Sam Jenkins
Games Designer
Heya! Sam here,
I'm a Games Designer, previously for Tanglewood games as a games design intern and a Teesside University Games Design graduate who's been developing games since 2015.
Much of my focus when I work on projects go to game feel, level design and audio design to try my best at creating immersive and fun experiences! My overall goal is to make games that make peoples lives more fun and just that little bit better.
I'm known to work well in collaborative environments and often play the role of a lead. I'll often find out what role everyone on the team wants to do and experiment with, letting us create a game that interests and engages as much of the team as we can while completing project goals. I'll often adapt my own role as best I can for what the project needs at every stage of production to create something we can all be proud of and learn something new from.
Tanglewood Games Internship
From June to September 2021, I worked as a Design Intern for Tanglewood Games, where I worked in a small team of other interns creating promotional Material for the Kickstarter campaign "John Carter: Warlord Of Mars"
I had designed, blocked out and animated 3 shots using UE4s in engine cinematic tools, based on a storyboard the John Carter team had given the intern team to work from in 3 months. You can see video breakdowns of all the shots I had worked on that show progress from initial blockouts to the final render.
The "Berlin Streets", "Antarctica" and "Mars" shot was blocked out and Designed by me using art assets created by the team, or using royalty free asset packs. The "Fuhrerbunker" Scene was a more collaborative shot that I worked on with Gaia Wilds, who had also developed some technical assets like the flags and wires so they could be placed and edited easier.
I had collaborated with a small team of interns using Github, figuring out what assets were needed for the shots, how to go about technical issues and iterating upon the shots based on feedback from the John Carter team.
I also used the shots to render some conceptual gameplay sequences, to get a feel for how the game could feel if the project were to be fully funded which can be seen at the end of each video.
Roles: Cinematic Designer, Level Designer
Programs used: UE4, Photoshop, Github, Blender + Maya, DaVinci Resolve
Tanglewood website: www.tanglewoodgames.com/
John Carter website: https://jcwom.com/
Morpheus 98
Morpheus 98 is a PS1 themed walking simulator, taking inspiration from games like Yume Nikki and LSD: Dream Simulator.
I worked solo on Morpheus 98 from January - May 2020 for my final year project during my 3rd year at Teesside University. I used this project to show off my skills in Mechanics design, Level design, Sound design and general efficiency in UE4 and other programs relating to the games design discipline.
(You can read more about the development of Morpheus 98 here)
Roles: Mechanics Designer, Level Designer, Audio Designer
Programs used: UE4, Photoshop, Audacity, Blender + Maya, DaVinci Resolve
Download Link: https://jinconic.itch.io/morpheus-98
The trailer for Morpheus 98 was even chosen to be showcased on the “EEK3 Indie Horror Showcase” livestream which went live on YouTube on the 20th of June with an audience of ~7K viewers at the time!
You can watch the original Livestream here with Morpheus 98's inclusion at 52:45
Aqua Armageddon
I had to lead a team of 8 other designers to achieve weekly goals over 12 weeks during early 2019 to create a functioning multiplayer 3rd person shooter in UE4 alongside a vertical slice, all inspired by Fortnight.
Roles: Lead Designer, playtesting manager, QA manager, Audio designer
Programs used: UE4, Audacity, Adobe Premiere,
I'm Alright
I'm alright was a horror game me and some old college friends created using the spare time we had after finishing University and was developed casually between June 2020 - September 2020.
I wanted to design the house in a way that complimented a chase sequence, so there were certain areas of the house that were safer to begin the chase in, such as having large loops to escape, and having certain areas unsafe with dead ends and tighter spaces. I also took events into consideration, so the player could get a few wow moments when playing the game, like the balcony allowing the player to see the enemy above or below them (such as near the end of the video) or the attic revealing the painting.
Roles: Level Designer, Games Designer, Artist
Programs used: Unity, Blender
Download Link: https://jonathanritson42.itch.io/im-alright
