Jordi van der Hulst
Technical Game Designer
Hey!
I am a passionate technical designer with an eye for UX. I enjoy creating tools for content heavy games such as RPGs and story-driven games.
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Projects
My recent projects as Technical Designer, while also exploring other roles, in student group projects, personal passion projects, freelancing and as an intern.
Station to Station
Employed work
Technical Designer
Unreal Engine - 12 months (2023)
Team size: 4-12
Station to Station is a minimalist cozy building game.
Contributions
Developed and iterated on the core gameplay.
Developed all interactive systems; onboarding, controls, UI.
INDIGO23 Winner: Best Game
Child of Lothian
Student Group Project
Technical Designer
Unreal Engine - 8 months (2022)
Team size: 25-30
Child of Lothian is a stealth adventure game in which you play as a young orphan trying to survive 18th century Edinburgh. From concept to Steam release, I developed core mechanics as a tools and technical designer.
Contributions
Concepted and implemented the interaction system.
Created level design tools such as a quest editor and dialogue system.
Implemented UI/UX.
Talky (UE4/5 Dialogue Plugin)
Personal Project
Technical Designer
Urean Engine - 12 months (2022)
Solo project
Talky is a dynamic dialogue plugin I created for Unreal Engine 4/5. It's a complete event-driven system for making branching dialogues with character animations, camera angles and is easily extendable. With the focus on creating a better UX for narrative designers than the competitors currenty found on the marketplace.
Parcel
Student Group Project
Technical Designer
Unity3D - 3 months (2019)
Team size: 3
Parcel is a narrative horror mystery game in which you protect your wife Amily from a stalker by exploring dioramas and then guiding her through branching phone calls. With a small team of three people, I took care of programming all the systems and directed the narrative.
Contributions
Designed and programmed all the game systems.
Written the story, created the dialogue lines and recorded and edited 300 lines of voice.
Tropical Trouble
Student Group Project
Technical Designer / UI UX
Unreal Engine - 6 months (2021)
Team size: 10-15
Tropical Trouble is an arcade racing game. Race through a lush environment inspired by Sri Lanka. From concept to release, I worked as a technical and UI/UX designer, but also didn't shy away to fill in other roles when needed.
Contributions
Designed the level design pipelines from sketch to block-out, with a block-out deliverable.
Designed UI/UX from wireframes to technical implementation.
Y2 Best Audio - Winner
FR-Oudegracht
Student Solo Project
Technical Level Designer
Unreal Engine - 2 months (2020)
Solo project
FR-Oudegracht is a themed multiplayer map I created for Unreal Tournament's Blitz game mode as a solo project. It is based on Oudegracht, a historical district in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Contributions
Designed the level from sketching using taken photographs to implentation and testing the block-out.
Hosted the server for class-wide playtesting sessions.
Y2 Teacher's choice - Best map
Herald: A Period Drama
Internship, Freelancer
Technical Designer
Unity3D - 12 months (2019)
Team size: 5
Herald: An Interactive Period Drama is an award-winning story-driven game by Wispfire. The games tells a story of Devan Rensburg who boards the HLV Herald in the 19th century. As an intern I helped improving the UX and brought written scenarios to life as narrative designer.
Contributions
Created new gameplay scenes to tell the story in chapter III & IV using established staging and cinematography rules.
Improved the UI of the game.
Herald: A Period Drama on Steam
Book III & IV to be released soon.
What Walks on Four Legs
Student Group Project
Technical Designer
Unreal Engine - 2 months (2020)
Team size: 8
What Walks of Four Legs is a point and click game in which you solve puzzles by going through portals that change your age. I joined the project to bring in my experience in narrative and UI/UX design.
Contributions
Designed and implemented the UI/UX.
Composed the soundtrack.
What Walks of Four Legs on Itch.io
Y1 Best Design - Winner
About me
Hey!
My name is Jordi van der Hulst. A graduated game designer and gameplay programmer (C#) I worked on Station to Station as a technical game designer.
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I have always been intriqued about video games, playing them before I could talk. When I was eight years old it was my dream to create games in the future. I created my first small platformer when I was eleven.
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My passion for making games has grown, while also getting more excited about story-driven games. I love to create immersive worlds in which players can experience and learn new exciting things.
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My field of expertise is technical design with a passion to juice things up. From creating back-end solutions and development tools to creating gameplay, UI, stories and music.