John Haley

Technical Game Designer

Featured Work

Project Overview:

Duration: 1 Year

Team Size: Currently 7

Game Engine: Godot, Unity (Briefly)

Summary:

Mushroom Kid’s Big Grass Sword is a narrative, physics-based, precision platformer that was originally a submission for the 2022 Game/Music Jam as Sword of the Morel and it’s about a little mushroom on a journey to save their village with the power of a long growing sword called the “Blade of Grass”! The current Steam Demo has won the Aesthetics Award at RIT’s EDGE Showcase and the Grand Prize Award at the RPI Gamefest.

Contributions:

Role: Project Lead and Lead Game Designer

  • Secured over $26,000 Dollars in combined funding for the game from Grants, Awards, and Public Funding
  • Researched & wrote extensively in an 80+ page game design document to map out our game’s mechanics, levels, narrative, and development timeline.
  • Managed our team’s production in a Trello Board and Gantt Chart from Game Jam Prototype to Award Winning Steam Demo and now currently working on a full release

Project Overview:

Duration: 4 Months

Team Size: 7~

Game Engine: PS5 Devkit, Custom, Unity (Prototyping)

Summary:

Ugly The Cat: Missiles and Mayhem is a action-combat party game inspired by Quake, where players fight as cats with bazookas in a hectic and chaotic gameplay environment. This project was made using the Playstation 5 Development Kit with a Custom-Built Engine. There is also a Unity prototype created for this project that was developed to test the gameplay and level design.

Contributions:

Role: Technical Game Designer & Gameplay Programmer

  • Designed and Implemented gameplay mechanics and game state handling. Then assisted in transferring those features to the PS5 DevKit Build
  • Built the Spawning and Score Managment System for the PS5 DevKit Build
  •  Greyboxed and finalized the game’s level from design concept to playtesting
  • Developed & Pitched the Prototype and Gameplay Loop that would become our game

Project Overview:

Duration: 4 Months

Team Size: 8~

Game Engine: Unity

Game Summary:

Cafe Cat is a casual 2D time-management mobile game about working at a Cafe for Cats after they have taken over the world! Try your best to keep up with the cat-o-strophic chaos by managing orders, taking tips, and growing your cafe.

Contributions:

Role: Lead Game Designer & Programmer

  • Designed and Implemented Difficulty Curve and Testing Tools
  • Designed Customer Types and Payment Algorithm
  • Designed the In-Game Shop Upgrades, Prices, and Layout
  • Implemented Analytics into the game through Dev2Dev

Project Overview:

Duration: 2 Years

Team Size: 9~

Game Engine: Unity

Summary:

The Neurotech Games Team is an ongoing game development project to combine the field of cognitive neuroscience and game development. This allows us to make experimental games that have never been created before!

Contributions:

Role: Team Lead & Lead Game Designer

  • Collaborated with an Austrian Medical Engineering Company to develop games with their new EEG headset
  • Developed a plugin and menu to combine an Open-Source Brain Computing Interface with the Unity Game Engine
  • Lead a team of a variety of different fields to assist in game development, onboarding them on both the game development process and the ins and outs of neurotechnology

Project Overview:

Duration: 48 Hours

Team Size: 7

Game Engine: Unity

Summary:

Obstacle to Lovers is a romantic comedy Visual Novel made for the 2023 GMTK Game Jam about the pipe and the bird from the mobile game Flappy Bird trying to get into a relationship. Dialogue choices are only unlocked depending on the user’s skill in Flappy Bird. Which creates an intense and hilariously charming experience.

117th out of 6800+ Games in the Game Jam!

Contributions:

Role: Game Designer & Narrative System Programmer

  • Wrote and implemented the narrative through Yarn Spinner
  • Configured and fine-tuned Flappy Bird Dialogue integration
  • Organized Team decisions and spearheaded the brainstorming process.

Project Overview:

Duration: 1 Month Team Bonding – 1 Week Development

Team Size: 6

Game Engine: Unreal

Summary:

Roots Corrupted is a Survival Horror game made for the 2023 Global Game Jam about saving a corrupted forest while being hunted by evil tree constructs as you try to revive the hearts of the Forest God.

Contributions:

Role: Gameplay Programmer & Level Designer

  • Programmed and Designed Player Movement and Combat
  • Designed and Implemented the Maze-Like Forest Level
  • Facilitated communication and project management in a Bilingual team using online translators and sketches 
    • Half our team was American, and the other half was Japanese