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Nathan Stroomberg - Game Designer

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

Thanks to my experience leading Team Portomaxx, I've discovered my love for 3C's design and design pipelines, as reflected in my highlighted projects.

Highlights

Swordcaster
Godot Notion
Team size 2
3C's
Combat
Level Design
A fast paced Souls-inspired boss battle, created as an exercise in root animation-based character 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/exlporation 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