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Nathan Stroomberg - Game Designer

Welcome to my portfolio page! Click the projects to read more about them in detail.

During my time at HKU, I've discovered my love for Combat & 3C's Design and the pipelines associated with them, as reflected in my highlighted projects.

Highlights

Swordcaster
Godot Notion
Team size 2
3C's
Combat
Level Design
A punishing but fair Souls-inspired boss battle, created as an exercise in root motion animation-based combat and level design, and the pipelines associated with them.
What I did:
  • Thorough pre-production and project work breakdown
  • Creating a pipeline and Godot tool for animation iteration
  • Surveying player expectations and preferences
  • Top-down map and level greybox
  • Iterating boss enemy behaviour
  • Designing an animation-based, third person player character
  • Working in a small Scrum team
Team Portomaxx
Unreal Engine 5.6 Notion GitHub
Team size 19
Leadership
3C's
Feature Specs
A project I initiated and led with 19 students, a first for HKU. We practiced industry standard pipelines and workflows to create a magical girl themed FPS.
What I did:
  • Managing a big development team
  • Working in (and facilitating) a professional Scrum environment
  • Creating and playtesting two 3C's prototypes in UE Blueprints
  • Owning and fine tuning the final player character
  • Writing feature specs for developers
Thrust Factor
Unity Aseprite FMOD
Team size 1
3C's
Game Feel
Progression
Combat
A challenging, movement-based arcade shooter, a study-turned-passion project, with my primary focus on creating a fluid player controller and balancing difficulty and progression.
What I did:
  • Producing a game from concept to release
  • Designing a player character
  • Designing enemy behaviour
  • Designing a fluid combat system
  • Balancing the game loop
  • Polishing & game feel
  • FMOD Integration, music, sound design
  • Unity Development

Projects

Virtual Encounters
Godot Krita
Team size 1
Narrative
Audio
Artistic
An absurdist narrative experience about three different experimental games, each questioning a unique aspect of play itself.
What I did:
  • Concepting and prototyping
  • Writing an engaging, absurdist narrative
  • Designing four 3D environments
  • Usability testing and targeted playtesting
  • Godot Development
Stealth Recon Xtreme
Krita
Team size 1
Tabletop Game
Playtesting
A tactical board game where two players, who can't see each others pieces, fight to collect artefacts, trying not to give their positions away in the process.
What I did:
  • Rapid prototyping and iteration
  • Live playtesting
  • Designing and iterating a tabletop game board
  • Creating a trailer video and box art
De Rechtlijn
Android Unity Twine
Team size 1
Narrative
Audio
Artistic
A satirical audio-based game played entirely on a smartphone dial screen. My goal was to design a socially conscious, meaningful experience about the rise of AI and the loss of interpersonal contact.
What I did:
  • Designing and pacing a maze-like narrative
  • Translating my fascination to concrete game mechanics
  • Designing satisfying exploration
  • Sound design
  • Development for Android in Unity
Burgbos
Godot Miro Board
Team size 5
Puzzles
Narrative
Audio
Applied
An applied point & click puzzle/exploration game created for the municipality of Utrecht, designed with a non-gaming target audience in mind.
What I did:
  • Communication with a professional client
  • Work breakdown and keeping track of milestones
  • Designing a intuitive, Google Maps-like gameplay interface for non-gamers
  • Designing 4 puzzles/quests
  • Sound design and polish

Side projects and game jams

Pop
2025
A short narrative game made in one hour for the "60 minute jam"
What's in the box?
2025
An experimental "tiny game", where I explored narrative interactions with a cube
The Ice Crime Man
2025
Made together with a game art student for the 3-hour jam
Woud (demo)
2024
Made in a team of two, my focus was on systems, level design, coding and audio
Politiek Spel
2024

A (Dutch) satirical parody of politics in the Netherlands, made solo for my HKU Game Design application