Connor Deane's Portfolio

My name is Connor Deane, and I am an aspiring game designer who mainly specializes in developing and iterating on gameplay mechanics.  

I have been working with the Unreal Engine for roughly 6 years now and this collection, while small, I feel represents the work I have accomplished in those years that I am most proud of.  These works include:

- ArachnaZ: Nuclear Winter (2019) - Mutant bugs have infested an abandoned nuclear reactor-turned-research facility. Get in, recover whatever intel you can find, blow the reactor and get the hell out!

This project was created as part of the Level Design module of the Computer Games Design course I studied at university. The goal was to take a pre-existing game project and create a complete, playable level for it using the provided assets as a base. I created the layout for the entire Nuclear Winter level, as well as the scripting for progression and certain setpieces, taking inspiration specifically from the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine to portray an abandoned nuclear facility turned into an arachnoid research facilty.

- Necropolis (2020) - A short, Metroidvania-inspired experience set within a medieval castle where a dark presence lingers, which requires the combined strength of your gradually-unlocked abilities to overcome.

Much like ArachnaZ: Nuclear Winter before it, Necropolis was created while working on my Computer Games Design degree, however this project was actually created for my Final Year Project, and all of the gameplay mechanics, scripting and most of the assets were built from the ground up. Outside of Unreal, I also used Adobe Fuse and Mixamo to create character models for the game using medieval knight clothing assets I had purchased just for Necropolis, as well as sourcing animations to make the gameplay feel a bit more lively.

- Farlife (2022) (Steam Page) - The first and, to date, only 'commercially released' project I have worked on. A comical space-faring, star system-spanning adventure following the conflict between a tyrannical robot army and the alien species they're fighting to enslave.

I started working on Farlife only a couple of months after I had graduated from university, and a majority of my work was done remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns. I was brought onto the games development team, Omniplay Games Ltd., as a gameplay designer, where I worked on the project as an intern for the first few months and continuing to volunteer for them until mid-2022. As a gameplay designer, I worked on various aspects of the game including gunplay, enemy and NPC behaviour and the in-game economy and resource trading system.

- Do Not Disturb (Ongoing, Work-in-Progress) - My first ever game jam submission. A short horror game which follows a hotel housekeeper attempting to fulfil their cleaning duties while being pursued through the suites and hallways of the Elder Pine Hotel by an anomalous, malevolent entity.

Do Not Disturb represents my first real attempt at striking a horror atmosphere in one of my projects, taking the concept of liminal spaces and using it as inspiration to create a setting in which the player would always feel isolated and vulnerable. Initially developed for the Anomalous Entity Game Jam, it was first released in early August 2024 after dedicating all of my free time over the prior two weeks to it's development. Other than a couple of updates here and there, I took a break from Unreal after it's release, and since then I have rebuilt the game entirely from the ground up with the intention of eventually releasing as a retail product; this version of the game has been in development since September 2024, and at time of writing is still very much in slow, but gradual progress. For comparisons sake, screenshots and footage below are taken from both the original game jam version, and the current, work-in-progress build.

Whether it's experimenting with a simple idea that randomly popped into my head one day, or fully committing to a concept and taking it as far as I can, I will always find time to pursue a gameplay idea or mechanic that interests me - and that's not getting into a particular project I'm currently working on behind the scenes. So whether anything in this collection interests you or you're simply passing through, I strongly appreciate you taking the time to check this page out!