Jonas Halver

If you're here to view this page as my portfolio and only have a minute, START HERE:

• Bestiary. Apart from art support, this is a solo project. It features complex systems of behavior, tactical combat, and interface, all of which I designed and built from scratch. There is a gameplay video and playable demo inside.
• WordTag. As the team's core game designer, I contributed enemy NPCs with complex behavior, a combat system, tweaked character controller and camera, reworked level progression, reworked the in game economy, designed and prototyped destructible environments and throwable bombs, new puzzle mechanics, oversaw a level overhaul with the level design team, and LLM powered Oracy teaching NPCs. I also modeled player behavior in Excel, did Data Analysis to identify retention and enjoyment issues, and designed systems for improved learning pacing.
• Dungeons and Dragons reworks and custom rules 1 2 and 3. The pages contain my design thoughts, giving you a view of how I think about this kind of design.
• RaceMania. Very rushed time trial racing prototype that turned out pretty good. I built a custom and elaborate car controller, fine tuned for good feel with one-handed playing with clever auto acceleration and auto breaking; as well as a custom camera controller for keeping the track visible at all times, and a ghost opponent using a recording of the player's best time.

I am a game designer and developer with a masters degree in Game Design from the Royal Danish Academy (2021). I am a proficient C# programmer and Unity Engine wrangler. I experience an absurd joy from working in spreadsheets. I get even more joy from thinking about how my players experience my games.

In my personal projects, I work on strategy games and TTRPGs. This is partly because they have fewer artistic requirements, so I can work solo.

The games I post here are the ones where I am the primary contributor, or if I am particularly satisfied with my work. 

My favorite project is Bestiary, which I hope to finish some day, and my DND 5e design reworks, as I have posted extensive design thoughts along with my work.

Mrs Wordsmith

I have previously worked as a full time designer and gameplay programmer on WordTag. I was responsible for their enemy NPCs, economy, progression, difficulty balancing, managed level design overhauls, modeled player behavior, and designed new features.

DADIU 2020

DADIU is a special games programme that involves several games related institutions in Denmark. Each year, 6 teams are put together to simulate a game development company and given 3 months to complete 3 game productions. In 2020, I was the Game Director for one of those teams, and you can find the final game we made here: https://dadiu.itch.io/the-bleeding-tree