Technical Game Designer
Kenechukwu Umelo
Game Jams
As a designer and programmer, I think highly of game jams. They’re a good way learn, collaborate, and stretch your skillset a bit. The final product is very rewarding at times, and they teach me so much. Each game below carries significance to my journey and lessons that made me a better developer.
Jam: Comfy Jam: Spring 🌺2026
Role: Game Designer & Programmer (Blueprints)
Time of Development: 2 Weeks
Team Size: 3
Engine:
Game Overview:
A cozy adventure game where players traverse the environment to cut and collect grass with a scythe, then deposit it into nearby haystacks to increase collection scores.
Small secret: You can find cool hidden hats to wear along the journey.
Contributions
Player Controller
I worked on the player controller from prototype to completion, implementing abilities such as interacting, scything, and suctioning/collecting glass.
Interactable Systems
I designed and implemented interactables as hats and grass cuts, as well as systems for depositing collected grass into haystacks, and a board to communicate the number of haystacks filled
Environment Blockout Concept
During the 1st week, I designed a blockout for a small "exploratory" environment to test the traversal, collisions, and orthographic camera limits before handing it off to my teammate whose also a designer to iterate upon.
My 1st Pass
My 2nd Pass
Final Pass from 3D Artist & Level Designer
Jam: Brackey's Game Jam 2023.2
Role: Game Programmer
Time of Development: 1 Week
Team Size: 6
Engine:
Game Overview:
Dungeon Divers is an endless, top-down 2.5D shooter in which players fight through layered encounters against multiple enemy archetypes to earn keys that unlock stat upgrades, enabling progression across runs.
The catch? The enemy's difficulty increases with every level.
Contributions
Level Spawning Systems
I implemented a simple generator that creates a new floor when the player destroys a level. Testing with the team, I ensure that the system can withstand potential button spamming of new floors.
How could I have improved it?
A pooling method would've been a better-performant approach for the game, rather than destroying the floor at runtime.
Enemy AI and Spawning
Implemented a spawning system to handle enemy spawning, key placement, and property values for difficulty scaling. I opened up several float variables for designers and artists to tweak and test throughout the development cycle.
For the enemy AI, I scripted all the movement behaviors and several types of weapon bullets for them to wield. The enemies were designed to offer players surprise mixed encounters at each level, preventing them from becoming stagnant and predictable.
Tutorial
Near submission time, I quickly implemented a dynamic text-based tutorial on the first floor to guide players through the game. The intention was to bring players up to speed on how to play without requiring additional menus or panels.
Won "Best Illustration of Impact on the Built Environment"
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Hackathon: 2019 Yale Climate Change Hackathon
Role: Game Programmer & Quality Assurance
Time of Development: 24 Hours
Team Size: 6
Engine:
Game Overview:
Eroglution is a virtual reality simulation that tackles climate change and CO2. The experience aims to be a fun illustration of how planting trees around the town reduces urban heat and surface temperatures.
Contributions
Integrating SteamVR and Learning How To Use VR
Given the short time, I learned how to use an HTC Vive headset and controllers and how to integrate the SteamVR plugin to allow the headset to run in Unity. I implemented movement and button-press inputs, which other programmers used as the main base to implement other interactions in the game.
Player placing down trees around the enviornment
Quality Assurance Testing
After SteamVR was integrated into the project, I took on playtesting the experience from beginning to end. This included repeatedly wearing the HTC Vive headset during the final six hours of development during the hackathon.
Reflection
This hackathon was the first time I worked with virtual reality. I easily adapted to the tools and software needed to get the project going from early on, which helped the team focus specifically on implementation. I then focused on ensuring a quality and polished experience, which led to a good presentation when the game was showcased to judges.
During the development, an unfortunate incident caused us to move our projects to Yale's provided desktops (hence why the project cannot be publicly seen). I learned that VR game development required a more VR-ready PC or laptop to handle the technical expense, so I acquired one afterward.
