that, I came up with this idea of using a 2D grid to design the sequence in which AoEs would spawn. I wanted it to be able to have multiple sequences which I ended up calling chains for the final product. I learnt how to extend the Unreal editor, add a custom asset type, create a custom asset editor for it and all the slate code that goes along with that. It was a challenge but also a lot of fun. The trailer video for GridCast is attached below and more information is on both the FAB page and the documentation.

Chronis ​

I wanted to make a simple turn based prototype but again, I wanted the turn management system to be reusable and incredibly simple to make use of if I ever needed to turn it into a complete game or use in the future. So with those things in mind, I designed a turn management system that makes use of a Subsystem and BlueprintAsyncNodes to do just that. I hadn't worked with BlueprintAsyncNodes before, I have experience with GameplayTasks and AbilityTasks and this was similar but not a class I had implemented before so that was nice, it's Trailer is attached below as well.

Playable Demos ​

Boss Rush Game ​

This is a boss rush game I've been developing with the end goal of putting it to Steam but it showcases my skills rather clearly so if you'd like to download something and judge for yourself, feel free to grab it from the link below.

Relevant Links ​

Below are links to documentation for each of my currently available assets if you're curious about any particular ones.